Does any of it matter?
In the end, Shakespeare’s plays will survive bad conspiracy theories the same
way they survive bad productions. But where it does matter is the manner in
which the argument is made.
It took 200 years for
anyone to even consider that anyone but Shakespeare wrote his plays.
Considering how many people knew about it, that’s some pretty good work by the
conspirators. Only six people initially knew about the Watergate break-in, and
it leaked like a sieve. But from the first i.e. 200 years after, we hear the
familiar tropes of the conspiracy theorist. They are the ones intelligent
enough to see through the lies and brave enough to broadcast their findings to
the world. They are being hindered by the mainstream who see their work as a
threat to their livelihoods. They are the underdog fighting the entire industry
who want to destroy them.
There is a reason such
a scenario appeals. Because such a thing does happen. William McBride, for
example, was the one researcher who discovered the link between thalidomide and
birth defects. It was a struggle, involving taking on a big pharmaceutical
company, but his findings were found to be true and thalidomide was banned for
pregnant women. Later on McBride besmirched
his own reputation when he claimed to find a similar link between birth defects
and Debenox. In this case he had falsified and manipulated data. His study was
discredited and ultimately he was struck off the medical register. He has since
been reinstated but the damage to his reputation was done.
The conspiracy also
feeds into some of our myths and stories – the struggle of the underdog, David
vs Goliath, one brave person taking on a evil organisation and winning. How
many novels, poems and movies have been based on a similar idea?
The truth, the exposer
will say, will out. The fact is, it does. A radical researcher, historian, doctor
or whoever, if they are actually telling the truth, will find their results and
ideas validated in the long run. The ones who are deluded, mistaken or making
false reports are also found out. When Dan Schechtman first presented his
theories on quasicrystals he was told by no less than Nobel Prize winner Linus
Pauling that it was nonsense and he was a quasi-scientist. This year he won the
Nobel Prize for Chemistry for that very work. Likewise Andrew Wakefield’s paper
linking autism and vaccination, though popular and finding supporters and
adherents throughout the world, has been found to be fraudulent.
Wakefield’s work continues
to do its damage now. Previously controlled diseases like mumps and measles are
experiencing new outbreaks, threatening the health of thousands of people
around the world. There are parts of Australia where it is unadvisable to take
newborns, because of the high-rate of non-immunised children in the area.
Wakefield’s supporters will say that the fraudulent finding is part of the
conspiracy to hush up his findings. However, the medical professional and
pharmaceutical companies are quite open about the potential side-effects of
immunisation, including convulsions and a form of meningitis. Parents are
warned of these dangers, and researchers are working on eliminating them. But
the profession also knows the small amount of risk involved is far outweighed
by the greater good done through immunisation programmes worldwide.
And here is another
part of the conspiracy theory trope: you can’t trust the experts. People who
have spent their lives studying a subject are either too close to the subject,
too vested in the subject, or too financially tied to their subject and either
cannot understand this new work or are actively trying to destroy it. The
expert is either stuck in a lofty ivory tower, or an active force for evil.
This seems harmless eccentric belief applied to the Shakespeare authorship
question. It is far more sinister when applied to the medical profession,
scientists and history.
I have already
discussed the real damage done by Wakefield’s fraud. In the debate over global
warming we hear of scientists who have their income predicated on creating
studies supporting anthropogenic global warming, and so they falsify their
reports to back the financial interest of their masters, and ultimately their
own. As a scientific argument, this is rubbish. If one wants to argue about
science then, as they did with William McBride and Andrew Wakefield, engage
them on their methodology and figures. Engaging them on their motivation is
ludicrous and no argument at all.
In history, this style
of argument is in its most sinister in regard to the Holocaust. The Holocaust
is dismissed as a fraud, an industry to let historians and survivors make money
and to allow Israel its own way in foreign relations. David Irving was an
arch-denier, given inexplicable credibility by the historical profession,
through a mix of self-promotion and an ability to track down previously unknown
documents and sources. Sadly, he used these skills to promote Holocaust denial,
anti-Semitism and racism. When one historian, though she was not the first,
called him a denier, he sued her and her publisher Penguin Books. Backed by
Penguin and a team of lawyers and supporters from various areas, Deborah Lipstadt fought the action and won. Irving was spectacularly hoist on his own
petard and exposed as the racist, anti-Semitic, non-historian that he is.
There is such a thing
as healthy scepticism. Authorities whether they be medical, scientific,
historic or political, need to be checked, queried and challenged. However, a
mindless rejection of authority is as brain-dead and I think even more
dangerous than mindless acceptance. Think for yourself, but get your
information from people who know more than you do.
However, I can report
that I have disproved one conspiracy theory. Between Facebook, Myspace, Twitter,
blogs and Wikipedia, we have definitely proved that a million monkeys at a
million typewriters will not produce the works of Shakespeare.
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