Just what does the phrase ‘conspiracy theory’ mean to you? Uttering it usually conjures up images of the John F. Kennedy assassination and Aliens, while today the Bush administration is another favourite theme of the phenomenon. It also carries a somewhat romantic feel to it, replete with throwbacks to the 1950’s Cold War era and spies with a bit of a Noir theme added to the mix. Wikipedia carries its own intellectual definition.

But of late a new sub-category of conspiracy theories appears to have emerged on the Internet. One devoid of intellect but both inspired by prejudice and filled with narcissism.

Indeed, this type of conspiracy theory is already visible in the swirl of theories surrounding the reason for the Iraq invasion both on dubious news sites and Internet forums. There, the most common reason touted for the action in the past was that it was simply all for the oil. Yet with oil prices now rising and supply crunches the norm, the similarly rising star theory is that the invasion was undertaken by the Bush administration as a means to increase the oil price.

Excuse me, come again?

The basic justification then advanced for this theory is that the oil price rise is one engineered by the Bush administration in order to line the pockets of Halliburton executives. In fact, the earlier theory of invasion to secure easy oil supplies (now seemingly refuted by the same oil price spike) was supposedly just a deeper ruse to fool us all to the real nefarious aims of the American puppet government.

That the reality of supply problems in the oil market and booming oil demand in China and the US alike doesn’t factor into such theories, reveals it for its true worth. An implausible and entirely false theory derived by one or several people to cope with events they do not understand, but who at the same time believe they have all the answers in their own heads without the need for proper supporting evidence. Answers that are engineered to fit nicely into pre-existing prejudices.

As such, this theory is comparable to the David Icke one of Lizard Men living at the poles. It also ranks close to the still popular Middle Eastern theory that 9/11 was either staged by the Bush family or the Israeli Mossad. Deservedly the Wall Street Journal quipped in response that ‘Denial is not just a river that runs through Egypt’. Even perusing this site’s own admin function also finds some strange search engine results directed to it after the Beslam massacre in Russia, specifically asking whether that event was engineered by Jews.

The dirty truth appears to be that the greater interconnection on the Internet has brought individuals together who appear to add greater voice to what were always flawed beliefs or underlying ignorance coming from whatever part of the political spectrum they may be. Dressing up such theories (and that is all they usually are) in the remotely plausible attire of a ‘conspiracy theory’ is then both an attempt to add some legitimacy to hatred and incompetence, as well as a tacit admittance that one is too lazy to even check the facts for one’s claims. Further, the truth is always a lot simpler than such overly complex theories suggest, much like Occam’s Razor posits.

So may I then suggest a new sub-type designation for these types conspiracy theory? One which I would like to designate as ‘Idiot theory’ and deserving for true ‘Idiotarians’ as Samizdata has suggested for the advocates of such form of theory.

Anyone for a reality inducing Popper pill?