I am very sorry, but there really is no way of diplomatically saying it. Some people are just unbelievably stupid. If you are one of them, you are probably not reading this column, but if you are: please stop being so stupid; there are ways to improve your cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills.
Okay, I suppose I should be more diplomatic, or at least more sympathetic, but for some reason stupidity really aggravates me.
What instigated that little tirade? The other day, I was browsing my news feed on Facebook. Up popped a sponsored link to a Facebook page called “Powerful” featuring a video with the click bait line: “Your mind is about to be blown.” What followed, of course, was nowhere even close to being on the same page with mind blowing.
It was simply a bunch of coincidences between the lives and careers of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy prefaced by the ominous introduction: “Creepy? Have a history teacher try to explain this to you.”
Most of it was really banal stuff: first elected to congress 1846 and 1946; elected president 1860 and 1960; both interested in civil rights; both had wives who miscarried while he was in office; both shot on Friday; Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had one named Lincoln; both assassinated by southerners; both succeeded by presidents named Johnson and both assassins went by three names. Finally, there is the big surprise reveal—the thing I suppose is supposed to tie up the conspiracy theory in a nice little bow and really make your head explode—“A week before Lincoln’s assassination, he was in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy’s assassination, he was with Marilyn Monroe.”
Cue the foreboding timpani.
Of course, any one of these taken alone, isn’t even worthy of mention. A few of them strung together are mildly entertaining. All of it taken together is supposed to trigger the response: “All of it taken together can’t be coincidental.”
Well, of course it can. Statistically most of these things are pretty likely. Elections for congress are every two years, every four for presidents; all presidents are interested in civil rights; currently 15 to 20 per cent of all pregnancies end in miscarriage and it was higher in the past; there are only seven days in a week; Lincoln and Kennedy are very common names; both were northerners (the U.S. fought a north-south civil war, during Lincoln’s time, no less); Johnson is the second most common surname in the United States; and a lot of people go by three names. The Monroe Maryland, Marilyn Monroe thing is kind of intriguing in a ‘what an intriguing coincidence’ kind of way, but creepy? No. Inexplicable? No. Mind blowing? Not even close.
It has always struck me that there is little consistency in what is supposed to be significant in these conspiracy theories. For example, the proponents find significance in parallels (i.e., shot in head), but also in opposites. The Facebook video reports that Lincoln was shot in a theatre and his killer was found in a warehouse while Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his killer found in a theatre. And that is not even a consistent opposite. For it to be consistent wouldn’t Kennedy have to have been shot in a warehouse, not from a warehouse?
Conspiracy theories depend on a volume of coincidences, the liberal application of logical fallacies, and the willingness of credulous people to suspend their disbelief in the face of contrary evidence. Dig deep enough and you will find infinitely more things these presidents did not have in common.
Now, assuming all those things are even true, what is it supposed to mean? Presumably, since the page is called “Powerful,” we are supposed infer some profound meaning from it, but the video does not say what that is.
Since I am not a credulous person prone to making illogical leaps of faith, I could not fathom what crazy conclusion I was supposed to draw, so I looked it up.
Lo and behold, I should have guessed, how stupid of me. Kennedy is Lincoln reincarnate. Look up a list of logical fallacies and this one falls in the category of all-of-the-above.
According to the website www.near-death.com, both presidents even owned rocking chairs. Shocking!
Another favourite tactic of conspiracy theorists is to co-opt legitimate history and expertise and twist it to their own purpose.
The website near-death.com cites a book by John K. Lattimer called Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of their Assassinations as evidence of reincarnation quoting the preamble the author wrote to the epilogue: ““The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has turned out to be almost a replay of the assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln, point by point. The similarities, coincidences, and associations are so striking as to be worthy of assembling in the epilogue that follows.”
I have not read the book, but everything I have read about Dr. Lattimer and the book does not indicate any predilection that he in any way believed Kennedy to be reincarnated from Lincoln or suggested as much. In fact, Lattimer was one of the most prolific debunkers of that other great Kennedy conspiracy theory that Oswald was not the killer and/or did not act alone.
While Lattimer may have devoted the epilogue of his book to similarities between the two assassinations, that in no way implies any preternatural conclusion beyond coincidence. And, honestly, what else would you expect from two guys who died of bullet wounds to the head than a lot of similarities?
