Keller @ Large: Conspiracy Theories Are For The Lazy And Ignorant
BOSTON (CBS) - There's a popular game people play on Twitter called "voice your unpopular opinion." It usually starts with someone saying they think the Beatles are way overrated. It's a trivial but amusing pastime, and I'm going to get a round of it started with this -- I don't like conspiracy theories.
If that strikes you as an odd choice, think again, because conspiracy theories are and always have been very popular, here in our country and around the world. A solid majority of Americans believe the assassination of John F. Kennedy was the work of more than one man.
Other conspiracy theories that draw strong support include the claim that 9/11 was an inside job, that President Obama is a Muslim and/or wasn't born in Hawaii, and so on. None of these are true, but that doesn't stop their spread.
And we are now living in a golden age for conspiracy theories due to the president's habit of spreading them frequently and casually, with zero regard for whether or not there's a kernel of truth to support them. He understands the political value of conspiracy theories - they help confused people make "sense" of a complicated world by giving them false but simple answers to difficult questions, and they tap into the skepticism people have about big government, ethnic groups they don't know anything about, the other, the unknown.
Worst of all, conspiracy theories provide an excuse for the lazy and ignorant among us to ignore the sometimes-difficult work of seeking truth and thinking things through. That's why I can't stand them, unpopular opinion or not.
Want to know if something you've heard is fact or conspiracy theory? Email me at keller@wbztv.com, or use Twitter, @kelleratlarge.
