A journalist and scientist who defended his doctoral dissertation in the psychology of conspiracy theories, convincingly and humorously explains why the logic of conspiracy theorists is irrefutable, what metaconspirology is, and why we become “couch experts” in mechanics without being able to draw a bicycle. We retell the book “Distrustful Minds. What attracts us to conspiracy theories”by Rob Brotherton.
Eternal irrefutability
Brotherton begins by debunking the popular myth of conspiracy - that conspiracy theories allegedly became mainstream only recently, with the development of the Internet. In rebuttal, he gives a short but very fascinating historical excursion illustrating that conspiracy theories flourished in ancient Rome, and in medieval Europe, and during the Enlightenment. Moreover, some of the conspiracy theories are surprisingly tenacious: for example, the first anti-vaccine movements arose in the early 19th century (almost at the same time as the vaccines themselves), and modern opponents of vaccination use many of their arguments almost unchanged.
Then the author formulates the signs of conspiracy theories, emphasizing that the truth or fallacy of these versions plays almost no role in this case. "Conspiracy theories are inherently unprovable," he writes. “They imply by default that the ultimate truth is out of reach, behind the scenes, it can be glimpsed but not grasped. Conspiracy theory is based on questions that have no answers."
Another recognizable feature of conspiracy theories is their "amazing belief in the ability of enemies." In reality, it is difficult to develop a good conspiracy plan, and it is almost impossible to make everything go exactly according to plan and no one knows about it. But according to the logic of conspiracy theorists, conspirators are practically omnipotent: they “are able to predict with the accuracy of a clairvoyant how events will unfold. They can form a team and make it completely obey, as if it were a single organism, and not a collection of all kinds of people."
At the same time, the logic of conspiracy theories is such that they cannot be refuted by anything - even by direct evidence of the opposite. Contradictions in the "official version" prove a conspiracy; but the absence of contradictions only suggests that the conspiracy is skillfully hidden. “For example, in a 1967 CIA memo on conspiracy theories of the Kennedy assassination, it is noted that in a conspiracy, the assassination would have been organized quite differently: for example, no sane person would have taken Oswald as an accomplice. However, for conspiracy theorists, the fact that the murder was carried out carelessly proves paradoxically that it was the work of specialists (pretending to be amateurs). With this self-contained logic, trying to disprove a conspiracy theory is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.” There is even metaconspirology,according to which the most ridiculous and absurd conspiracy theories are launched by the government in order to discredit conspiracy as a phenomenon and thus thwart the real seekers of truth.
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Control and accounting
Conspiracy studies are a type of thinking: people rarely believe in a single conspiracy theory, most often those who believe in a conspiracy theory in one case tend to explain everything else with conspiracy. Polls in which people were asked to rate the likelihood of a conspiracy on a scale of 1 to 7 for unrelated known events (landing on the moon, September 11, Kennedy assassination, New World Order, climate change) showed that most often the answers form a vertical line. The reason is seemingly obvious: “Conspiracy thinking uses a dodgy logic, according to which if one conspiracy theory is correct, it proves the truth of other similar theories. After all, if the authorities kill their citizens by organizing false acts of terrorism, what prevents them from secretly poisoning us with water, chemicals or vaccines?"
But further research revealed something strange: when conspiracy theorists were asked to assess the likelihood of two conflicting theories (for example, that Princess Diana was killed by the secret services and that she is still alive and was simply faking her death), they most often trusted both equally. The fact is that scenarios that contradict each other are based on one conviction: they are hiding something from us.
“It is generally accepted that our belief or disbelief is based on an impartial assessment of the facts. In fact, our beliefs depend on our worldview much more than we would like to admit it. Conspiracy is the prism through which we look at the world."
Where does this prism come from? From the inherent human psyche of the need to control what is happening (or at least have the illusion of control). “We all want to believe that we understand what is happening and are in control of our destiny. But the world has a nasty habit of reminding us that we are at the mercy of chance. We become deeply concerned when we realize that the world is unpredictable. Existential anxiety prompts us to look for other ways to satisfy our need for order and control, and if we cannot control our own lives, we decide that someone - or something - else is in control of it, even if they are not acting in our best interests. Specific enemies can be prevented, they can be influenced, at the worst end they can at least be understood."
Conspiracy theories are the ordering of reality: many different sources of trouble turn into a single enemy force, and everything incomprehensible is easily explained by the attitude "They did it."
Fill in the blind spots however you want
In an attempt to explain the mechanisms of conspiracy thinking, Brotherton leads an interesting study: the subjects were asked if they knew about the construction of a bicycle, and then asked to sketch it out. It turned out that about half of the people who were confident that they were perfectly familiar with the principles of the bicycle, could not cope with the task - moreover, they sincerely did not realize their ignorance and, when faced with it, were genuinely amazed.
Other studies have shown that people generally tend to overestimate their knowledge, whether it is about physical laws, natural phenomena, or how the can opener works. And this is not about trying to impress: when subjects were offered money for an honest assessment of their knowledge, this did not reduce their self-confidence. The author explains: in addition to “known knowledge” (I know that I know this) and “known ignorance” (I know I don’t know this), there is a huge layer of “unknown ignorance” - blind spots that our brain fills with any information that comes along … Returning to the bicycle example, the subjects believed they knew its device, because they saw bicycles many times, rode them, or knew how to glue the camera.
People take this lot of superficial knowledge for deep understanding, until they are directly pointed out to mistakes. In this sense, another study is significant: in it the subjects were asked to assess nanotechnology. The majority refused to pass a verdict, honestly admitting that the subject was almost unfamiliar to them. But when the same question was asked to people who had been given a couple of rather empty sentences about the essence of nanotechnology to read, 90% considered themselves competent enough to speak for or against. Thus, even a minimum of dubious information can turn people into “sofa experts”.
Chicken or egg
Another property of the human brain also disposes of conspiracy - the desire to find patterns in coincidences and ascribe intentions to random actions and events. Subconsciously, we “easily and quickly decide that what is happening is deliberate. It takes mental effort to reject these judgments, but we don't always have the desire or ability to revise our intuition. As a result, we can mistakenly attribute intentions to everything: look how many people believe in ghosts, gods, angels, or at least have a vague feeling that the universe has plans for everyone. " And this is a direct path to conspiracy thinking: when the official version claims that an event (for example, the accident in which Princess Diana died) happened by accident,our subconscious "intent detector" tries to find logic and meaning in it - and finds them in a conspiracy theory.
And it’s easy to fit facts into theory: “We want to think that our beliefs are based on an impartial assessment of the most accurate facts, that first we collect information and then make a rational conclusion. But in fact, our minds often work in the opposite direction. First we come to a conclusion, and then our brain seeks and creates evidence for what we already believe. And he does all this in secret, leaving us in the delusion that we have carefully considered all the evidence and come to the only reasonable conclusion. " When we are confronted with facts, we subconsciously interpret them according to our beliefs and filter out anything that "doesn't fit."
“Conspiracy theorists often claim that they would have calmed down if they received at least one conclusive proof of the fallacy of the conspiracy theory. In fact, often, once a belief is firmly rooted in our heads, any evidence will only strengthen our faith more. Confirmation bias, coupled with a conspiracy tendency, form an impenetrable shield that protects our beliefs from almost any doubt."
All of these cognitive biases are part and parcel of us, Brotherton sums up, and there is nothing terrible about them. It's just worth “checking our intuition more often and asking ourselves why we think the way we think. Are our suspicions justified? Or have prejudice triumphed over us?"
Svetlana Voroshilova
