Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier news editor
We seem to be living in a society that is growing more and more alienated from reality. It’s not just the misinformation spread with impunity on social media and by some politicians — during this last presidential election, issues, records and positions seemed to take a back seat to the images the candidates could project of themselves and the emotionally charged narratives they could tell about the country. Appearances and suspicion are the chief currency of our political discourse.
Nothing exemplifies these dispiriting trends more than the considerable acceptance of conspiracy theories today. While they have always been around, more and more Americans seem to be falling under the spell of some particularly dangerous conspiracy theories — a 2020 NPR poll revealed that 17% believe in and 37% aren’t sure about a Satanic cabal of pedophiles that secretly runs the government, a key tenet of the QAnon conspiracy theory. It may be easy to stereotype conspiratorial thinking as a tragic flaw of uneducated yokels, but I think all of us — regardless of our political persuasion or self-perceived intelligence — should be wary of the easy impulse to conspiracism.
Consider the fact that conspiracy theories are often started and spread by those in power rather than the powerless. President-elect Donald Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from him, or the fears raised by many of his Republican colleagues about a “woke” mob bent on destroying American values — itself a recapitulation of the Red Scare conspiracy theories of the 1920s and ‘50s — are prime examples of this. Many common people consciously choose to believe these conspiracies, but this belief almost always only serves the interests of those in power.
Perhaps the best illustration of the disempowering potential of conspiracy theories comes, ironically enough, from an event that is itself prone to conspiratorial exaggeration. In the 1960s, the CIA, convinced that the Soviets and Chinese had mastered mind control, administered drugs and electric shocks to unwitting subjects to probe the feasibility of brainwashing. Historian John Marks analyzed 16,000 pages of CIA documents relating to the program, finding numerous cases of amnesia and catatonia — but no successfully washed minds.
The CIA’s failed brainwashing experiments present two lessons for us: first, our minds are considerably stronger than we may think. Second, the influence of the powerful is not infallible or total. The narratives promoted by the media and politicians have considerable sway over our worldview, but we also bear responsibility for the beliefs we hold. When we give into conspiracy theories, we end up obscuring our view of reality and undermining our own opposition to injustice and corruption.
Conspiracy theories are appealing because they present a simplified view of the world. They reduce corruption to a matter of intrinsically evil people and offer up easy scapegoats. Such simplification often leads people to misidentify the causes of the social ills they’re rightfully outraged about. Ironically, the enemies created by some conspiracy theories are all-consuming and all-powerful to the point where it may seem pointless for the people to fight against them altogether.
Take, for example, conspiracy theories alleging that the September 11 attacks were orchestrated by the US government. These ideas, shared by some on both the right and left, hinder our ability to understand a complicated world where a sordid history of American intervention in the Middle East prompted an atrocious reaction. Or consider the case of FEMA workers in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, who were threatened by antisemitic conspiracy theorists. These storm victims acted against their own self-interest to drive out the very people entrusted with giving them relief.
Self-deception has grave consequences — but the easy stories told by conspiracy theories appeal almost irresistibly to our need to simplify the complexities and contradictions of the world. If we’re serious about eradicating corruption and injustice, though, we must keep our eyes clear and our minds open — a task for which we should accept responsibility.