More on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

I read an interesting article, by Edward Feser about the 9/11 conspiracy theories and why people are so inclined to believe them. The author's main point is that the tendency towards conspiracy theories comes from Enlightenment thinking that authority should inherently not be trusted (he does make the point that this comes from the faulty view that the middle ages was a dark and unlearned time, but that is another post for another day). His point is not that we should blindly follow authority, but that it is the foundation for any further thinking. The fallacy is that it is impossible to discount any previous authority and start fresh as you must start somewhere. He draws a parallel between this fallacy used by conspiracy theorists and one used by secularists to discount Christianity:

Even very radical shifts in worldview typically presuppose a deep level of continuity between the view that was abandoned and the one that comes to be adopted. Hence the Protestant who converts to Catholicism (or vice versa) does so on the basis of religious premises both traditions have in common. Hence the secularist who rejects Christianity as a whole typically does so on the basis of scientific and moral principles that developed out of the Christian tradition itself. (See here, here, and here.) And hence the conspiracy theorist who claims to believe that the government and the media are in thrall to some purportedly sinister force or other (the military-industrial complex, the Mossad, or whatever)invariably bases his theory precisely on materials drawn from these sources (such as newspaper accounts and television news broadcasts, and even the Warren Commission and 9/11 Commission reports, which JFK assassination buffs and 9/11 fantasists, respectively, comb for evidence to support their case).

So the conspiracy theorist cites evidence to his case from the very sources that he seeks to disqualify. The author goes on to cite a similar fallacy that the authority the conspiracy theorist questions is very often only the authority that disagrees with his point, while authorities that agree are cited without question. This is obviously faulty thinking, but an interesting side note would be to show the below video. Very often the end of 9/11 conspiracy theories is to show that the Bush administration was one of the main benefactors of 9/11 and so must have been involved in causing or at lease allowing it to happen. This is a very attractive view for those on the left that are blindly against the Bush administration (as an aside, I am in no way saying the Bush administration is without fault or has handled everything well. They have made many mistakes, but to say that they caused 9/11 or other such nonsense is only to deny your purpose because then honest criticism is often overlooked as more lunacy from the left). At any rate, perhaps the best argument would be to show the below statements by leftist darling Noam Chomsky. But then, I suppose he would be an authority and must be questioned, right?