The Conspiracy Theory is an astonishingly paradoxical device designed simultaneously to flatter the conspiracy theorist's ego with the delusion of omniscience ("Just ask me, I'LL tell you what's really going on behind EVERYTHING"), while relieving him of any inconvenient, discomfiting sense of personal accountability ("Don't look at me to fix anything! The whole system is rigged. We're nothing but pawns in the hands of [the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Jews, the Knights Templar, ETs, Big Pharma, the Matrix, Oil, Google, the Round-Earthers...]!").
Lest I be tagged a conspiracy theorist, I hasten to say that by "designed" I mean the conspiracy theory is designed, not by some malicious outside force, but un-/sub-consciously by the conspiracy theorist himself, darting like a wasp from the bouquet of his insecurities, fears, frustrations and yearning for self-respect.
It's a coping device. What it's coping for, it seems to me from life's observations and some sense of empathy, is usually an aching deep impression of one's helplessness and insignificance.
What better resort than suddenly to know EVERYTHING and be responsible for NOTHING? Thanks to the theory I'm conceptually on top of, in control of, my universe, yet not guilty for failing to do anything because NOBODY can do anything. Just ask me, I'll tell ya.
Two psychic goblins dispatched by one conspiracy theory. Exquisitely neat. Almost as if it was dreamed up just for that....
Like cigarettes, conspiracy theory harms, first, the conspiracy theorist, then those exposed to the second-hand "smoke" ("smoke" being the perfect word for it).
It's, as Mr. Spock might have said, "fascinating" how a complex born of an intrinsically dishonest coping device can invest its victim, as it often does, with an illusory yet, to some, magnetic aura of self-confidence, perspicacity, expertise on just about everything. It's not at all surprising that conspiracy theorists are often the centers of personality cults, gravitated to by "hangers-on" suffering the same psycho-emotional complaints but, for one reason or another, unable to convincingly slap together the same coping device. So they're drawn to his, to bask in its vibes.
Now, they all know everything together, as they frequently signal to each other with knowing smirks. Especially if outsiders are around.
You can't have lived in the real world, rubbing shoulders with real people, for much more than a half-century (far less if you're particularly observant) without having recognized a few such cases--either full-blown or, one hopes, nipped in the bud--among your various circles.
Blessed are the failed conspiracy-theorist-personality-cult leaders (aka pathetic schlemiels) for whom it never took off, who found themselves maddeningly frustrated, marginalized or, to some even worse, treated kindly "in spite of of his...you know...weird ideas...."
I've seen cases like that and thanked God for His mercy on them, because getting what they wanted would have destroyed them and possibly others.
Their salvation lies in the searing desert of their loneliness, where alone God will meet them.
Entirely contrary to the demon-god Conspiracy Theory that promised to give you all knowledge and demand nothing in return, the true and living Redeemer-God will reveal that you know nothing and then demand everything you have, to transform it.
When the disciples in justifiable cluelessness said to Jesus, "How on earth can we possibly feed all these people?", Jesus answered, "What have you got? Bring it to Me...."
You don't know, but it doesn't matter. Meet Him there and give Him all.
God loves pathetic schlemiels. There's some dimension of pathetic schlemiel in each of us. We turn ourselves into clowns, not in any good sense, if we insist there isn't. That's when pathos degrades into farce.
The polar opposite of such farce is "shalom", the healing reality of God's reconciling love, that liberates us equally from the pride-spawned delusion of omniscience and the fear-triggered fantasy of unaccountable insignificance.
