Review Of the Article “Why Are We So Addicted To Conspiracy Theories”
In “Why are we so Addicted to Conspiracy Theories” Anna Merlan presented the claim that people in society shouldn’t believe everything they hear from word of mouth without factual evidence to an audience interested in conspiracies, politics, and history. It is clear that the audience is meant for individuals that wonder in thought when thinking about unanswered questions because they are the ones that are in desperate need for a distraction from some type of problem in their own lives. When Merlan says “An actual conspiracy is when a small group of people are working in secret against the common good – and anyone who tells you we can always easily distinguish fictitious plots from real ones probably hasn’t read much history”, she speaks directly to the audience by explaining that even though big conspiracy-mongers are coming into power, it doesn’t mean that it should cloud our own judgement. In reality, these small groups are creating harm by spreading slander to bring some type of negative change to society and size power for themselves. Merlan explains how these outrageous claims tend to flourish in times of rapid change in society, when we re-evaluate our lives, and when we are faced with uncomfortable questions during the process. This shows that our mind of thinking can be persuaded when were faced with shake ups, such as President Trump taking office.
Anna Merlan writes to an audience that is facing hardship and confiding in these conspiracies in order to get them to understand that all people are independent thinkers that have minds for themselves who can make their own assumptions. She herself is a liberal and writes the article in a way that presents to readers that individuals who lean to this side know that all the fictional things President Trump says cannot be taken seriously. To show how radical he is, President Trump’s big endorser is a man named Alex Jones, owner of InfoWars. Mr. Jones on his radio show has brought up to light many false claims that Trump used in some of his speeches. For example, “Jones began darkly predicting that the elections would be “rigged” in Clinton’s favour, a claim that Trump quickly made a central tenet of the latter days of his campaign”. People for some reason find President Trump to be a “truth-teller” when in fact all he has done is make promises he never kept. The only thing that mattered to him was spreading the word about the media’s fake news and the corruption his opponent Hillary Clinton. The bottom line is that if you have a mind of your own, make the decision that best suits the facts, not the liars of America.
