Is Occam’s Razor Rusting in a Drawer Somewhere?

Nick Cohen has written a long, thoughtful essay on the modern tendency to embrace Byzantine conspiracy theories, the import of which is that conspiracy theorists can wind up doing genuine harm – sometimes, more harm than actual conspirators. Here’s an interesting quote from the article that underscores a point I have made before on the theme of Lionel Trilling’s assertion that we have a moral obligation to consistently apply our intelligence: “Irrationality is both cumulative and contagious. You start by reading your horoscope in the newspaper; then you dabble in chakra balancing or feng shui, saying that it is important to keep an open mind; after a while your mind is so open that your brains fall out, and you read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion without noticing anything amiss."

The simplest explanation may not, of course, always be the correct one, but I believe that convoluted theories which posit a combination of diabolism and competence that are not typically within the grasp of individuals, let alone organizations and bureaucracies, are almost invariably wrong.