But Does She Exist?

Let me just say from the get-go that I'm more than a little bit predisposed towards conspiracy theories. First of all, my husband comes from a long line of conspiracy theorist adherents. This is not actually as surprising as it sounds -- Both his parents were born in the Middle East where from what I understand, conspiracy theories are served to infants along with mother's milk. Nothing is really what it seems, history draws a veil, and sometimes those denying that an event happened might be more or at least equally as compelling as those arguing that it did, even if one was there to witness an event with his or her own eyes. Even now, Eric, my husband, suspects conspiracies in all sorts of situations: including how the places are alloted in kindergarten, regarding why I didn't get the job I applied for, why exactly our dog got a yicky foot fungus (SOME people would say it was planted there, if you get my drift.) Not sure exactly where he falls on the moon landing, Ted Kaczynski, Area 51 and some of those other hot button issues -- but I CAN tell you that in the early years of our marraige, we watched a heck of a lot of X Files. That's all I'm saying .

In addition, I teach social science research methods for a living, and am constantly asking my students to "interrogate" (How's THAT for a nice post-modernist word?) the data, to consider all the assumptions and to consider whether or not there's an equally plausible alternative explanation for any chain of events that they might be describing. So you say that it was disgruntled Republicans who elected Barack Obama? Well, what OTHER explanations (short of alien abduction and demonic possession) might account for this phenomenon? You get the idea. . .

So what I'm saying is that while I'm not CONVINCED by those individuals who suggest that old Harriet is actually:

• a consortium of Amazon.com employees having the last laugh on the rest of us by convincing us that somewhere there's a little old spinster in tennis shoes reading romance novels
• An evil left-wing (or right-wing, depending on your predilection) conspiracy put together by 'big government' (or 'the man') to keep the little guy down, by denying him his rightful place in the ranks of Amazon reviewers
• a project that has been outsourced to India where a group of guys all named Sanjeet and Deetwab (but going by the handles Russ and Bill) are feverishly reading books (mostly historical romance novels) -- and which will someday, somehow, somewhere result in either: their kids going to college while yours go to trade school or their actually getting your job directly

While I'm not CONVINCED by either of these somewhat plausible scenarios, I'm not UNCONVINCED either. How 'bout you?