Don't mock conspiracy theorists. They are like global court jesters and we need them but shouldn't take them too seriously.


[quote="whizzer"]

Sarge55 wrote:

Kalamity wrote: Nyreen wrote: Sarge55 wrote: Are you a lecturer? LOL , I asked him the same question last week! Me a lecturer, hell no, just a skeptical-cynic trying to spread the word....... I think I might use conspiracy theorist... but one mans conspiracy theorist, another mans evangelical skeptical-cynic or some such fnord

mmmmm - see definition of cynic below particularly the bit about contention as opposed to truth.

Wonder what else they got up to in the gymnasium - never can tell with those ancient Greeks!

The Cynic School, founded at Athens about 400 B.C., continued in existence until about 200 B.C. It sprang from the ethical doctrine of Socrates regarding the necessity of moderation and self-denial. With this ethical element it combined the dialectical and rhetorical methods of the Eleatics and the Sophists. Both these influences, however, it perverted from their primitive uses; the Socratic ethics were interpreted by the Cynics into a coarse and even vulgar depreciation of knowledge, refinement, and the common decencies, while the methods of the Eleatics and the Sophists became in the hands of the Cynics an instrument of contention (Eristic Method) rather than a means of attaining truth. The Cynic contempt for the refinements and conventions of polite society is generally given as the reason for the name dogs (kúnes) by which the first representatives of the school were known. According to some authorities, however, the name Cynic arose from the fact that the first representatives of the school were accustomed to meet in the gymnasium of Cynosarges.



[quote="whizzer"]

Sarge55 wrote:

Kalamity wrote: Nyreen wrote: Sarge55 wrote: Are you a lecturer? LOL , I asked him the same question last week! Me a lecturer, hell no, just a skeptical-cynic trying to spread the word....... I think I might use conspiracy theorist... but one mans conspiracy theorist, another mans evangelical skeptical-cynic or some such fnord