User talk:Jerzy/Conspiracy theory

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Hello Jerzy, how can something objectively be a "conspiracy theory" if conspiracy theory has multiple definitions? If any theory is literally a theory of people conspiring it can easily be used to discredit by using the secondary definition additionally (sentence syntax and context is a factor in this discrediting too). Why not just avoid ambiguous language and state things directly as in "dubious theory" or "unconventional theory" or "not generally accepted theory"? "Conspiracy theory" is 100 times more POV than even "dubious" because the former discourages the reader from even reading any article titled with it. Shouldn't we want the reader to read the article that debunks a theory and learn all the factual details on why that theory is objectively debunked or dubious (as opposed to being tricked into discounting that theory because of definition ambiguity?) zen master T 18:44, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't consider there are "multiple definitions", but "a range of legitimate senses" (emphasis added Jerzy~t 07:28, 9 May 2005 (UTC)), as i said. When conspiracy is an element of a theory, it is a conspiracy theory, no matter whether the evidence supporting the theory is strong, or rests on the kind of surmise that makes most people shake their heads in disbelief at what they are convinced is either incredible credulosity or incredibly audacious charlatanism.
(I hasten to add that when a particular imputed conspiracy is not the most simply expressed aspect that distingushes a given theory from theories that are more widely considered to be relevant; e.g., i would hope our coverage of the various missile theories of the spark-in-the-empty-fuel-tank crash uses the word "missile" in the title, even tho the more peristent versions are inherantly conspiracy versions. But that is not the topic here.)
I am quite happy to trust the intelligence of our readers to ensure their not adopting the interpretations you fear. There are better terms than "CT" for describing loony CTs, and while "CT" in isolation covers a lot of ground, that very fact and the context of WP jointly and severally warn most people not to assume we mean something that is not implied by putting "conspiracy" and "theory" together. You seem to be pitching your preferred titles at a straw-man reader whom i don't see slouching around here.
--Jerzy~t 07:28, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
what do you feel the difference is between ""multiple definitions", and "a range of legitimate senses"? what do you consider a "definitition" to be, if not a "legitimate sene", and what do you consider a "range" to be, if not a multiple set? How do these things apply to the meaning of the phrase? What do you refer to when you refer to the "meaning" of a phrase?
I do not doubt the readers' intelligence, that is, their ability to process information. However, I doubt their ability to process information that they are not given, such as which "legitimate sense" of the phrase is meant. And insofar as i trust a person's ability to apply learned meanings to wrods consistently, I do not trust their ability to not apply learned meanings to words. In other words, I assume that the readers are intelligent, that is, able to reliably process meaning and information according to the usual conventions, which is why I find a problem with the phrase. Kevin Baastalk: new 17:52, 2005 May 9 (UTC)
I dunno, maybe my mind got ruined by all that science and technology, or maybe its the epistemology. "Dog" has two definitions, "canine animal" and "undesirable thing"; their referents overlap, but the defs are distinct. "Cold", besides having other distinct defs, has the def "low in temperature", which has a range of meanings, including (at least) 40°F, -273°F, and everything in between. CT in the sense of "theory involving a conspiracy" and "paranoid delusion involving a conspiracy" do not reflect different definitions, but a definition (the first sense) that covers a range, and (the second) a subrange, within it, of senses that lie close to one end of the range.
When you're at the Westminster Dog Show, or a brothel, you can assume from the context which sense of "dog" is being used. When you're talking about outdoors on the earth's surface, you can assume "cold" excludes superconduction and condensation of atmospheric gasses other than water; and whether you're talking about Maine or Mississippi, each further restricts the range of meanings (and in Miss, cold probably goes up to around 55°F). When you find CT in an encyclopedia (other than, perhaps, the Catholic Encyclopedia or the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, as they are not committed to NPoV), you can assume from context that CT is being used
  • in psychopathology articles in the sense of the paranoid range near one end of the scale,
  • in general articles in the broad, NPoV sense of the whole range, (i.e., remaining uncommitted to what point of the scale is involved, just as you do in talking about cold weather in winter), and
  • in Conspiracy theory, if we are doing our job, in at least those two senses at different points in the article, but always explicitly distinguished.
But i don't have time to explicate "meaning of".
Does that help any?
--Jerzy~t 06:40, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Only problem is, a lot of people wouldn't be surprised to see "conspiracy theory" used in an encyclopedia in the sense other than "theory of conspiracy" - and this is made resoundingly clear by the title change of 9/11 domestic complicity theories Kevin Baastalk: new 16:38, 2005 May 10 (UTC)
  • I need to mention that i neither expect nor intend to arrive at anything you will consider definitive on this. Don't be disappointed if this is my last comment.
There are some topics WP can handle well, but 9/11 stuff is by and large not among them. I have a conjecture that my relationship to the topic is typical of many of our colleagues: IIRC, i edited in that area no more than a handful of times, all in my first few weeks, and decided my energy would be better used elsewhere, bcz of my sense of the emotionality driving too many of those who were prepared to fight for their personal vision of what the articles should look like. If my conjecture should be true, one would expect those articles to be crap compared to the rest of WP, which does less to drive out wise eyeballs.
The example you offer supports my conjecture for two reasons.
  1. In the circles i travel in, experience with the English language and diligence in consulting the dictionary is expected to inform people who write for others' edification; in particular, they'll be informed about the difference between complicity and conspiracy. Virtually the whole Swiss banking system was complicit in the Holocaust, but it is a laughable idea that conspiracy (which entails both intent to produce the bad results, and criminal liability) re Holocaust was anything but rare among Swiss bankers. (Hell is where all the lovers are Swiss and the bankers French; heaven is where all the bankers are Swiss and the lovers Italian.) In contrast to the title you cite, one that used the word "conspiracy" could be complete without the very different theories that there was complicity of (but no conspiracy involving) the US government, sufficient to ensure something like 9/11, via
    neglect of national identity cards and strengthening of Islamic fundamentalist regimes, since the Cold War began, and
    failure to act against Islamic terrorism since the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
  2. Similarly, such writers would know the value, nay the importance, of using the language's well established mechanisms for disambiguation.
There is no consensus among grammarians about whether the title you hold up as an example is a grammatical error:
  • Some would say it cannot refer to theories about domestic complicity in 9/11, and always must refer to theories, of domestic origin (no foreigners can participate in the theorizing, tho they can in the "complicity"), about complicity: this view says that the only way that that word order can mean what you want it to (the complicity/conspiracy aspect aside) is with a hyphen: "9/11 domestic-complicity theories". That's the prescriptivist view.
  • Here's the permissivist view: the hyphen is only required when there is an opportunity for two interpretations. Is that the case here? I don't care, and here's why:
You and your allies apparently think "9/11 domestic conspiracy theories" can reasonably be interpreted as being about paranoid theories about 9/11 involving Americans. Even if you're right, you don't need to resort to the word "complicity" to prevent it. It is always permissible, in a 3-word phrase whose second and third are both nouns, to add a hyphen between the first two, as long as
the first is intended to modify the second, and
the first two form a subphrase that modifies the third.
This is the fundamental mechanism in English (other than changing the word order) for ruling out the interpretation that the last two words of the three form a subphrase, which is (as a whole) modified by the first.
It's simple: if you are worried about the sequence "conspiracy theory" being construed as a form of paranoia, break up that sequence. Change the word order. Or bind "domestic" to "conspiracy" more strongly than "conspiracy" is bound to "theory", by making it clear that "domestic-conspiracy" describes what kind of theory you're talking about.
"9/11 domestic-conspiracy theories", like "Theories of 9/11 involving domestic conspiracy" (or various tune-ups of the connecting words) are the right solution to the problem you are complaining about.
My conjecture that the emotionality about 9/11 enforces an intellectual Gresham's law, with the bad minds driving out the good, doesn't have to be true to make this point. Why is less important than the what: the crystal-clear fact, that the example you give will only be produced when the influence of linguistic ignorance overwhelms that of linguistic competance.
--Jerzy~t 05:45, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Ignorance abounds. Kevin Baastalk: new 11:30, 2005 May 12 (UTC)
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