Everything is Connected

The assumption that everything is connected has been one of the guiding \nprinciples of conspiracy theory. The hope--but also the fear-is that \nevery seemingly insignificant fact or detail might tum out to be a clue to a \nlarger plot, if only one could see the hidden connections. Over the last \nfew decades conspiracy theories have shown signs of increasing complexity \nand inclusiveness, as once separate suspicions are welded into Grand \nUnified Theories of Everything. For example, A. Ralph Epperson&s;s The \nUnseen Hand: An Introduction to the Conspiratorial Theory of History brings \ntogether conspiracy theories about the American Revolution, the Civil \nWar, the Cuban Revolution, the Trilateral Commission, the Federal \nReserve, population control, abortion, education, and so on for 488 pages. \nThe author insists that "a conspiracy does indeed exist, and that it is extremely large, deeply entrenched, and therefore extremely powerful." It is \nworking, Epperson continues, "to achieve absolute and brutal rule over \nthe entire human race by using wars, depressions, inflations and revolutions \nto further its aims."1