The Wrongness
June 10, 2023 8:04 AM Subscribe
The hope of democracy is that we will, knowing all this, find a way to trust each other again, or at least, in the absence of trust, to halfheartedly will each other’s good. Perhaps we will stumble one day on some key, some insight, that will help us to do this again. But for now, real blood has been shed, and more blood is threatened, and each of us really does have enemies, and every day, another you unwittingly begins talking himself into being one of them. And so we all stand jabbering at each other, accusing like Satan, united only by the self-righteousness that crosses every face, which we don’t see because we are no longer looking at each other, or at anything. There is only the wrongness. from The Monster Discloses Himself by Phil Christman
I once asked a sociologist why a particular pop social theory, one refuted many times in detail by scholars, continued to survive. She answered, “It’s hard to see social structure.” She was right—even the term “social structure” is already a metaphor. (Society is not a building with a blueprint.)
[nod]
You thought you saw the monster, but you saw him wrong. Perhaps he is, after all, something mundane, a coatrack casting a shadow. Perhaps there is only one bewildering world.
[sigh]
posted by Brian B. at 8:50 AM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
[nod]
You thought you saw the monster, but you saw him wrong. Perhaps he is, after all, something mundane, a coatrack casting a shadow. Perhaps there is only one bewildering world.
[sigh]
posted by Brian B. at 8:50 AM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
(I began checking out of the christian inculcation of my youth when they started talking about Secular Humanism as if it were a bad thing...)
aka 'do you own research' --> 'break your own brain'
Dawkins approves.
like anything, GIGO
maybe people need to hold fewer beliefs in general??
E.g.: There's a widespread belief in the USA that to prevent the future rise of a tyrannical state, we can't allow government limits on the accessibility of effective firearms to people.
I guess we need something like the Golden Filters but for beliefs:
Before you believe, let your reasoning pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it gently?
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:04 AM on June 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
the autodidact is free to be mobbed by infotainers.
aka 'do you own research' --> 'break your own brain'
The most successful conspiracy, the one easiest to maintain over the long term, might be one with few or no goals beyond its own perpetuation.
Dawkins approves.
Satan is an accuser, a prosecutor; one of his oldest tricks is to make you see him in your neighbor.
like anything, GIGO
In a conflict between holding a justified belief and holding a true one, wouldn’t one prefer to hold the true one?
maybe people need to hold fewer beliefs in general??
E.g.: There's a widespread belief in the USA that to prevent the future rise of a tyrannical state, we can't allow government limits on the accessibility of effective firearms to people.
I guess we need something like the Golden Filters but for beliefs:
Before you believe, let your reasoning pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it gently?
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:04 AM on June 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Sigh. Structure doesn’t have to come from an intentionally designed blueprint. That is the concept that lots of folks struggle with, perhaps also including this author based on the snippet quoted by Brian B. The idea of emergent structure and emergent behavior/properties from complex systems is something many folks simultaneously take for granted every day (it’s fundamental to market-based, not fully planned economies) yet don’t believe in (eg. distrust about the existence of society beyond individual choices / the entire basis for the field of sociology; or thinking that the metaphor of the “invisible hand” of the market is somehow real or concrete in some way).
posted by eviemath at 9:06 AM on June 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 9:06 AM on June 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
The tone of this piece is such a turnoff, and exactly what the author purports to be railing against: a self-proclaimed authority explaining everything with the confidence of Pure Truth that is Obviously Inarguable. If he’d conveyed the same point of view with more humility it would be easier to evaluate.
posted by rikschell at 9:26 AM on June 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 9:26 AM on June 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Not only could I not really tell where Christman was going as I read this piece, I couldn’t tell where they (or 'he'?) ended up.
posted by jamjam at 9:27 AM on June 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 9:27 AM on June 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I have a dear friend who is funny, smart, kind, and capable. I met her through work, she had been a high school chemistry teacher but had become an employee of a transit system doing community outreach. About 10 years after we met, she started having issues at work She was sure that her neighbors across the street were selling drugs (she lived in Alameda, so not entirely out of the realm of the possible). She never called the police, but someone did and after that, she was sure they were after her. I didn't realize that this was a named thing, but what she felt and did surely falls into the category of gangstalking as described in the article. We would be walking to lunch and she would say, "Keep looking straight ahead, one of "them" is behind us," and then make me walk into a store or building and out another entrance. But then "they" would pick up our trail again.
At first, I and her other friends tried to be supportive (again, gang harassment in Alameda and Oakland was not entirely unlikely). But her claims would be wilder and wilder. She would be perfectly fine and then not. We tried to get her help, but she just wanted to pray about it--her more religious friends tried to approach it that way with her, but it didn't help. I ended up just changing the subject when she would go down that path. I stopped riding in her car with her when she cut across all lanes of a freeway full of traffic to take an exit to "lose" the car following us. I was honest with her and said I didn't feel safe driving with her ever again. We are still friends, and she has been long retired. She lives in a home that she's made into a fortress with steel gates, cameras, etc. She used to love to travel but doesn't anymore, though she calls and we talk about her travel plans that never come through.
She is African American, like Gloria Naylor, and in her 70's, so I can't help thinking that living with micro and macro aggressions all her life, couldn't have contributed to what she is going through.
Mental illness is a terrible thing. But she really believes she doesn't need help. I feel so bad for her because part of her lives in a constant state of fear. I have to wait for her to call me because she switches phones frequently so "they" can't track her...I feel helpless, but also feel like she needs me to continue to be there for her, so that's what I do.
posted by agatha_magatha at 9:48 AM on June 10, 2023 [20 favorites]
At first, I and her other friends tried to be supportive (again, gang harassment in Alameda and Oakland was not entirely unlikely). But her claims would be wilder and wilder. She would be perfectly fine and then not. We tried to get her help, but she just wanted to pray about it--her more religious friends tried to approach it that way with her, but it didn't help. I ended up just changing the subject when she would go down that path. I stopped riding in her car with her when she cut across all lanes of a freeway full of traffic to take an exit to "lose" the car following us. I was honest with her and said I didn't feel safe driving with her ever again. We are still friends, and she has been long retired. She lives in a home that she's made into a fortress with steel gates, cameras, etc. She used to love to travel but doesn't anymore, though she calls and we talk about her travel plans that never come through.
She is African American, like Gloria Naylor, and in her 70's, so I can't help thinking that living with micro and macro aggressions all her life, couldn't have contributed to what she is going through.
Mental illness is a terrible thing. But she really believes she doesn't need help. I feel so bad for her because part of her lives in a constant state of fear. I have to wait for her to call me because she switches phones frequently so "they" can't track her...I feel helpless, but also feel like she needs me to continue to be there for her, so that's what I do.
posted by agatha_magatha at 9:48 AM on June 10, 2023 [20 favorites]
> The tone of this piece is such a turnoff, and exactly what the author purports to be railing against: a self-proclaimed authority explaining everything with the confidence of Pure Truth that is Obviously Inarguable. If he’d conveyed the same point of view with more humility it would be easier to evaluate.
That seems intentional. Stick with it to the end, the tonal shift is bewildering, just like the topic being discussed
The beginning of the piece of authoritative and certain, the end is just a giant bouquet of questions and brief discussions of a number of books
By the end, the "sum" of the piece is something like an informal lit review bringing together histories and journalism on the topic of "conspiracy theories" -- both the actual plots, and the meaning of the phrase
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:01 AM on June 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
That seems intentional. Stick with it to the end, the tonal shift is bewildering, just like the topic being discussed
The beginning of the piece of authoritative and certain, the end is just a giant bouquet of questions and brief discussions of a number of books
By the end, the "sum" of the piece is something like an informal lit review bringing together histories and journalism on the topic of "conspiracy theories" -- both the actual plots, and the meaning of the phrase
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:01 AM on June 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
She is African American, like Gloria Naylor, and in her 70's, so I can't help thinking that living with micro and macro aggressions all her life, couldn't have contributed to what she is going through.
African Americans are diagnosed with psychoses at higher rates than Americans of European descent:
posted by jamjam at 11:56 AM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
African Americans are diagnosed with psychoses at higher rates than Americans of European descent:
Psychotic disorder diagnoses are common in the United States and internationally. However, racial disparities in rates of psychotic disorder diagnoses have been reported across time and mental health professions. This literature review provides an updated and comprehensive summary of empirical research on race and diagnosis of psychotic disorders spanning a 24-year period. Findings reveal a clear and pervasive pattern wherein African American/Black consumers show a rate of on average three to four [times] higher than Euro-American/White consumers.Whether these diagnoses reflect an actual markedly higher underlying incidence is up for debate and has been debated.
posted by jamjam at 11:56 AM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Eviemath,
" thinking that the metaphor of the “invisible hand” of the market is somehow real or concrete in some way).
posted by eviemath at 9:06 AM on June 10 [4 favorites +] [!]"
Thank you for this. I feel like I have this argument with people all the time.
posted by olykate at 12:54 PM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
" thinking that the metaphor of the “invisible hand” of the market is somehow real or concrete in some way).
posted by eviemath at 9:06 AM on June 10 [4 favorites +] [!]"
Thank you for this. I feel like I have this argument with people all the time.
posted by olykate at 12:54 PM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
He (it is so often he) thinks himself free from the formal, recognized strictures of School, and he is. Unfortunately, this does not mean that he is free in general—rather, without extraordinary luck and discernment, he is completely at the mercy of whichever informants an unregulated marketplace has put in his path.
Just recently, I came across this amazing presentation from Brian Moriarty at the 1999 Game Developer's Conference about the Paul McCartney Is Dead rumour, introducing a phenomenon he called "constellation", as in a verb "to constellate" - the human drive many of us seem to share to imbue form and meaning into chaos.
In a sense, his presentation is both a rediscovery of older ideas (Beaudrillard, even C.S. Lewis) and, in what has turned out to be both incredibly prescient and astoundingly dangerous, planting the seeds of a process that would grow into the weaponizing of those same ideas at a time when game design and the larger concept of gamification was still in its infancy.
I wrote this a few years ago, that there are striking parallels between seeing a half-engineered world through the lens where things need to make sense and C.S. Lewis’ description of the seduction of occultism and the occult.
This came to a head recently over in the ODST fandom, where after years of strange "clues" and oblique hints about the true meaning of the glyphs that pervade a game inspired by The Hollow Men of T.S. Eliot and Dante's Divine Comedy, a connection was finally drawn back to the 1999 Paul Is Dead speech that inspired the developers and the collective realization that... there is no meaning.
There never was. It was all just carefully half-structured bait. Just enough to hint at a pattern, to hint at a complementing antipattern, and add a few hints that meaning was there. It was, in other words, bait; symbols of symbols with no ultimate referent, a snare for the overcurious inquirer working exactly as designed.
You've heard this story before, I bet, in some other fandom. Or maybe in a conversation about apostasy, or deprogramming. The distinctions can be blurry here.
We have very few defenses, I think, against the idea that the world should - fundamentally, in some way, from some perspective - make sense. Even fewer, I think, when we're nervous, angry, frightened and tired, and there are whole industries out there now, billion-dollar companies whose real job is making sure people stay just nervous, angry, frightened and tired enough to keep clicking the things that make us nervous, angry, frightened and tired.
I don't want to say that this is all being done deliberately, of course. That would be like saying, there are people out there right now, conspiring to make sure we're all ready to believe in conspiracies. That would be pretty silly.
Still, that would make a certain amount of sense, wouldn't it? I mean, if you looked at it the right way.
posted by mhoye at 2:13 PM on June 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
Just recently, I came across this amazing presentation from Brian Moriarty at the 1999 Game Developer's Conference about the Paul McCartney Is Dead rumour, introducing a phenomenon he called "constellation", as in a verb "to constellate" - the human drive many of us seem to share to imbue form and meaning into chaos.
In a sense, his presentation is both a rediscovery of older ideas (Beaudrillard, even C.S. Lewis) and, in what has turned out to be both incredibly prescient and astoundingly dangerous, planting the seeds of a process that would grow into the weaponizing of those same ideas at a time when game design and the larger concept of gamification was still in its infancy.
"Paul is dead", said Moriarty, "is one of the best games I have ever played. This ridiculous rumor sucked my entire generation into a massively multiplayer game, a morbid treasure hunt in which the accomplices were connected by word of mouth, college newspapers, the alternative press and underground radio. We can only wonder what would happen if something like this were to happen today in the age of the World Wide Web. Imagine how something like this could get started by accident. Imagine something like this could be fashioned on purpose. [...] "Constellation" is usually used as a noun referring to pictures in the sky formed by stars but I use it as a verb to describe one of the basic functions of human intelligence. Constellation is pattern recognition. "To constellate" is to apply order to chaos. When faced with any kind of new experience, be it images or sounds or even just a strange idea, we marshal our personal knowledge and experience and project it into the novelty to imbue it with meaning and significance. And what kinds of meaning and significance are we most likely to project? The meanings we expect to see. Constellation is in fact a form of self-recognition."In a lot of ways what he's arguing for is the dark-mirror-image of engineer's disease, not a worldview where perfection would be possible if it weren't for all the people, but one where there must be a reason behind all of it, a real and perfect underlying structure, if we can just understand the world perfectly, if we can just understand all the signs.
I wrote this a few years ago, that there are striking parallels between seeing a half-engineered world through the lens where things need to make sense and C.S. Lewis’ description of the seduction of occultism and the occult.
Lewis saw occultism as a sort of psychological snare, a set of endlessly self-referential symbols of symbols of symbols with no ultimate referent, a bottomless semiotic rathole for the overcurious inquirer designed to perpetually confuse and distract the mind. Beaudrillard, incidentally - creator of the term “hyperreal” - saw modern finance, and particularly advertising, in the same light - a set of self-referential symbols ultimately disconnected from reality, meaningful only in their own context, self-sustaining only to people trapped in that interlocking mesh.A perfect ideological snare, in other words, for people whe are smart enough to see patterns, but can't see the metagame, the second-order thinking.
This came to a head recently over in the ODST fandom, where after years of strange "clues" and oblique hints about the true meaning of the glyphs that pervade a game inspired by The Hollow Men of T.S. Eliot and Dante's Divine Comedy, a connection was finally drawn back to the 1999 Paul Is Dead speech that inspired the developers and the collective realization that... there is no meaning.
There never was. It was all just carefully half-structured bait. Just enough to hint at a pattern, to hint at a complementing antipattern, and add a few hints that meaning was there. It was, in other words, bait; symbols of symbols with no ultimate referent, a snare for the overcurious inquirer working exactly as designed.
You've heard this story before, I bet, in some other fandom. Or maybe in a conversation about apostasy, or deprogramming. The distinctions can be blurry here.
We have very few defenses, I think, against the idea that the world should - fundamentally, in some way, from some perspective - make sense. Even fewer, I think, when we're nervous, angry, frightened and tired, and there are whole industries out there now, billion-dollar companies whose real job is making sure people stay just nervous, angry, frightened and tired enough to keep clicking the things that make us nervous, angry, frightened and tired.
I don't want to say that this is all being done deliberately, of course. That would be like saying, there are people out there right now, conspiring to make sure we're all ready to believe in conspiracies. That would be pretty silly.
Still, that would make a certain amount of sense, wouldn't it? I mean, if you looked at it the right way.
posted by mhoye at 2:13 PM on June 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
Chaos is such an interesting book... the CIA stuff is fun but IMO the real revelations are about Polanski and Dennis Wilson. Listen to the You Must Remember This podcast on Manson for a take from a different angle.
posted by kingdead at 2:14 PM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 2:14 PM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
We can only wonder what would happen if something like this were to happen today in the age of the World Wide Web. Imagine how something like this could get started by accident. Imagine something like this could be fashioned on purpose. [...]
We don't really have to wonder:
Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy theory
Why fans think Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a clone named Melissa
Halloween, Avril Lavigne and the conspiracy theory that refuses to die
(the Moriarty presentation looks fascinating, thanks for pointing it out!)
posted by chavenet at 3:03 PM on June 10, 2023
We don't really have to wonder:
Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy theory
Why fans think Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a clone named Melissa
Halloween, Avril Lavigne and the conspiracy theory that refuses to die
(the Moriarty presentation looks fascinating, thanks for pointing it out!)
posted by chavenet at 3:03 PM on June 10, 2023
If he’d conveyed the same point of view with more humility it would be easier to evaluate.
It's about socially viral delusions, how common they are, and how easy they spread. True belief is dangerously compulsive, so best to tread lightly in the dramatist sense. Facts and reason are moot on issues of undue influence where discretion is our only defense.
posted by Brian B. at 3:27 PM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's about socially viral delusions, how common they are, and how easy they spread. True belief is dangerously compulsive, so best to tread lightly in the dramatist sense. Facts and reason are moot on issues of undue influence where discretion is our only defense.
posted by Brian B. at 3:27 PM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
It’s all wrong. The wrongness is pervasive; you could not, if asked, identify the it or the its that went wrong.
We have me the enemy, and he is us.
Why so serious?
Lighten up, Francis.
posted by flabdablet at 5:15 PM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
We have me the enemy, and he is us.
Why so serious?
Lighten up, Francis.
posted by flabdablet at 5:15 PM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
We have very few defenses, I think, against the idea that the world should - fundamentally, in some way, from some perspective - make sense.
"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility… The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
"This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for." - Douglas Adams
posted by flabdablet at 5:23 PM on June 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility… The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
"This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for." - Douglas Adams
posted by flabdablet at 5:23 PM on June 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
The author touches on antisemitism but misses that virtually all antisemitic thoughts are conspiracy theories and that all Western conspiracy theories are antisemitic. It’s the atmosphere in which conspiracy theories grow.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:34 PM on June 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:34 PM on June 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Dang, I've been misremembering the puddle metaphor as being Pratchett for decades...
posted by quinndexter at 8:07 PM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by quinndexter at 8:07 PM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
What does it mean to say that all western conspiracy theories are antisemitic? In the sense that conspiracy theories tend to buzz about and cross-polinate until they bump into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or in the much stronger sense that no one can believe that, for example, agents of the clandestine services of the US government orchestrated the Amerithrax attacks and then used Bruce Ivins as a scapegoat without inevitably blaming the Jews? The model of antisemitism in which it is a free-floating, all-pervading and nonspecific anxiety rather than a specific collection of ideas about a specific people is, ironically, homologous with conspiracy-theory thought.
posted by jy4m at 9:30 PM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 9:30 PM on June 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
It strikes me that the idea that all conspiracy theories are antisemitic is antisemitic in itself. Needing to make everything about the Jews certainly is.
That antisemitism is inherently conspiracy thinking seems more reasonable.
posted by deadwax at 12:45 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
That antisemitism is inherently conspiracy thinking seems more reasonable.
posted by deadwax at 12:45 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wow, I bounced off this essay HARD.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 4:56 AM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 4:56 AM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I didn't. This, for instance, is a solid (and to me darkly funny) paragraph that speaks succinctly of someone* I know well (he being the "you"):
The mainstream media has little to say about your new line of inquiry. Every Google search yields multiple “Explainers,” which always, after considerable double talk, explain only that you are wrong, about some heap of details. The great wrongness, the thing you initially set out to understand, they never say a thing about. It starts to feel coordinated.
* formerly a good and trusted friend, now a guy that's gotten lost amid the footnotes of his "research". I haven't heard him calling out "the Jews" yet, but I figure it's just a matter of time.
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
The mainstream media has little to say about your new line of inquiry. Every Google search yields multiple “Explainers,” which always, after considerable double talk, explain only that you are wrong, about some heap of details. The great wrongness, the thing you initially set out to understand, they never say a thing about. It starts to feel coordinated.
* formerly a good and trusted friend, now a guy that's gotten lost amid the footnotes of his "research". I haven't heard him calling out "the Jews" yet, but I figure it's just a matter of time.
posted by philip-random at 9:53 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I read something else from this guy who suggested that playing Led Zeppelin backwards to find the hidden scandalous meaning was foolish when they could just play it forward to find what they were looking for. That's how to call them crazy.
posted by Brian B. at 10:10 AM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 10:10 AM on June 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
overall it was a good read for me insofar (as already suggested) I can relate all too well. I know more than one good, decent person who has wandered into a conspiracy wormhole.
The other night, I had a long talk with a friend about a lot of this kind of stuff -- both of us more or less grounded, not falling for any of the obvious bullshit. That said, we both agreed that there were conspiracies afoot (how could there not be with human beings in the vicinity?), but which ones were the real ones, and even if, how much were we willing to believe?
I, for instance, lean toward the JFK assassination as involving more than just Lee Harvey Oswald, mainly because my dad was an engineer who, despite his overall conservatism and tendency to accept "the official story" about most things just couldn't buy the single bullet theory (not that he dug into that deeply, just read a few articles and decided there was serious room for doubt). My friend, on the other hand, had seen that NOVA episode and more or less accepted its conclusions.
Finally, we just concluded that, whatever actually happened, despite all the available evidence, we'd never really know for sure, because too much time has passed, too many arguments and counterarguments and counter-counterarguments have been launched -- too much contrary information has been made available for any single person to be able to wrap their mind around it all.
Which speaks to me of the only real truth I can accept anymore when it comes to genuinely complex issues. You can't know for sure. That's what complex means. There's simply too much involved in a certain situation for one individual to ever fully grasp. Which doesn't mean that various educated/informed individuals who more or less trust each other can't come pretty damned close to something definitive enough to allow for a tangible grasp on what might be called reality.
tldr: when it comes to conspiracy theories, we can get buy with a little help from our friends. So if you find all your friends retreating from you, that's a symptom you don't want to ignore.
posted by philip-random at 11:15 AM on June 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
The other night, I had a long talk with a friend about a lot of this kind of stuff -- both of us more or less grounded, not falling for any of the obvious bullshit. That said, we both agreed that there were conspiracies afoot (how could there not be with human beings in the vicinity?), but which ones were the real ones, and even if, how much were we willing to believe?
I, for instance, lean toward the JFK assassination as involving more than just Lee Harvey Oswald, mainly because my dad was an engineer who, despite his overall conservatism and tendency to accept "the official story" about most things just couldn't buy the single bullet theory (not that he dug into that deeply, just read a few articles and decided there was serious room for doubt). My friend, on the other hand, had seen that NOVA episode and more or less accepted its conclusions.
Finally, we just concluded that, whatever actually happened, despite all the available evidence, we'd never really know for sure, because too much time has passed, too many arguments and counterarguments and counter-counterarguments have been launched -- too much contrary information has been made available for any single person to be able to wrap their mind around it all.
Which speaks to me of the only real truth I can accept anymore when it comes to genuinely complex issues. You can't know for sure. That's what complex means. There's simply too much involved in a certain situation for one individual to ever fully grasp. Which doesn't mean that various educated/informed individuals who more or less trust each other can't come pretty damned close to something definitive enough to allow for a tangible grasp on what might be called reality.
tldr: when it comes to conspiracy theories, we can get buy with a little help from our friends. So if you find all your friends retreating from you, that's a symptom you don't want to ignore.
posted by philip-random at 11:15 AM on June 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
There have always been 'conspiracy theories' and people who get caught up in them. Exhibit 'A' - organized religions. I'm not saying that having a mostly benign theory of everything is necessarily or always a bad thing.
The disturbing modern twist is how effectively conspiracy theories have been created, amplified and weaponized into mainstream, even electable respectability. birthers, Pizzagate, Sandy Hook, QAnon, "stolen election", etc.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
The disturbing modern twist is how effectively conspiracy theories have been created, amplified and weaponized into mainstream, even electable respectability. birthers, Pizzagate, Sandy Hook, QAnon, "stolen election", etc.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
It was all just carefully half-structured bait. Just enough to hint at a pattern, to hint at a complementing antipattern, and add a few hints that meaning was there. It was, in other words, bait; symbols of symbols with no ultimate referent, a snare for the overcurious inquirer working exactly as designed.
This is essentially the central theme of Umberto Eco's brilliant novel about occultism and conspiracy thinking, Foucault's Pendulum. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this whole subject.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
This is essentially the central theme of Umberto Eco's brilliant novel about occultism and conspiracy thinking, Foucault's Pendulum. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this whole subject.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
“Constellate” is a lovely term. The phenomenon is more prosaically described in a century+ of cognitive learning theory, in which connection-seeking, narrative-building, and pattern-seeking are all well established activities of the mind. Paradoxically, these abilities also permit us to consult t cohesive, ecidence-based and internally consistent theories of natural and social action.
posted by Miko at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
@Artifice_Eternity Foucault's Pendulum is a damned good book.
posted by oldnumberseven at 7:35 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by oldnumberseven at 7:35 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
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There's humanism and there's those who oppose humanism in whatever flavor they dress up in.
Sure, corporate funding of anti-humanism is the opiate we're currently fighting against, but it's sort of all the same over history.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:33 AM on June 10, 2023 [7 favorites]