Illuminati
From SkepticWiki
Contents |
[edit] Definition
Illuminati is a name given to, or claimed by, a number of secret societies. Most commonly, it refers to the group known as the Bavarian Illuminati or Perfectibilists. This not-so-secret secret society was founded in 1776, and reportedly had between 3000 and 4000 members over the decade it was in open operation.
The Illuminati supposedly shared much of its membership with the Freemasons, and is described by some to have infiltrated the Freemasons.
Conspiracy Theory suggests that the Illuminati were not in fact shut down, but went underground, and have had a significant influence over world affairs. Notable events claimed to be orchestrated by the Illuminati include the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and numerous wars.
It is claimed that the Illuminati had/have affilliations with the Jacobites, the Freemasons and American college secret societies such as the Skull and Bones.
[edit] Discussion
A number of strands of this meme today suggest the top the Illuminati hierarchy are now a global elite who control the governments of major western countries through puppet governments, working toward one world government or a new world order.
Common themes include the global elite being wealthy banking families dynasties including the Rothschilds, Rockerfellers, Morgans and Vanderbilts. The Bilderberg group, Tri lateral Commission and Council for Foreign Relations are organisations often touted as being major centres for discussion where their agendas are decided. The monetary system and banking practices are often put forward as systems designed to subtly enslave humanity using interest and inflation to keep humans constantly working to stay financially stable, while the global elite make vast amounts of profit.
The actual goals of this conspiracy theory vary depending on which flavour you choose, often it is to enslave humanity in some way under a one world government, keeping the masses working as a global underclass while a sort of elite dynastic dictatorship uses the resources of the world for themselves. They are often said to want to implant RFID chips in every person as some form of control although this is sometimes linked to eschatological conspiracy theories and the number of the beast. Eugenics is frequently mentioned as a priority and various ways of keeping the population down are claimed from military genocide to covert sterilisation programs. The global elite are said to want to spend their incredible wealth on extending their lifespan as much as possible, attempting to travel the cosmos and evolving the global underclass into a less intelligent serf race.
There are various problems with this conspiracy theory, one of which is sheer difficulty of keeping such grandiose conspiracy which so many people would find repugnant secret for so long. This conspiracy relies on a lot of people who would need to know at least parts of the conspiracy, but who are not part of the global elite participating. Presumably they are kept in line through coercion, intimidation and even assassination, but if some are killed or directly threatened, why not the makers of conspiracy theory documentaries and literature?
Another idea that supports this and some other conspiracy theories being false is their being unstable, inconsistent and constantly evolving by natural selection. The new world order started out by being a kind of general anti Semitism and distrust of governments, secret societies and money lenders, and as it reproduced through word of mouth, writings and now the internet, the bad or silly easily refutable versions are eliminated by people not being taken in by them and not reproducing them. As this process has gone on, new but seemingly convincing connections or ideas are generated as the strain of this meme becomes more virulent. We should expect current conspiracy theories to be scary, difficult to falsify and to seem to connect to plenty of real world events, people and groups because of the process they have been through. When one examines some of the previous incarnations which include things like aliens, magic and even bugs implanted in teeth picking up radio signals it is obvious that they are quite easy to refute and even laughable in some cases. The sense that conspiracy theorists simply change their argument when a part of it is logically refuted or a prediction turns out to be false, that they don’t have to pay for failures, only be rewarded when they happen to guess right makes it seem more likely that they are false.
New World order conspiracies also suffer from a kind of irreducible complexity. It relies on technologies such as RFID chips, CCTV cameras etc that could not have be known about in 1776 when the Illumminati was supposedly created.
