Monday, 3 December 2018

60% of Britons believe in Conspiracy Theories

It seems that I am a small vocal tip of a huge silent iceberg. A recent study carried out by Cambridge University, described as the most comprehensive examination of conspiracy theories ever conducted, has made a remarkable discovery. Belief in conspiracy theory affects a large proportion of the population and in many countries that proportion is a majority; including my own, the UK. In Britain sixty percent of people believe in at least one conspiracy theory. The most prevalent individual conspiracy theory is that the government is downplaying the number of immigrants living in the country; a full forty-seven percent of Britons believe that. I was pleased to see that the second most popular was that of what could be described as the Deep State. Forty-four percent of Brits answered "agree" to the statement: "Even though we live in what's called a democracy, a few people will always run things in this country anyway." Actually, that's quite noncommittal language; and lot of these axioms vary in responses depending on how they are worded. For example on the subject of 9/11 conspiracies, if you say: "Did the American government stand back and allow Osama bin Laden to carry out the 9/11 attacks?" you will receive a much higher yes-score than if you say: "Did the American government carry out the 9/11 attacks and bin Laden had nothing to do with it?" Nevertheless I feel encouraged. Also seventy-six percent, over three quarters, said that they badly distrusted senior politicians. Other countries delivered different results. Sweden seems to be the most conspiratorially unaware with a score of fifty-two percent; yet in Hungary it was eighty-seven percent. What is most noteworthy about this research is that is has revealed differences along voting lines. All statistics of conspiratorial belief in the USA and UK were considerably higher among Trump supporters and Brexiteers. Those who voted Remain or for Hillary Clinton are significantly more skeptical. The researchers claim that there are many political similarities between Trump-voters and Leave-voters and they've coined the very droll term: "transatlantic conspiratorial axis". Other very widespread conspiracy theories are that immigration into the United Kingdom has the covert intention of making the country predominantly Muslim, climate change is false and was made up to deceive the people, the medical authorities are lying about the harmful side effects of vaccinations and that there is an international plot to rule the world secretly, regardless who is in control of individual countries. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories?fbclid=IwAR1lPP59UUbtXzbr0WZmsX_ZN-RBomD27Jokacs6t3g8Hqzv7cAlzGiR4V0.

I was disappointed by some of the revelations in the study. Some conspiracy theories that I think are very real and vitally important are less widely accepted than the main ones. Only eight percent believe that human contact with aliens has been hushed up, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/09/ufo-disclosure-2018-history-has-been.html. For the HIV virus being manmade, that is a mere four percent, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2015/01/real-zombies-2015.html. No doubt researchers such as Rob Brotherton and Prof. Karen Douglas will be interested in these findings, see background links below. So if the majority of people believe in conspiracy theories, why do I feel so unusual and isolated? Why do other people, even close family members, regard me as so eccentric and off the wall? Perhaps the difference with me is that I believe in multiple conspiracy theories and that I also am more outspoken about them. It's possible that many of the subjects of this research project never let their ideas leave their heads before the day took part. The challenge for the Truth movement therefore may be less the sharing of information and more encouraging the general public to act on the information they already know.
See here for background: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/09/prof-karen-douglas-at-greenwich-sitp.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2017/05/ditch-tin-foil-hat.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/02/rob-brotherton-and-psychology-of.html.
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4 comments:

  1. Cali3 December 2018 at 23:16

    Come of it, mate, you dearly love Norman Tebbit and you know it.

    Cali

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  2. Anonymous4 December 2018 at 14:05

    PP: There does seem to be a drive to study 'conspiracy theorists' by acedemia. It could be it's own conspiracy theory, the label it's self is thrown around MSM as a derogatory label, they do like to label certain political persuasions as more likely to believe the whole 'global warming' thing is a conspiracy theory etc. and visa versa they like to label conspiratorial thinking as a certain political leaning when it suits them. I think it's a drive to encourage the very label it's self as a more mainstream derogatory term, to further demonise anyone who refuses to swallow 'official lines' on any particular subject. Now they seem to be associating CT's as more likely to turn to violence etc.[1] and anti-semetic[2] too.

    It's a shame academia don't spend a portion of their time studying the actual conspiracies!

    [1]http://conspiracyanddemocracy.org/blog/european-conspiracy-theories/
    [2]http://www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org/blog/conspiracy-theories-and-antisemitism/

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  3. Ben Emlyn-Jones4 December 2018 at 16:05

    Norman who, Cali?

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  4. Ben Emlyn-Jones4 December 2018 at 16:09

    Absolutely, Anon. This was the point I made in my reviews of, Chris Thresher-Andrews, Prof Karen Douglas and Rob Brotherton. It starts with the premise that CT's are a purely psychological phenomenon. I know many people who say I should not use the term myself for the reasons you state, but I do because it is literally accurate and I can't think of a better one. I remember Kenn Thomas and his word "parapolitics", but that is going a bit up the political correctness route.

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