I've been searching for this article and its author for years. What great timing that I finally found it in the Wayback Machine! It's one of the most important articles I think I've ever read, because it crystalizes perfectly what I consider the proper attitude to the domain of conspiracy. Here's an excerpt:
Almost all that is dismissed as conspiracy theory today is really only good or poor attempts at writing history in our own time. But why is it that when we are talking of the histories of whole different places in whole different times, we easily accept that this or that group of powerful people made this or that important event happen, yet when it comes to histories of our own time and place, we automatically reject any suggestion of any group of people making any important event happen? Throughout history, every important event always has some group of people behind it, and these events always offer revealing meanings about the kind of societies in which they occur. It is the same today.
I give this article the highest possible recommendation.
