Truth and Inconsequential

An online acquaintance of mine was lamenting the rise of "people who deny such a thing as truth exists at all." Because they have become cynical about truth and distrustful of everyone, they have come to a place where: "The opinion of a nameless blogger is just as good as the opinion of a medical scientist. The opinion of a conspiracy theorist is just as good as the opinion of a historian. The opinion of a casual reader is just as good as the opinion of a seasoned investigator."

As a nameless blogger myself, I understand the frustration, but I would submit the following. In some instances, opinion of a conspiracy theorist is just as good as the opinion of a historian. And this state of affairs comes about when the purpose of seeking information is for validation, rather than action (for lack of a better term).

Let's take a conspiracy theory that I recall once having some small amount currency in the Black community, that Church's Fried Chicken has chemicals in it that will sterilize Black men. It's mainly died out, and I had never encountered it "in the wild," as it were. Rather, I first (and last) encountered it during a television program about race in America. But let's say that, because some random conspiracy theorist told me to, I did believe, beyond anything approaching good sense, that the Ku Klux Klan secretly owned all of the Church's Fried Chicken franchises and found a way to put chemicals in the food that would sterilize me if I ate it.

What difference would it make? It wouldn't have any impact on my ability to do my job, given that I don't work for Church's Chicken or their parent company (which, contrary to the article, is a private equity firm), and have never needed into interact with them professionally. And given that, it pretty much would have no impact on any part of my life. There aren't any franchises in the immediate vicinity of where I live (the closest one is some 20 miles away) and so I never encounter them in my day-to-day routine. As a result, were I to believe the Church's Conspiracy, my life wouldn't change in any noticeable way. Other than people repeating the theory would validate whatever understanding of the world, myself and my place in the world that believing that nefarious actors are out to sterilize me supports. But my material well-being on a day-to-day basis doesn't depend, either way, on whether or not I believe the conspiracy. And since there's no real consequence to my belief, other than the exasperation of my more critically-thinking friends, what does it matter if it's true or not? What does it matter if I believe it or not?

And this strikes me as being true of most conspiracy theories; and the better part of the news media, for that matter. The "real world" consequences of belief or disbelief are somewhere between exceedingly minor and completely non-existent. And this is why it becomes a simple matter to deny the reality of truth. Because its relevance is so limited. Except for the few people who go out and do something mediagenic and stupid, conspiracy believers don't face much in the way of consequences. A person who believes a conspiracy theory about the price of a stock, for instance, and then trades on that information, is likely to find themselves the poorer for it in one way or another. Likewise the person who believes that there are actually Nigerian bankers who enlist the aid of random Americans to smuggle millions of dollars out of the country, and will part with enough to return on in return for using one's bank account as a thoroughfare is going to be burned on that, if they sign up. But even here, the believing is harmless, it's the acting that is likely to cause a problem. And for many news-related conspiracy theories, there's nothing to act on. So former President Obama does turn out to have been born in Kenya and ineligible to be President. What would a random citizen on the street do with that information? Go back in time and change their vote?

And this, perhaps, is the problem that arises when one venerates Truth for its own sake. Truth for its own sake is fairly trivial. Truth may have a definite existence in the world, but it doesn't interact with that world strongly enough in all cases to make a difference.