mahadevbhu wrote:Rudradev wrote:I'm curious. The words "conspiracy theory" seem to be thrown around in reckless abundance of late, especially by posters who tend to take a certain US centric view of the Khobragade matter. What exactly, in the view of these esteemed posters, qualifies an idea, a statement, or a collection of statements to fit the description of a "conspiracy theory"? Is there any benchmark, any given set of conditions that we on BRF have generally accepted as defining this category?
Or indeed, is the term "conspiracy theory"- like the terms "fascist" or "Communal"- being used to bulldoze and hegemonize discourse so that it excludes points of view, lines of argument, or even whole realms of thought that are somehow inconvenient to the people throwing it around? Specifically- is any attempt to connect dots between Khobragade's arrest and other recent events, any effort to explore how this affair fits into the broader construction of narratives (and the motive behind those narratives), any speculation that progresses an inch beyond the tunnel-vision of endlessly repeated minutiae that are ultra-specific to this case alone, being referred to as a "conspiracy theory" here?
If that is the case, maybe the more sincere participants of this "Strategic Issues" forum need to take a closer look at what the posters who incessantly cry "conspiracy theory" are doing to the quality of discourse here. And whether, in fact, the term is being employed simply as a more gentrified form of trolling.
I apologize for getting personal, but in your case , my CTRadar goes off when you construct a fanciful scenario or theory , connecting multiple seemingly unrelated threads together. Reading too much into a situation is called CTbaazi.
Mahadevbhu, thanks for your reply, and honestly, there's no apology necessary.
In response, I would submit that almost every discovery in the realm of human knowledge has come from applying exactly the same thought process that you have described as CTbaazi... connecting seemingly unrelated events or observations and coming up with a theory to explain them. Many times the theories offered have seemed fanciful. In fact, many times the theories offered have turned out to be completely wrong. Yet, if this
thought process was not applied, it is doubtful whether humans would ever have discovered anything. Even if the connecting theories are correct only 1% of the time, it is still advantageous to have a society where the thought process is encouraged rather than suppressed by calling it "CTbaazi"... no?
For example consider the following seemingly unconnected observations:
1) Before a thunderstorm, the hairs on my arm stand on end.
2) During a thunderstorm, white flashes of light come from clouds in the sky.
3) After a thunderstorm, I sometimes see that a tree has been burned down to a charred stump.
If a thought process was not applied to construct theories that could connect these events, would we ever have understood the nature of electricity, or how to harness it? It would have been far more difficult, if not impossible, in an environment where such a thought process was suppressed. Indeed, societies where the culture of thought encourages the construction and debate of theories to explain seemingly disconnected observations, are invariably more advanced than others.
Now let's take another example, from the less neat world of social sciences. Here are four seemingly unconnected observations:
1) The US government has consistently encouraged Kashmiri separatist politicians, from the 1950s until the present.
2) Twitter is a US-based company.
3) Social media, such as Twitter, was instrumental in the Tahrir Square protests and other public demonstrations of the "Arab Spring" movements.
4) Twitter has recently appointed Raheel Khursheed, a person with known Kashmiri separatist views, as its India head.
Now Person A may look at these observations and come up with the following theory to explain them:
"The US government is planning to use Twitter to encourage and coordinate activism among Kashmiri separatists."
Let us say Person B disagrees with this theory. In a discussion forum like BRF, Person B has two ways to approach the situation.
1) Person B can argue the merits of the theory advanced by Person A. For example, he can say:
"If Raheel Khursheed is an undercover plant by the US government, why is he drawing attention to himself by making inflammatory remarks on Twitter? Should he not maintain a low profile until the opportune time comes to strike?"
This is a good response, because it begins a healthy debate on the specific merits of Person A's theory. Theories should be debated, and survive or die based on their merits. Regardless of the outcome, everyone is a net gainer: Person A, Person B, and BRF itself for fostering a culture of thought where such a discussion can take place.
OR
2) Person B can say:
You are overthinking it! You are reading too much into disconnected events and raising fanciful theories! This is CTbaazi!
This is the intellectually lazy option for Person B, because he doesn't have to apply any thought process of his own. All he is doing is labeling Person A's thought process as "CTbaazi" to discredit Person A's conclusions. He does not need to offer his own argument about the specific merits of the theory, or tax his own brain at all.
It is also, I argue, a very dangerous option where BRF (the environment of discussion) itself is concerned. If most people in a society start to take the intellectually lazy way out and label other people's arguments as "CTbaazi" rather than contest them on the merits, it poisons the entire culture of thought and lowers the overall standard of discussion immeasurably. And it is highly detrimental to the society as a whole.
Think back to your school class. I went to a typical Indian school of the Nehru-initiated, NCERT-propagated educational system. 90% of the students in my class almost never offered an original thought in any classroom discussion. They would rarely put their hand up even to answer a direct question from the teacher, and absolutely never put their hand up without prompting.
Why was this so? Is it because 90% of Indian school students never have any original thoughts at all? Certainly not. It's because in the environment of an Nehruvian-NCERT educational system, where mediocrity and anonymity are the most prized virtues,
90% of Indian school students are afraid that their thought process will be ridiculed if they make it public. On the rare occasions when a student did offer an original thought, more often than not he or she WAS laughed at, by all their fellow students and sometimes even by the teacher! And then we wonder why India has all these problems, while Indians who go abroad for education invariably do so well. It is very largely because we have poisoned the culture of thought itself, and stupefied the native intellectual capacities of generation after generation of Indians.
That is exactly the danger that faces a discussion forum like BRF when we start to look at ideas through the filter of a "CT radar", or to reflexively label the theories of others as "CTbaazi" when they challenge our own cognitive dissonance. Labeling something as a "conspiracy theory" is the weakest of all possible arguments-- it shows a lack of the intellectual rigor needed to oppose it in specific terms, and reduces the debate to no more than a name-calling contest. Much worse for BRF as a whole, this sort of labeling can discourage other members from offering their own ideas, for fear that they too will be labeled as "conspiracy theories." We need to think about what kind of environment we want this forum to provide.
That's it from me, sorry for the OT!
