Of Occam’s Razor

What exactly is “conspiracy theory”?

Of Occam’s Razor

Although we’re frequently confronted with a plethora of different narratives and a mass of contradictory information we’ve no choice other than to choose, however provisionally, between competing stories and varying data sets. What’s often termed “conspiracy theory” may often simply be the application of Occam’s Razor (the law of parsimony); it’s usually the simplest, most logical explanation; the one with the fewest assumptions. It’s also often a case of stating the obvious (such as: there’s a relationship between cause and effect).

The official narrative is frequently riddled with contradictions if not positively ridiculous absurdities yet we’re so accustomed to it, we’ve heard it so often (it’s repeated ad nauseum), that we acquiesce to it without even the blink of an eye. In addition is the social cost, the ridicule, contempt and opprobrium which, almost invariably, accompanies alternative, independent and critical thought; the urge to conform is all.

The most obvious examples of the flawed official narratives of the present are the ongoing wars in the Ukraine and Gaza.

In the official narrative of the first we’re told, on the one hand, that Russia is destroyed both economically and militarily yet at the very same time poses an existential threat to Western Europe. Indeed, we’re told, the Ruskis are on the march yet again, and mean to attack in the none too distant future.

In the official narrative of the second we’re told that the war in Gaza is a war against Hamas, which Hamas started and is solely responsible for, and yet on the other, that the death toll among the civilian population, children having clearly NOTHING whatsoever to do with Hamas, is enormous. This, we’re told, is due to the fact that Hamas choses to fight in the midst of dense urban areas and uses the civilian population as “human shields”. Yet, at the same time, Hamas has its own, notorious, tunnels. Either Hamas fights in dense urban areas and uses the civilian population as “human shields” or it uses tunnels; it can’t do both. The lie is obvious, even for the most prejudiced and uninformed eye.

The most common response to these irritating, confusing and confounding contradictions is to declare: “It’s too complicated”, “I don’t understand” or more simply: “I just don’t care.”

An example of a flawed official narrative of the past, which is related to the present, concerns World War Two.

The Japanese, Timothy Snyder tells us in “Bloodlands”, fully expected the Germans to finish off the British Empire when they could. Yet they failed to do so. The question is why.

One historian, whose name I shan’t even mention, once argued that the Germans attacked Russia in order to defeat the British Empire. His argument was so ridiculous that I tossed the book in a garbage can.

Another tome, which I find execrably badly written (“Hitler Was a British Agent” by Greg Hallett) seems however to contain a kernel of truth, especially the part concerning Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain in May 1941. Hess, according to this version, flew to Britain to plead for peace rather than war, more concretely: to beg that the offensive against Russia planned by the Freemasons not be carried through. His request, unsurprisingly, was denied.

Once again, I would argue, the Global Deep State is using Germany, then as now, against Russia. Indeed, the whole conflict in the Ukraine seems to have been designed in order to alienate the one from the other. And the last thing that was wanted was for Germany to be dependent on Russian gas, with obvious consequences.

Similarly, one must look back on the past in order to understand the present in Gaza.

The idea of dumping the population in the Sinai isn’t new. Every variant has been tried and tested. The idea of giving Gaza to Egypt, the “open door” policy (of Gazans being able to cross the border freely), of exiling them to other countries or to the West Bank, and of course: of massacring them to force their acquiescence. This has been tried for over seventy years, and it has failed for over seventy years. Anyone who thinks it will work now, and the policy of committing genocide in Gaza now will succeed, is clinically insane.