Conspiracy Theory and Scrutiny

"To be normal, to drink Coca-Cola and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken, is to be in a conspiracy against yourself."
--Jerry Sutton (Conspiracy Theory)

As these pages have noted before, 'conspiracy theory' used to connote conjecture that a group of people had collaborated to do something bad.

Today, conspiracy theory is an attempt to parry attention made by people proposed to have committed the bad act. It is an attempt to divert attention from proposed bad actors and to ridicule those making the conjecture in the first place.

The deflection is intended to send this message: The conspiracy theorists are obviously nut jobs, and their theory is ludicrous. We are innocent.

In reality, those crying "conspiracy theory" are probably worthy of scrutiny.