Is it just me or has covid brought out all of the nutters? I feel like we’re all trapped in a perpetual version of Dr Seuss’ Wacky Wednesday and we can’t see a way out.
Everywhere you look there are conspiracy theories from microchips in vaccines to Trump being the second coming of Jesus. Was the world always this crazy and Covid’s just peeled back the lid?
Or is there more to it?
Conspiracy theories aren’t new and have been around for aeons. These theories are alternate explanations for the causes of major events or beliefs. By ‘alternate’ I mean that some of them could be considered bonkers compared to mainstream society’s version of events. But… defining a conspiracy theory is difficult and contentious. You see, most of us look at people who believe in conspiracy theories with a mix of wonderment and morbid fascination as we ponder how someone can believe such an extravagant version of events, especially when there’s so much evidence to the contrary. Yet, conspiracy theorists have a different view… they see us as gullible and blind to the ‘truth’.
Is mainstream society gullible or are conspiracy theories dangerous?
A quick look back on history will reveal many examples of governments and organisations deceiving the public and spinning alternate versions of the truth. All we need to do is look at the Watergate scandal to realise that, sometimes, conspiracy theories are proven true. So, maybe conspiracy theorists serve a vital function in a democracy… maybe we need people to question what we all accept as truth and to expose government cover-ups. And look… if you choose not to believe a conspiracy theory, are you really going to lose sleep over the fact that some people still think the world is flat?
Philosopher David Coady believes that conspiracy theorists do serve a vital function in society by investigating the possibilities behind mainstream narratives. He says that people shouldn’t vilify conspiracy theorists and calls people who argue with them ‘conspiracy baiters’. He says that conspiracy theories only hurt the people who believe them and that we should leave them alone 1.
I would argue that when someone’s telling me the moon landing was faked or the earth is flat, it’s hard to not take the bait.
Personally, I think that conspiracy theories do more harm than good and it’s not just harm for those who believe. I believe that conspiracy theories do harm on two levels:
- Firstly, they harm us intellectually because they block us from other knowledge. As philosopher Quassim Cassam notes, conspiracy theories ‘prevent us from knowing things that we would otherwise know’.
- Secondly, they harm us if such beliefs prevent us from taking action where action is required or if they stall us when intervention is needed.
Sure, a flat-earther may not do much harm but what about climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and covid-deniers? Conspiracy theories in these such topics have serious consequences for all of us. Imagine being the child of anti-vaxxer parents who becomes ill or having a loved one die from Covid, only to have some non-medical expert on Facebook tell you it’s a hoax!
You see, issues of climate change and vaccination require major support and action from global societies. When misinformation damages this trust and hinders people’s actions, it becomes a major problem for all of us. Misinformation has also been around forever but, in the modern age of social media, the damage is fast and widespread. Studies have shown that higher use of news on social media is associated with higher conspiracy beliefs and, since the outbreak of Covid, conspiracy theories surrounding the pandemic have been rampant on social media 2.
Epistemic bubbles and echo chambers
The way we access information has changed and there are two key social structures that can form and fuel conspiracy theories and misinformation and these are called epistemic bubbles and echo chambers.
An epistemic bubble is a social structure that filters outside, opposing voices through omission. These groups may form organically out of no ill will. Often they form simply because of the fact that, as humans, we choose like-minded friends who probably have similar political and social views.
This is fine but we need to be aware that when we repurpose our Facebook friends as our information networks, we are not going to be exposed to opposing views and we will encounter a massively inflated level of agreement. Now, technology also serves us like-minded search results and content. Sites like Google and Facebook have hidden algorithms that serve us personalised search suggestions and content they know we will already like… scary. Here I was just thinking that everyone agrees with me because I’m such an agreeable person!
Yet, the thing about epistemic bubbles is, while they do form easily, they’re also easy to ‘pop’. These aren’t cults with brainwashed members… it’s just a bunch of like-minded people being served stuff that supports their views. But, if you expose them to outside information, these folks will re-evaluate their position.
The bigger problem is echo chambers
Like the bubbles, an echo chamber is a social structure but it’s one that doesn’t filter outside information… it does something worse. These groups allow outside voices in but they actively discredit any outside sources of information. Echo chambers are like cults where they create a massive divide between members and non-members. They do this by amplifying the voices of members and exaggerating their echo chamber leader’s own credentials while actively discrediting any outside sources or voices.
Think of Trump referring to any source that doesn’t agree with him as ‘fake news’ or ‘lamestream media’. Before Trump, studies were done on Rush Limbaugh and found the exact same behaviour. Rush would discredit any outsiders, rendering any information outside his echo chamber incorrect, creating a great allegiance and a massively heightened level of agreeability in his listeners.
The hardest thing about echo chambers is that exposing their members to new information has no impact. What’s worse is that showing them counter-evidence actually reinforces their view through what’s called the ‘backfire effect’.
What happens in the backfire effect is, when someone’s shown evidence against their views, they don’t re-evaluate. Instead, they double down on their views and hold their opinions even stronger. This is very strong in echo chambers because its members have been prepared for such onslaughts and have already been told that ‘outsiders will say this or that because they’re ignorant’… So, trying to argue with these folks not only strengthens their beliefs, it actually proves their point (in their mind) and adds to the perceived credibility of their leaders and other echo chamber members because they’ve been told what outsiders will say. It’s all very cult-like indeed.
The way out
This all sounds pretty doomsday and I don’t mean in a conspiracy theory kind of way… Yet, I do have a proposed solution to this.
I believe that belief in conspiracy theories are driven by fear, the desire for autonomy and the need to feel safe and in control of the world. It may sound like I’m summing up a whole group here with this statement but numerous studies have been done that demonstrate that people who believe one conspiracy theory will likely believe many other (completely unrelated) conspiracy theories. One example was a study that showed that anti-vaxxers were also like to believe in theories such as Obama is a Muslim and that the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 attacks 3. This tells us that there must be a common underlying psychological motive.
What I’m saying here is that believing conspiracy theories is an attempt to feel in control. In other words, it’s easier to believe that there’s a secret level of control and a grand plan behind horrific events than to accept the chaos and random nature of the world. It’s no surprise indeed that beliefs in conspiracy theories peak during periods of uncertainty and social change… hello Covid, Trump, etc… you get the point!
But why do we feel like this?
Some philosophers and psychologists deem the current times as the ‘post-truth era’… I mean, one only needs to watch Trump saying “we’ve done a fantastic job with Covid” to realise that the truth really doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
But, I think it’s more than this. I think it’s more the post-expert era. Essentially many people don’t trust (or even like) experts. It’s as if experts are considered pesky, doomsday prophets who inconvenience us with their ‘evidence’ that goes against our personal views.
You see, the problem is that we now live in a world of hyper specialisation where we have no choice but to rely on long chains of experts. Human knowledge is fractured across many specialist domains and has been acquired over many generations. In short… no single human can know everything which forces us to place massive trust in others. I think that this outsourcing of knowledge and opinion leaves us feeling anxious and not in control and this often drives conspiracy beliefs.
During the Brexit debate, the British politician Michale Gove said “the people of this country have had enough of experts” and I’m sure this is the sentiment of many… It certainly was of Trump! Yet, the irony is that we trust experts without a second thought in everyday life. So, why do we turn against them when it comes to matters of vaccines or Brexit? As Cassam put it:
‘If we rely on experts to know the condition of our hearts or cars, it is absurd to think that we shouldn’t rely on experts to know the economic impact of Brexit or the safety of vaccines’4.
I think that the reason our trust suddenly changes is that major events trigger our fear and need for control and, when this happens, some people act strangely in terms of where they place their trust.
So what’s the solution?
Look, it’s easy to label conspiracy theorists as uneducated and, because of this, education is often suggested as a solution. Studies have shown that the higher the scholastic achievement of a person, the less likely they are to endorse conspiracy theories such as anti-vaxxism 5. Others argue that members of echo chambers suffer from ‘intellectual vices’ such as closed-mindedness, so education should be the solution.
I agree that education is part of the solution but, as I’ve said, if fear and the need for control are the main drivers then we need to look beyond education. Studies done on cultural beliefs show us that, on matters that are politically charged, our cultural beliefs actually come before any knowledge or facts on an issue 6. What happens with these emotionally charged topics is that people default to their cultural worldview about what they consider makes a good society over what they actually know epistemically.
So, I think if we can address some cultural worldviews, we can find some common ground. I’d say that an anti and pro-vaxer would both value autonomy and the need to feel safe. So, we need to tie our education and messaging on such issues into the cultural framework of those receiving the message.
A great example of this is how Bhutan recently became a world leader in Covid vaccination rate. The government consulted with Buddhist monks to determine the most auspicious time to inoculate people using astrology and tradition as determining factors. This combining of medicine and cultural worldview had a positive effect, increasing the people’s trust in the government and the vaccine and the results speak for themselves.
To sum it up… I think all this shows us that it’s not simply knowledge or education that drives beliefs in conspiracy theories and spreads misinformation. It is trust in sources. Both conspiracy theorists and non-conspiracy theorists may possess the same level of education, curiosity and epistemic vigilance however, it is our culture that defines our world view and this view dictates what sources we trust. When our values and beliefs are threatened around key fear-based events, our need for autonomy and to feel safe and in control of our world comes first. For some, it is more comforting to believe events are orchestrated by secret societies than to accept the chaos and lack of control we all face in our world.
Footnotes
- COADY, D. 2012. What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues., John Wiley & Sons.
- XIAO, X., BORAH, P. & SU, Y. 2021. The dangers of blind trust: Examining the interplay among social media news use, misinformation identification, and news trust on conspiracy beliefs. Public Understanding of Science.
- GOLDBERG, Z. J. & RICHEY, S. 2020. Anti-Vaccination Beliefs and Unrelated Conspiracy Theories. World Affairs, 183, 105-124.
- CASSAM, Q. 2019. Conspiracy theories, Cambridge, Polity Press.
- ]GOLDBERG, Z. J. & RICHEY, S. 2020. Anti-Vaccination Beliefs and Unrelated Conspiracy Theories. World Affairs, 183, 105-124.
- KAHAN, D. M. & BRAMAN, D. 2006. Cultural Cognition and Public Policy. Yale law & policy review, 24, 149-172.