People Believe in Conspiracy Theories Because People Conspire

pattern recognition of the most constant pattern in human affairs

Recently I reread a bit of Jerome Karabel’s immensely important book The Chosen, the 2005 expose on the admissions policies of elite American universities in the 20th century. I know it’s a cliché to speak of a nonfiction book as encompassing not just its subject but their times, or the country as a whole, but the book really can teach you an amazing am…