{"id":2798,"date":"2020-12-07T10:35:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T10:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/12\/07\/conspiracy-theories-2\/"},"modified":"2020-12-07T10:35:01","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T10:35:01","slug":"conspiracy-theories-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/12\/07\/conspiracy-theories-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy Theories?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Language Nazi doesn't much cotton to the loose lingo that leftists love. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hillary spoke of a "vast right wing conspiracy" directed against her husband.  Maybe that's where the linguistic mischief started. How can a conspiracy be vast and composed of half the population?<\/span><\/p>\n

A conspiracy is a clandestine<\/em> agreement among a small<\/em> group of people to achieve a nefarious<\/em> end, typically by means of treason or treachery. The members of a conspiracy are called conspirators. They meet in secret and in small numbers.   Hillary's abuse of English is plain: conservatives do not form a secret organization; they are not few in number; and their opposition to Bill Clinton and his policies was not nefarious, treasonous, or treacherous. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

A conspiracy theory<\/em> alleges that a conspiracy is under way or has occurred to bring about some event. An example is the theory that 9\/11 was an 'inside job.' Some conspiracy theories  are true, and some false; some are well-supported by evidence, others are not.  None of the 9\/11 conspiracy theories are well- supported in my opinion. But that in not the present point. The present point is that it is a mistake to assume that every conspiracy theory is false or baseless.
<\/span><\/p>\n

It is also a mistake to refer to any theory or any  bit of groundless speculation as a conspiracy theory.   Not every theory is a conspiracy theory.  A conspiracy theory alleges a conspiracy where 'conspiracy' is  defined as above.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, it is a mistake to oppose theories to facts, as if no theory can be true.  <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Language Nazi doesn't much cotton to the loose lingo that leftists love. Hillary spoke of a "vast right wing conspiracy" directed against her husband.  Maybe that's where the linguistic mischief started. How can a conspiracy be vast and composed of half the population? A conspiracy is a clandestine agreement among a small group of … Continue reading “Conspiracy Theories?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-political-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}