The Conspiracy Conspiracy

I read an article on the BBC's website that purported to explain "Why so many people believe conspiracy theories," and I listened to the accompanying radio piece that they'd done on it. It was interesting, but I felt that it failed to really delve into the heart of the matter.

Did Hillary Clinton mastermind a global child-trafficking ring from a Washington pizzeria? No.

Did George W Bush orchestrate a plot to bring down the Twin Towers and kill thousands of people in 2001? Also no.

So, why do some people believe they did? And what do conspiracy theories tell us about the way we see the world?

As an examination of how conspiracy theories help bolster in-group and out-group identification, reinforce notions of self as "one of the good guys" and provide a certain level of salve in situations where things aren't going someone's way, the examination of conspiracy theories is useful and interesting.

But it never actually delves into what it means to genuinely know, for instance, that Hillary Clinton did not mastermind a global child-trafficking ring. Or that people have, in fact, landed on the moon. That is to say, it never touches on the epistemology of the situations at hand.

Following are three different statements:

• There was no international trafficking of children through the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria under the direction of Hillary Clinton.
• There is no available evidence of international trafficking of children through the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria under the direction of Hillary Clinton.
• I have no evidence of international trafficking of children through the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria under the direction of Hillary Clinton.

And those statements are, to a certain degree, independent of one another, as I have written them here. (Of course, this presumes that I can have something, yet it not be otherwise "available.") And this is important, because much of the discussion of conspiracy theories works under the assumption that either the first statement is unambiguously true, or that the truth of the second statement is de facto proof of the accuracy of the first.

Conspiracies happen. Here in Washington state, they are against the law.

RCW 9A.28.040
Criminal conspiracy.
(1) A person is guilty of criminal conspiracy when, with intent that conduct constituting a crime be performed, he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct, and any one of them takes a substantial step in pursuance of such agreement.
(2) It shall not be a defense to criminal conspiracy that the person or persons with whom the accused is alleged to have conspired:
     (a) Has not been prosecuted or convicted; or
     (b) Has been convicted of a different offense; or
     (c) Is not amenable to justice; or
     (d) Has been acquitted; or
     (e) Lacked the capacity to commit an offense; or
     (f) Is a law enforcement officer or other government agent who did not intend that a crime be committed.
(3) Criminal conspiracy is a:
     (a) Class A felony when an object of the conspiratorial agreement is murder in the first degree;
     (b) Class B felony when an object of the conspiratorial agreement is a class A felony other than murder in the first degree;
     (c) Class C felony when an object of the conspiratorial agreement is a class B felony;
     (d) Gross misdemeanor when an object of the conspiratorial agreement is a class C felony;
     (e) Misdemeanor when an object of the conspiratorial agreement is a gross misdemeanor or misdemeanor.

Clearly, if conspiracies were entirely figments of the imagination, it would make little sense to legislate against them.

And so the question becomes what makes one conspiracy (say, Watergate) worth believing in and another (the Brexit vote was rigged) indicative of flawed thinking. Because again, to use the Brexit vote, elections can be rigged and, supposedly, have been rigged in the past.

And this is where the epistemology piece comes into play. Whenever a person is dealing with a choice to believe or disbelieve information about something that they have no firsthand knowledge of, it effectively becomes a question of faith. And in this sense, what makes any flavor of spirituality any more rational than the idea of reptilian humanoids? But if one were to ask, "Wait. People actually believe in this stuff?" in regards to hagiography, they'd pretty much be kissing any chance of running for elected office in the United States goodbye. But when one looks at some of the more incredible acts attributed to saints, or other manifestations of divine intervention, is there any more proof of them than there is for reptile doppelgängers secretly running the world?

And I think this is why discussion of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories rarely really get anywhere... they tend to simply come down to "this faith is flawed, because it doesn't line up with the faith the rest of us hold." In this, it may be seen as a corollary to the idea that "people aren't crazy because they hear voices, they're crazy because the rest of us don't." This winds up lending the entire enterprise an air of pushing conformity. It's fine to say that one's views on the world should line up with the world, but conventional wisdom has been wrong about the world before.

Of course, this isn't to say that all belief is equally valid under all circumstances. But merely arguing that someone is wrong about the way they view the world, especially when it's simply chalked up to sour grapes politics, doesn't do anything to move the needle. The fact that a person cannot, on command, come up with the evidence needed to obviate their faith is not universally regarded as proof that their faith is erroneous. To the degree that the discussion of conspiracies presumes that it does, it itself may be in error.