Apparently, there are still people that believe that the Earth is flat and that there is a conspiracy by NASA or other authorities to hide the fact. Surveys also show that many people in the US believe that there was some kind of conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks, or, at least, that the US government is not telling the whole story.
Our brains make us prone to seeing conspiracies, real or imagined. When something big happens we tend to assume that something big must have caused it. And when something ambiguous happens, we assume that it was intended. When Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared we assume that someone planned it this way.
Our personality type also affects whether we believe in things like the flat Earth theory. People who believe conspiracy theories tend to distrust received wisdom and the things that people in authority tell us. And our built-in confirmation bias means we look for evidence that supports our beliefs. This seems contrary to the Enlightenment and scientific values. But the Enlightenment was partly about not trusting received wisdom, thinking for yourself, and distrusting what you were told. (Precis of an article in New Scientist by Rob Brotherton,a psychologist at Barnard College, New York City who specialises in the psychology of conspiracy theories.)
What suspicions do you have?
I have a suspicion many people in the military, the intelligence services, and maybe some politicians, actually miss the Cold War. Back then the world was easily divisible into three categories: American allies, Soviet allies and the non aligned countries. Now things are a lot of complicated; the rise of Islamic extremism is a phenomenon far harder to understand than Communism. Also, the Cold War gave our civilisation purpose, it united people behind a common enemy. The War on Terror these days does not unite people in the same way- many are far more critical of our government, even if they don’t side with the extremists themselves. In addition to this, the Cold War justified heavy military spending. The truth is, we simply don’t need to spend as much to fight the War on Terror, so a lot of special interests are beginning to panic.
We can see this in NATO’s attitude to Russia, which is portrayed as the 21st century equivalent of Nazi Germany. This isn’t true at all: Turkey, a NATO ally, is far more authoritarian than Russia- witness its war against the Kurds and its brutal clampdown on press freedom. We do dealings with shady countries all the time, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. And yet Russia is singled out as being uniquely bad. I can’t stand Putin, but we should negotiate with him over the Ukrianian crisis, especially as we sponsored the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine when it wanted closer ties with Russia. I also think we should concede the Crimea as most people there want to be Russian.