Proven Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories
Katherine K. Young states "(t)he fact remains, however, that not all conspiracies are imagined by paranoids. Historians show that every real conspiracy has had at least four characteristic features: groups, not isolated individuals; illegal or sinister aims, not ones that would benefit society as a whole; orchestrated acts, not a series of spontaneous and haphazard ones; and secret planning, not public discussion."
"Some historians have put forward the idea that more recently the United States has become the home of conspiracy theories because so many high-level prominent conspiracies have been undertaken and uncovered since the 1960s." The existence of such real conspiracies helps feed the belief in conspiracy theories.
In the criminal justice system, actual conspiracies and conspiracy theories can also be distinguished by scale, as actual conspiracies are usually small in scale and involve "a single event or issue."
Read more about this topic: Conspiracy Theory
Famous quotes containing the words proven, conspiracies, conspiracy and/or theories:
“Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
“If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It’s the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)