The impression I got from the first few posters is, "What is faulty with human beings that allow them to be led astray by the cult-like conspiracy theorists?" and "Why do some people (the theorists themselves) only see a hidden dark side to things?"
The obvious thing is to strip connotations from the term "conspiracy theory" and leave it with its bare meaning. It's a theory, so it's trying to explain or model a certain portion of our reality which is unknown. The conspiracy portion of it means that a smaller group of people are performing an act that the larger supergroup, they're a part of, would disapprove with.
The modern definition is more-or-less twisted to mean, "Any explanation other than the one given by the media or the official in power." with an association that anyone who has any idea of how things really are that differs from the dominant narrative is a nutjob.
I can tell you the reason why I am drawn to conspiracy theories. It's a lot easier for me to believe that people on average are generally good, and that there are a couple of people with a lot of power that make selfish choices at the expense of others than it is for me to believe that a whole system of people is faulty (meaning acting against the will of the populace) and nobody caught it.
I find it hard to believe that Iraq was just a "Big whoops, we didn't know any better." It's easier to believe that a couple people with a lot of power made the choice that they could benefit a lot by us being at war (whoops: conflict) in Iraq than that the most highly sophisticated war machine in the world didn't have any idea what they were getting into, didn't learn from the wars from Vietnam through the South American wars. I know that I wouldn't go to war without knowing to a reasonable certainty the outcome beforehand, so I assume that by and large most people won't either which is what I would have to believe if I were to believe that we just didn't know any better.
Like all theories, you have to (by definition) create a model from your imagination to try to explain and predict the system that you are looking at. It is no different than the media or the government or whomever trying to explain to people what they are seeing. Everybody has their own personal experiences which help shape their model of reality. If the story that the government tells more or less fits with the experience that the person has lived through, than they are apt to believe that story. However, if it clashes with the person's experiences and their subconscious decides that the story doesn't seem accurate or acceptable then the brain is left looking for a new explanation. Any other option is fine as long as the brain doesn't notice the discrepancies in the theory.
I consider myself pretty knowledgable about people in general and in the theories of social control laid out in the assorted mirrors for princes and I find that they help explain what I see in a way that provides less obvious errors in explaining what I'm seeing.
I'm highly certain that we live in a society divided into social classes. I'm highly certain that you can also divide our society into two groups: the people that make decisions for our society and the people that don't. I'm highly certain that the more money you have, the more decision making power you have over other people and more specifically the more likely you are to be a career politician in a major position. I'm moderately highly certain that the social elite (the people that make the decisions that change the way we live) try to pull strings such that they benefit.
The example that glared at me and sent me in this direction was the school system. Everybody knows that school by and large doesn't teach you much of anything important. This is evident by the TV show thats about whether or not normal intelligent adults are any smarter than 5th graders. It's also evident by the concept that most of what is useful in your job is learned at your job and not in a classroom. I know that school is set up in a less than optimal manner for communicating information. My personal school experience gave me the idea that most people are by and large stupid, even though my personal experience outside of school gave me the opposite opinion. My school experience suggested that people are fairly sterile and inhuman, but my life experience suggests that isn't completely true, especially when I look at how children look before school and how they look after school. My little cousins are so affectionate and full of life, but the older children and adults are hesitant to touch each other. Human contact is reduced to a handshake and maybe a pat on the back.
I read John Taylor Gatto's work and Ivan Illich's work on schooling and it appeals to me. Maybe school causes some of the lack of humanity I see in people. Maybe, I'm making everything up and have an overactive imagination, but I can see in my life fairly clearly and can feel the personal shift in consciousness that I had while being in school and following the social norm and when I wasn't following the social norm. Not following the social norm feels a lot more natural to me. I don't think people are supposed to be so isolated from each other, so cold to each other. I don't think it's natural that most people can't look me in the eye when we cross each other in a mall or on a sidewalk. Deep inside, I have a longing to return to my perception of what naturalness is. It feels warmer, more comforting, more loving. It feels like the way I imagine that the creator would have created things.
Then I read this published quote by the General Education Board headed by Rockefeller (and maybe Carnegie):
Quote:
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In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
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I refuse to blindly trust people in authority positions, especially ones with lots to gain by me not paying attention. That is what is expected of me and I know where that will lead. It leads to the adults I see. It leads to mediocrity and worrying about paying of mortgages on time. It leads to midlife crises. It leads to working longer hours for less money each and every year. It leads to the inability to fully love others and ourselves.
I joined the group of personal development and it cemented the mediocrity I saw. I don't believe we were created to be mediocre. I do believe we should live with a purpose and that certain purposes suit our own unique qualities. I don't see that in society. I can feel the force of the strings of the puppet master trying to persuade me to go in a direction that my heart doesn't feel like going in. If you can't feel the force of society pulling you away from yourself than I pity you, or I am completely happy for you that you lucked out into having an internal compass that coincidently followed societies compass. Either way, I don't believe that people are generic or interchangable, so most people can't be living true to themselves if they are living the same as others. I can see the heavy amount of sedating required by myself and my peers to tolerate this force. I've watched tv. I've smoked cigarettes. I've tried other ways to escape modern life. Now that I feel like I'm more true to myself, they aren't as necessary.