Where Conspiracy Clichés Come From

I must have passively come across this quote a hundred times since the start of the Pandemic. Maybe even just as much before, but quieter, like pre-2020 seems to be in our nostalgia. Along with "NWO", "Global Reset", and Globalism, as well as a whole hotchpotch of other zaney sound bites, one quote keeps emerging;

YOU'LL OWN NOTHING, AND YOU'LL BE HAPPY. 

Sounds dark, doesn't it? Almost like an order, as though you yourself are being order. Normally one can go about their day without a second thought to a vague yet sensationalist sentence. And I intended to do just that… until I saw this;

Like in many countries, Antis (I just call them that, since they're anti everything (Mask, Lockdown, Vaccine, Abortion, yet strangely they hate Antifa, as if that's the one thing they're not anti… strange) have been "protesting". Protesting what, I don't know, since we're out of lockdown, at full capacity for everything, and vaccines are still not mandatory. Like all Antis, this fellow seems to speak in vague sound-bites. There's that quote again; YOU'LL OWN NOTHING, AND YOU'LL BE HAPPY.

So where does it come from.

The Conspiracy.

The Conspiracy is that some sort of group (IMF, UN, WEF, MTG players, take your pick) are part of some a plan (why, again take your pick) so no one can own anything.

How this feeds into Covid and other conspiracies, I'll touch later.

The Truth.

For once I'm taking a leaf out of the Antis handbook and doing "my own research", another classic.

For first results were other instances of the phrase being used and humour.

Two things are clear;

1. This is the power of CTs; where even trying to research them exposes you to misinformation.
2. Isn't it sad Russel Brand, once one of the most articulate comedians of the 2000s, is now a "Just Asking Questions" Joe Rogan type of contrarian.

There's something cruelly, yet humorously, ironic about doing your own research only to be met with other people doing their own research. Indeed, you have to go to a Rueter's Fact Check to find the truth.

Danish politician Ida Auken for the Social Democrats (OMG THE COMMIES ARE TAKING OVER!), is the one accredited as writing a piece in 2016 for the WEF (World Economic Forum) entitled;

Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.

It was intended as part satirical, part critique at the rise of subscription mode (like the website you're reading this on! I KNEW IT!). The piece had been taken out of context so much that Ida herself had to state;

Some people have read this blog as my utopia or dream of the future. It is not. It is a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse. I wrote this piece to start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.

Sadly, a four year old misunderstanding with a correction had mutated in 2020 as one of the many idioms for paranoia and fear mongering. Indeed this seems to be the live-cycle of all conspiracies; misunderstand, spread the misunderstanding, become the only understanding for many.

Two books come to mind that illustrate why CTs are like this. First is The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall and Words That Work by Dr. Frank Luntz.

Gottschall posits that CTs, as a narrative, is an identifying part of our beliefs and views that we build other elements on and from. We believe the Islamists and Satanists are coming for us, because how else are we believing in the right religion? We believe the Communists and SJWs are taking control, because why else would we be powerless and poor in our own country?

Dr. Luntz doesn't touch on CTs, as Words That Work was written pre-2008 (which kills me, because a large part of the book focuses on political campaigns; imagine the chapters he could have done covering Obama, Trump, and Brexit), however the main argument of the book is that people are listening with a filter in place all the time to protect us, echoing Gottschall idea about identity and ego. I say "orange", most people will hear "orange". I say "wealth redistribution", some will hear "lazy scroungers and theft".

But if I say "5 million deaths globally", CTs will hear "and you will be happy".