A conspiracy theory is born from distrust of reality

An elderly physicist with bright peasant eyes once confessed to me, smiling inoffensively: “I don’t know how to think for a long time about something that has a smack of secret intent or conspiracy. As soon as a person decides that he was not given enough: he was infringed, cheated, preferred, and also that he is the hero of gossip and anecdotes, a card in the wrong hands and the flatterer has already prepared a razor, then the end. It’s not that I’m guarding innocence, unforgivable for my age, but the thought in this direction is unfruitful, here, as my students say, there is nothing to catch.

If a person tries to talk to me about the intrigues of evil forces on the scale of the Universe or just a small institution, he, as it were, ceases to exist for me. A smart physicist will not spend years inventing the perpetuum mobile, he feels the habit of nature and will not go in the direction where she does not create and does not hide her secrets. The conspiracies of Freemasons and Zionists, the secret participation of the KGB in the organization of perestroika, the plans of the CIA for the collapse of Russia — all this seems to me the inventions of a narrow mind. For the same reason, I do not read any kind of infernal novels or political detective stories. They reek of unbridled graphomania, tavern mysticism and provocation.”

I was reminded of this monologue recently when I read two Shakespeare books in a row. It would seem, what is the connection? I’ll explain now.

I. Gililov’s book «The Game about William Shakespeare, or the Secret of the Great Phoenix» was first published seventeen years ago. The book by Igor Shaitanov in the series «The Life of Remarkable People» is just now. Both authors are well aware of the era, customs and literature of that time, but in relation to the well-known «Shakespearean question» they adhere to opposite points of view. Gililov, on almost five hundred pages, unravels the great conspiracy and tries to prove that the real authors of Shakespeare’s works were the Earl of Rutland and his wife Elizabeth, nee Sidney, the daughter of the great poet. Shaitanov is sure that everything signed with the name Shakespeare belongs to him (in the early stages with a team of co-authors, which was common at that time).

• We want to know the truth!

I have no reason to express my non-authoritative opinion on this issue. Another thing is interesting: why did the dispute lasting several centuries arise and why such a radical disagreement between specialists who equally own information? It was here that I remembered the reasoning of a familiar physicist.

The point, it seems to me, is in the different tuning of the mental and psychic apparatus. Before embarking on research, the scientist is guided by a certain premise. The premise of the conspiracy theorist is that a mediocre educated craftsman could not have written all these brilliant things. He knew Latin poorly, Greek very badly, he was not a member of the royal court, he did not go to Italy. How did he manage to write about the mores of the court and palace etiquette, to describe Italy in such detail? And can the vocabulary of a poorly educated person be 20 thousand, when it was limited to 5–7 thousand by his brilliant contemporaries?

Well, Shakespeare didn’t know Italy that well, argues a researcher who is sure of Shakespeare’s authorship. Milan, for example, stands on the seashore. Actually, that’s not the point. There is no equal sign between genius and universal education. A genius thinks, compares and, among other things, forms at a different speed. An example is Pushkin, one of the most educated people of the era that now bears his name. He finished the lyceum third from the end in terms of academic performance. His dictionary, by the way, is 21 thousand words. The closest example is Brodsky, who left school in the seventh grade.

• Why is it so hard to tell the truth

In other words, a conspiracy theory is born out of distrust of reality. It is too simple for a conspiracy theorist, there is too much law in it. And when the incredible happens — a genius, for example, or a revolution? Then look for a conspiracy, interpret defaults and gaps in your own way. But you don’t have the facts, they tell him. They deliberately hide them, is it not clear, he replies. But there are simple explanations: this is from this, then from that. They need you to think so, he throws ironically.

One has to live with a secret. This creates a visible complication of the picture of the world, but in reality it terribly simplifies it. It replaces a big secret with a small, man-made one. Shakespeare’s genius — isn’t it a mystery? Go figure it out. No, we’ll come up with another mystery. And so many subtle moves are revealed, such a game of the mind, such an abyss of erudition flies into the fire. Rutland and his wife Elizabeth lived in a platonic marriage. She was not inferior to her father in talent. Their almost simultaneous death was shrouded in mystery. Etc. Interesting? Yes, even! But not as an argument in favor of the family Shakespeare.

This, I think, is also from the bacillus of romanticism that lives in everyone. The need for the extraordinary. Scarlet sails, etc. In her youth, she works ahead of experience and acquires naturally fabulous forms. For most people, this goes away with age. Some get bored, others become gambling to the cutting and sewing of real life. In someone remains forever. They fill up the army of conspiracy theorists.