Arvidnelson.com The online home of Arvid Nelson, writer of Rex Mundi & Zero Killer

The Curse of the Neocortex

A friend of mine sent me a great article, "Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?". It perfectly captures the "I'm just stating facts here" lunacy of 9-11 conspiracy theories. The best part is the shameless plug for the author's "book" and for Jar-Jar Bink's campaign for the Imperial Senate at the very end. I don't think most 9-11-was-an-inside-job theorists are actively dishonest, but it doesn't even matter when they're after your money.

It only goes to show how disparate facts and inconsistencies can be used to construct a version of history that actually seems plausible, at least, until you start thinking critically. The truth is, reality is always a little messy. There are always going to "questions", lots of them. I mean, are we to believe Franklin Roosevelt allowed Pearl Harbor to happen? There are people who actually think that!

Anyone who's read Zero Killer (all six of you) knows I'm not the world's biggest fan of the second Bush administration. So I'm not apologizing for any of the things that happened as a result of 9-11.

But I like to think I'm something of a black belt in conspiracy theories. They're so much fun, a kind of living science fiction. And having delved into the subject pretty deeply, I'm here to say they are all, indeed, fiction. The few exceptions are very obvious and very well documented, like the attempt of the Ku Klux Klan to infiltrate the US federal government in the 1920s. Aside from those glaring instances... garbage.

For whatever reason, conspiracy theories have changed from a provenance of the far right to the far left since World War II. In the early 20th Century, "the Jews" were a popular bête noire – they still are. Hell, Hitler made a career off of that one. The Bahá'í Faith is the subject of lots of conspiracy theories in Iran; it's often denounced as an evil plot by, you guessed it, those scary Jews. But nowadays it's more about spooky militarists assassinating presidents from grassy knolls and planting thermite bombs in skyscrapers.

But I don't think conspiracy theories are popular because people are stupid. It's sort of the opposite, in fact. We humans are so clever, we can convince ourselves of anything. It's our pesky neocortex, the "highest" part of the brain, that does us in. Denying evolution, or global warming, 9-11, the Kennedy assassination, Jesus had kids... if you're determined to believe something crazy, your higher brain is actually going to aid you in your lunacy. After all, making connections is what intelligence is all about. That's what the neocortex is hardwired to do.

So in some ways, I guess I admire conspiracy theorists, for their intellectual... creativity. It's just a shame all that mental horsepower isn't being used more productively, because I absolutely agree with the 9-11ers on one thing: there are a whole lot of problems with the world.