English Summary
Editor’s Letter
The most influential people
By Kim Belov (page 20)
Everybody loves a conspiracy. But these days — with the Panama Papers, ubiquitous security cameras, and when any fifth grader can easily hack into your chat (and see what stickers you’re using on Telegram) — we love conspiracy theories more than ever. The cleaner and more transparent a world we live in, the further the horizon of the unknown moves away from us. But that horizon still exists, and that means that the unknown, too, will always exist. We dig deeper and deeper, but we never reach the truth. Does it even really exist?
Conspiracy theory is a new world religion. It’s like a kind grandmother, capable of cozying up to the most diverse of people: the classic antisemite, the UFO sighter, non-traditional scientists, those who love to use the word “geopolitics” in conversation, and other kinds of crazy people.
There are many conspiracy theories. Some of which you likely believe in. Even if you, for example, work in the chemical industry and know that there’s no such thing as a “chemical trail” and that it cannot exist, that doesn’t make you immune from theories about top-secret meetings with aliens. In the depth of your heart you still think — well, it’s possible, isn’t it? And it hasn’t been disproved. Admittedly, the existence of evidence never gets in the way of true belief — after all, the evidence is probably fake, concocted by a secret government.
Politics is the most interesting territory for conspiracy theories — “The Tsar isn’t real.” We don’t want to believe that in actual fact, how our country is run is determined by the same unpredictable combination of factors as in any company or family. We don’t want to believe that decisions that influence the fate of humanity could have been made emotionally or accidentally.