jeudi 17 septembre 2009

conspiracy theories are here to stay [en]

So the other day Mathieu Kassovitz, a french actor and filmmaker, explained on French national television that he doesn't believe the official version of the September 11th events. In passing he told some of the half-truths and approximations which are usual in these conspiracy theories, the usual questions with the usual odors of antiamericanism. Because Kassovitz is believed in France to be more knowledgeable than, say, Bigard (a French humorist who said he doesn't believe the official version either) this revelation made some noise here these past days.

I have to say that this particular conspiracy theory makes me angry each time I hear it and that the guy (or gal) who utters it is added immediately to my already long shitlist. But I have also to recognize that if I, personnaly, chose to believe the official version, the conspiracy and no-plane-in-the-pentagone theories are very well alive, if revealing a particularly wacky brain. Some people are bent to hate the US and everything that comes from it. Some people don't want to believe that some arab fanatics are able to highjack four planes and use them to destroy these tall towers, by themselves. Some people prefer to believe irrational ideas, hidden schemes and complicated things than perfectly simple, clear and logical ones because they are in general denial of reality (we are all at a certain point), a lot of people like fabrications and stories and crave mysteries and some people are just plain stupid. Conspiracy theories are here to stay forever because no further explanations or demonstrations of what we consider to be the truth will ever be up to the charm of the mystery and to the lure of ideology.

I should add that the Bush administration was very cynical with the truth, in so many and important occasions, that it begat those theories and gave ammunitions to the "conspiratists" who asked to no more to spill their venom.