DEREK TURNER is the editor of The Brazen Head, as well as a novelist (A Modern Journey, Displacement, and Sea Changes) and reviewer. His first non-fiction book, Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire, was published June 2022. Some of his writing may be found at www.derek-turner.com He is also on Twitter – @derekturner1964
Dear Mr. Turner,
My following comment is in response to, “Conspiracy theories, from 5G wireless mind control to QAnon cult,” quoted from your article, “Freedom’s Penalties,” Chronicles, August 2023.
Were you to invest a little sober reflection would you still have adopted in your article the expression “conspiracy theories” knowing that it’s inventor, the CIA, and now every similar duplicitous entity as well uses this same expression whenever it suites them to obfuscate the truth?
I have no way of knowing which scientific literature is sufficiently non-agenda driven to determine whether 5G technology is indeed deleterious to human life. That said, I have reluctantly read enough conflicting “expert” opinions in this once objective “literature” to decide to live and work as far away from 5G towers as I can possibly manage. Who would be so naively trusting of “modern science” not to attempt doing the same thing under the circumstance?
Regarding your cute but nevertheless pointless swing at QAnon, whom you dismissively called a “cult,” may I respectfully remind you that if QAnon is in fact a psyop being perpetrated by, shall we say, the “dark side,” then people who read and write for publications like Chronicles should be really worried. May I also remind you that these people and millions of others like them worldwide have extremely little to look forward to, if, that’s, QAnon is a cruel lie.
Best regards,
Frank Dinglihaber
Dear Mr Dinglihaber,
Thank you for your message. I fear we shall disagree! I wouldn’t want to live under a 5G tower either, but more for aesthetic reasons than out of real fears about possible effects on health. Similar claims about invisible harms are often made about new technologies of all kinds, and are frequently based on outdated, partial or statistically insignificant scientific studies (when they are based on studies at all). As for QAnon, it has no evidential basis whatever. I don’t care for the Bidens, Clintons, et al, but I don’t see them as moral monsters. Such lurid imaginings are to my mind reminiscent of cultish thinking. Conspiracy theories are found on all sides in politics (like the risible leftwing stories about Trump getting Russian assistance in 2016). To me, they are almost always too neat, and don’t allow for the inconsistency, messiness and randomness of much human behaviour. Thanks again for writing, and best wishes from England.