TUESDAY, 1 MARCH 2022
What if it turned out a conspiracy theory was right? And this applies to conspiracy theories in 1500, 1900, 2000 and in March 2022.
It would mean the lone intellectual, or the minority group of thinkers, were maligned, mistreated, their careers destroyed, and in earlier times possibly tortured and killed by a majority of community leaders, politicians, and intellectuals supporting the established narrative.
It would mean the lone intellectual, who stood up for what he believed in – who literally stood up when everyone else remained mum and seated, who expressed his unpopular opinion at the inconvenience of the powerful majority, was crushed – even though it turned out they were wrong, and he was right.
How do we know in March 2022, what with Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the cesspool that is US politics, that the so-called conspiracy theorist isn’t actually right, and the establishment with their fingers at the controls of politics, traditional mass media, social media, academia, and mass entertainment wrong? How can you know unless debate and intellectual curiosity and the free exchange of ideas and opinions unhindered by political correctness and pre-approved ideology are allowed to continue?
Here’s one test: Who is suppressing free speech? Who is maligning scientists, bloggers, podcast hosts and thinkers and journalists who dare speak outside approved narratives?
I know, I know. The phrases “establishment”, “approved narratives”, “political correctness”, and “free speech” already give me an odour of the conspiracy theorist, right?
I thought earlier today that these seem to be interesting times for reasonable and reasonably intelligent non-conformists. But we all conform to rules and regulations in everyday life – I mean, do you speed through every red light? Maybe it’s more appropriate to say these times are shaping up to be interesting for anyone who considers themselves reasonable, and reasonably intelligent.
Then again, isn’t that how we all think of ourselves?
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