You hear about them all the time; clever Jews who steal money from nations to support their Israeli state, secret Freemasonic societies that hide occult truths about a future world government, powerful capitalists holding special meetings and dangerous satanists who sacrifice children to Satan. What all of these rumours have in common, is that they constitute what we often call "conspiracies," or the belief that historical, political and/or social events can be attributed to the power of a secret group. There are different reasons to why conspiracy theories exist. Psychologically, it has to do with the mentality of most people. Even though politics and history are two very complex subjects, even more complex when you try to root out the cause to why certain things happen or do not happen, people like to simplify truth, because it's most convenient. Studying the underlying truth to certain events require some basic intelligence, fair study of history and a clear and open mind. This is too much to ask of creatures that spend their life working in an office, paying bills and watching TV.
So when things become too complicated, we simply look for a fitting scapegoat and attack that. It makes us feel powerful and good inside, knowing we've got someone or something to put the blame on for the events that are taking place. But conspiracy thinking has also a lot to do with the religious side of man. People tend to believe instead of study the truth. Religion is like a safety circle; as long as you're in it and repeat the dogmatic message, you're "OK." This is how millions of people can become obsessed with ideas they believe is real, without having anything to do with the actual reality. Truth is not their concern; they want to live in their fairy tale world where everything function according to their social agreements.
Conspiracy theories move our focus away from how a system operates, to who's operating it. Herein lies the problem. When speaking of a whole society, nothing is ever solved by attacking people, rather than attacking ideas. The result of conspiracy thinking is therefore witch hunting; Neo-Nazis hunt down Jews, Leftists hunt down capitalists, Conservatives hunt down homosexuals and Christians hunt down Satanists. Among all this mess, the problems are still there, since no one's paid attention to them, rather than to figure out who were behind them.
Some people will stop here and say, "Look, Freemasons, Zionists and rich capitalists actually exist. Have you heard of the Bilderberg group? Illuminati?" Of course, we all have, but the question is: Does It Matter?
Conspiracy thinking divides people and creates two camps: those who believe and those who do not. This means that even if a conspiracy idea is true or partly true, and someone is able to debunk that conspiracy, the problem no longer exists. If you claim powerful capitalists are plotting to take over the world, and someone manages to prove your religious theories wrong, no one will bother listening to those who actually have something intelligent to say on the matter.
In other words, it's not really of any interest if these conspiracy groups and their activities actually exist or not. Nothing will ever be won by attacking groups or minorities, because that will always be either laughed at or condemned, allowing the secret societies to continue as before. In order to change a society one needs to change the system. Change the system and the conspiracy groups can no longer operate as intended.
There will always be people who dislike the current society and form groups inside of it, to try to counter it with "new ideas." These people are disillusioned, because you cannot reform a society by hiding inside of it or rebelling against it as an external force. You need to be an active part of it and change it from within, not as some secular sect, but as a public figure that has got a new, better way of running things.
This is not to say that conspiracies are harmless. History shows that small groups can earn a lot of influential power. Therefore a healthy society strives to create a strong consensus on values, suppressing those who try to create divisions among the people. In this light we understand that conspiracy thinking is neither harmless nor really effective. Intelligent people analyze events intelligently. They look at the structure of things, examine the design of political, social and religious systems, and find the weak holes.
Conspiracy thinkers are correct in that certain groups are able to take advantage of those holes, but are wrong in how to proceed. If we fix the hole, or in some cases reform the whole system, the "outsiders" haven't much to beg for. That is what Freemasons, wealthy capitalists and Zionists fear and that is where the ultimate solution to the problem lies.
