Exploring Our Love for the Conspiracy Theory

What is it about the human psyche that makes us fall in love with the unknowable, the frightening and the controversial? Why do some, in spite of the evidence, question that John F. Kennedy was shot by a lone assassin or that we walked on the moon, or that Paul McCartney is indeed still alive and not replaced by Billy Shears? And is this somehow related to our current obsessions with fallen stars like Britney Spears and Heath Ledger?

We are creatures who continually try to make sense of the world around us. In the art world it is called the gestalt effect. This is when random shapes are organized by our minds to resemble something real, such as seeing human faces in a paneled wall. Our minds are wired by years of learning, both conscious and subconsciously, to find recognizable order in chaos.

How this works in the world today is reflected in the reaction to the death of Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto was considered by some as Pakistan's only hope for democracy. As news broke that she was dead the talking heads were already trying to figure out why and how this could have happened. Suspicion was laid immediately upon Al Qaida and the Taliban. Pakistan is still reeling from this death and the army is now fighting the militants responsible. The Pakistani government's official stance is that she died as a result of head trauma from the sunroof handle of her car as she escaped an explosion near her caravan, yet relatively reasonable people think the contrary and demand an exhumation of the body to find bullet wounds. Tragic circumstances rarely ever make sense.