For over a decade now, we have witnessed the proliferation of fringe conspiracy theories via social media. The once-derisive topic of conspiracy inspired images of tinfoil hats and weapon stockpilers regarded by the general public as little more than paranoid attention seekers whose ideas are fodder for Hollywood but of little substantive value. However, when public opinion polls show that 16-20% of Americans believe it is likely that federal officials assisted or intentionally took no action regarding the 9/11 attacks (some polls reflect up to 36%), we begin to flirt with mainstream acceptance.
Let us begin with a clarification: "Conspiracies" DO exist. In fact, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were a conspiracy: 19 Al Qaeda terrorists conspired to hijack 4 planes and attack US landmarks to protest our military presence in Saudi Arabia. "Conspiracy theory" is narrative that proposes a great social, political, or economic shift was orchestrated by interested parties.
Statistically speaking, conspiracy theorists have about as much success as prayer, which is to say, lower than chance alone. Apropos, considering that the belief in both religion and conspiracy theory require the same suspension of critical thought in favor of fantasy. For every Operation Paperclip, we have to endure Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook, Moon Landing, JFK, etc…
To those of you who favor conspiracy theory, this is my one empathetic gesture: I get it. My earliest predilection toward conspiracy was stirred by the Roswell crash of 1947. Forget spacecraft, alien bodies, and top secret, reverse-engineering projects conducted in hangers disguised as natural formations in the lakebed; It was the military--NOT conspiracists--who asserted that they had recovered a flying disc only to retract that statement later, right? Turns out, the term "flying disc" was part of a description of the mogul balloon's suspended "disc" section but the telex was unintelligible so the press release read, simply, "Flying disc crashed." Seriously, a clerical error seeded this one.
Reluctantly, like a Protestant child abandoning the comfortable suspension of their religion, I have accepted the "Project Mogul" explanation. Why? Because the existing evidence does not favor a crashed disc with any metallic properties nor do the often-contradictory eyewitness accounts hold up to scrutiny.
So, it is with great empathy, that I look upon my friends who are conspiracy-obsessed and recognize what a tremendous pain it would cause to let go of what has become dogma. That being said, I feel an obligation to challenge them.
Through the looking glass of social media, I have observed that evidence contrary to fantastic claims causes an adverse reaction among the pious. Rather than assimilation, the pious treat all criticism of their faith as evidence of repression. It would seem that belonging to a repressed minority, maligned and ridiculed provides purpose, righteousness even! Unfortunately, it does not provide truth.
The pious' belief persists because of a nasty little phenomenon we all must confront within ourselves: Confirmation bias -- our tendency to cling to that which supports our belief and disregard everything else.
In Michael J. Wood's paper, "Dead Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracies," Wood presents the idea that conspiracists have formed a monological belief system:
"A self-sustaining worldview comprised of a network of mutually supportive beliefs."
These networks may be familiar to those of you who favor conspiracy theory. You may be a part of a network that provides an illusory web of sources, confirming a proposed belief while never venturing outside of that support system for critique or perspective.
An example:
NaturalNews.com reported on the (non-existent) link between childhood vaccinations and neurological damage (1.14.2013). In an attempt to corroborate their claims, the author cited an article (not a study) by "consumer advocate" (not scientist) Tim Bolen. For those not familiar with his work, Bolen was the former publicist for Hulda Clark, a woman who claimed to have the cure for cancer (among other things). Curiously, ironically, Clark died of cancer. Clearly Bolen is not the most reputable or unbiased source for information.
Additional citations included links to the work of Mark Geier who, along with this son David Geier, have published highly criticized papers attempting to link thimerosal to autism. It should be noted that Mark Geier has lost his license to practice medicine for endangering children. Again, NN sought out highly questionable, openly-biased sources that fit their narrative and disregarded the serious professional and ethical conflicts of both Bolen and Geier.
Natural News made no effort to corroborate their claims with any peer-reviewed data, nor did they seek any information outside of the mutually supportive network.
Within these networks, contradictions abound. Wood's study at the University of Kent produced hierarchical regression models showing that people will believe contradictory things (e.g. Osama Bin Laden was already dead prior to the raid; Osama Bin Laden is still alive) so long as they can be positively associated with the view that authorities are engaged in a cover up.
This belief of an "invisible hand" is the unifying thread linking piousness in all forms; Whether your faith demands belief in an omnipotent being whose motives be concealed ("God has a plan" or "God works in mysterious ways") or that a small number of men control the lives, markets, and minds of free people, you will find blind devotion to the idea of both unquestioning faith and the "question everything" doctrine of conspiracy because, as Wood asserts, these beliefs are a part of a mutually supportive network.
Another bizarre similarity between the religious and conspiracist is an unwarranted disregard for science: Whether the religious disregard for the origins of life or the conspiracist disregard for modern medicine, eventually the question will arise, "Isn't science just another network of mutually supportive beliefs?" Perhaps... one MAJOR distinction is that science establishes an outcome with results that may be repeated reliably or, in layman's terms, it works. More so, science demands that sacred ideas be tested in order to progress. Challenge a conspiracy theory proponent to question his or her beliefs about 9/11 and you'll notice that with each answer, the goalpost is moved, where science must assimilate new data.
Here is a hypothetical conversation (although not too different from an actual conversation) which illustrates the conspiracists' penchant for "shifting goalposts."
Conspiracy Theorist - "If the WTC wasn't brought down by controlled demolition, explain building 7… It was not struck by a plane."
Skeptic - "The 47 story building had damage to 20 floors from falling debris."
CT - "Other buildings were hit with debris from the falling towers. Why didn't they collapse?"
S - "WTC 7 had 47 floors of weight to support with several compromised support columns. The surrounding buildings were not only significantly smaller but had less fire damage."
CT - "Why then did Silverstein say, 'Pull it' which is a demolition term?"
S - "Silverstein is not a demolition expert and he was speaking to the Fire Dept. Captain (also not a demolition expert) suggesting that they should pull the rescue teams out."
CT - "But Alex Jones posted a video where a foreman uses the term 'pull' -- meaning controlled demolition."
S - "Yes, and the video is edited conveniently before the demo team pulls the building down with hydraulic cables NOT explosives."
CT - "I've seen controlled demolition buildings and the floors pancake just like in WTC 7."
S - "No explosives were used in WTC 7. No eyewitnesses claim to have seen an explosion. More so, there is clear video of the penthouse collapsing first, due to fire, NOT an explosion."
CT - "Still, why would 'pull IT' refer to rescue efforts and not the building?"
From there, the argument devolves into a debate about semantics and occam’s razor be damned! With this basic example you'll notice a pattern: With each explanation, so long as another question may be posed, the previous answer is considered invalid by the conspiracy theorist rather than assimilated.
Failing reason, I've observed that the pious resort to ad hominem: "Sheep" or "sheeple" seem to be the go-to standard (and favorite of David Icke) coupled with the assumption that to question their worldview is tantamount to believing everything without question -- I was recently accused of believing "everything the government tells me," a straw-man tactic. This, of course, is subterfuge, designed to shift the scrutiny away from their crumbling logic, mischaracterize the argument against, and focus instead on aligning their detractors with whom they perceive to be the enemy -- a consumer of mass media or mass disinformation.
Sheep or no, conspiracy peddlers are the boy who cried wolf.
Silly that we should be so preoccupied with each other when the concerns that we all hold close to heart is that each tragedy might bring about another short-sighted piece of legislation that could erode our constitutional rights.
Where a reasonable person would see these legislative actions as mere incompetence on the part of lawmakers overreacting to placate their worried constituents, the pious see it as a clear sign that this was the intention all along: Whether JFK's assassination was orchestrated to eliminate his opposition to the Vietnam war or 9/11 to justify an invasion of Iraq (among other claims), what we have is opportunism in the wake of tragedy. Nothing more.
Fear may be a mechanism of media to hold an audience but these tactics are employed with far greater rhetoric by the pimps of fear. Conspiracy peddlers like Alex Jones and David Icke may disagree about whether the 6 Satan-worshipping bankers who control the world are lizards or just regular (Jewish) men (and don’t dare call them racist for their Zionist preoccupation) but they both have a product to sell and they both routinely prostitute fear on par with the tyrants to which they so routinely compare our political leaders.
Did web traffic to INFOWARS.com spike in the wake of the Boston marathon bombing? If so, does that make Alex Jones complicit in this crime? No. It makes him an opportunist. Fear is business. A frightened individual might listen to Alex Jones. A secure individual might listen to a TED talk. Though I must say, it is poetic that there exist conspiracies about Alex Jones being an agent of disinformation. You get what you give, Mr. Jones.
Since I began this dissection of conspiracy theory proponents, it's been reported that Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a fan of Alex Jones' InfoWars site. It should come as no surprise that Tsarnaev was NOT the first InfoWarrior to commit murder over fears stoked by Jones. Richard Poplawski murdered 3 police officers in a shootout because he believed in a Zionist conspiracy controlling the media, markets, and government who would take away his freedom of speech and guns. Poplawski was also a white supremacist and a member of the white supremacist website Stormfront. Certainly, Jones is not responsible for the actions of these men, but his blatant fear-mongering contributed in part to fracturing the already-compromised psyche of these anarchists.
The hyperbole being championed by the pious, "question everything" crowd have all become victims of the ultimate irony: Agents of disinformation whose obfuscation of real issues helps the very government they loathe to continue to pass short-sighted laws like the Patriot Act. When your biggest challengers all appear to be wearing funny hats and claiming that you control the weather with the same zeal with which they condemn SOPA, the message has become diluted.
"Question everything" should NOT be the mantra of the enlightened. Certainly an individual may choose to question physics on a daily basis by testing whether or not their dinner plate will float when released in mid-air but that person will likely starve.
For those who favor conspiracy, perhaps you view our polarized society as simply a mindless horde of consumers, blindly tuning into the network news channel whose political bias most resembles their own. Understand that the alternative you've chosen is no different. You've selected a fringe pipeline of information whose bias most resembles your own but you've done so with an imbued sense of self-righteousness.
No matter your predisposition, we owe it to ourselves to be informed. More so, we must be aware of the cheap, editorial tactics used to stir emotional response. We must demand rationality. We must encourage reasoned inquiry so long as a willingness to listen to answers exists. We also demand of the pious, that which Carl Sagan so famously demanded, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The "Sagan Standard." Sagan borrowed this from skeptic Marcello Truzzi and, in this demon-haunted world, we so desperately need more people who have their own standards for acceptance and reasonable inquiry.
I anticipate the, "Oh really, why don't you tell us all how to think?! You fascist!" If that's all to be gleaned from this observation, so be it.
Where is the harm, you might ask? First, as an individual you should be concerned that you are being misled by your alternative media with the same ire you reserve for the major news networks. Second, you've been sold a bill of goods: Ideas about liberty, freedom, patriotism, and the American dream. In reality, you've been indoctrinated by right-wing paranoia and anarchism disguised as libertarianism. Third, the unstable among you -- the Tamerian Tsarnaev's or Richard Poplawski's -- are being conditioned to lash out at invisible monsters in appalling ways.
I present my observation comfortable in the knowledge that my margin for error could be greater than I know. Can you do the same?
Samuel Farmer
MOVEMENT MAGAZINE Op-Ed contributor
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