Importance II: Harm
With the methodology explained, we must again return to the question of importance: why is any of this important? Since we can recognize the extreme cases of conspiracism, we know to reject them. Perhaps we may indulge our curiosity, and check out what some them might say. This is, probably, the first step that one takes in full blown agreement, but we're smarter than this...right? Even such there's no harm. So we shall investigate the harm by asking if there is harm in four actual conspiracy theories. Is there harm in believing:
(1) That the CIA killed JFK and framed Lee Harvey Oswald?
(2) That the person "William Shakespeare" did not write the plays attributed to him?
(3) That the figure "Jesus of Nazareth" was married and had children?
(4) That a secret group of Jewish elders controls the world's banks and media?
With 1 and 2 there's very little harm that can be recognized. 1 would mean that the government has lied to the population regarding the murder of a president. Belief in this might lead someone to be skeptical or wary of their government which may be regarded as something everyone should do anyway. 2 is more difficult. You might think that Sir Francis Bacon (or Queen Elizabeth, or Christopher Marlowe, or any of the number of other suspects) was the real "Shakespeare" but that might not even effect your enjoyment of the plays. 3 depends on your religious sensibilities. The Bible never mentions the marital status of Jesus, but it never mentions a wife or children. However, the publication of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" upset a great number of people who felt that it was heretical. Protests and a cottage industry of books ensued that sought to disprove the allegations inside this fictional book. 4 is rather obvious, this is the exact type of motivation that is used in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, and by the 1930s German Government to demonize an entire group of people leading to war, terrorism and genocide.
Those are just specific examples but in order to develop a comprehensive theory of harm we must make a more general claim. The short answer to "is there harm" is "yes,' with a 'but.'" What gets missed in looking at specific theories is their effect on the believer. If you are a believer then we can induce a couple of things regarding your beliefs. The first is that the media, all of it, is manipulated by some force. Even in the case of 2, because no one is directly addressing the theory and because Shakespeare still is taught as a pillar of English literature it means that even in this seemingly innocuous case there has to be the manipulation of media. You would also have to believe that the government is controlled and that all world events are shaped by an unaccountable organization that is, for all intents and purposes, anonymous.
The conspiracy world view is one that has simplified world events. The French revolution, for instance, was not caused by a wide variety of factors but by a secret group that wanted to overthrow the old order of France and execute the nobility. Conspiracism simplifies history, ignores complex explanations, and reassigns blame. This is harmful to the believer not merely because it makes them ignorant of actual history but also because it turns history into a narrative that needs to be fought against. This effect can be dangerous to others in already unhinged individuals. A person engaging in anti-science conspiracy theories may choose to ignore evidence based medicine in favor of a wide variety of "treatments" to their own health. It leads to the distrust of experts, in every field resulting in the assertion of a false balance fallacy (we'll cover that in more detail in a future post) wherein every person's opinion carries the same weight. Thus a person claiming that aliens built the Egyptian Pyramids would claim to have as much authority as a PhD specializing in Egyptian Archaeology.
Conspiracy theorists become more rabid in their beliefs as well. On social media, they are exponentially more aggressive in commenting, liking, and sharing stories which confirm their worldview (Bessi et. al 2015). The reason for this is a mystery. Perhaps it is a need to share what they consider vital information it is also possible that because they have constructed their own worldview they feel the need to protect it by flooding their various sites with information that only admits of the beliefs that they already have. The further effect of this is that their ability to think critically diminishes as well (ibid). They will begin to pass along satire and jokes as being real information provided that it fits into their narrative. If you've ever seen someone post a story from the Onion or the Daily Currant as though it were real you've seen this effect in person.
This leads us to "Fake News" a label that once meant stories designed to have a political effect, with little to no actual truth or information in them, but has since been coopted as a polemic against stories that report information that disagrees with a specific world view. On the right we have sites like Breitbart, InfoWars, Redstate, (really anything with the words "Conservative," "Red," or "Right" in it) that provide a heavily biased spin toward conservative issues. Just the same on the left with ThinkProgress, MoveOn, and Daily KoS (and again any site with "Liberal" or "Left" in its name). These sites get traffic because people have a desire to seek out information that they agree with and an innate repulsion to that which they don't (Miller et. al 2015).
A correlation between stress level and conspiracy endorsement also exists (Swami et. al 2016). The correlation gives an insight into the motivation as well. If a person believes that there life is out of control, they may seek an explanation for the events around them. An explanation, any explanation is often more comforting than just the reality, that the individual is just the victim of a series of events and they are merely coincidental in it. More problematic is that this creates a feedback loop of stress, anxiety, and more endorsement as the individual will feel powerless against the phantoms that they have, themselves, created and/or adopted.
This, along with the Dunning-Kruger Effect (Dunning, Kruger '99) wherein the less an individual knows the more likely they are to make mistakes regarding conclusions based on subjects outside of their realm of knowledge. This much is obvious, but the Dunning-Kruger Effect also shows us that those same individuals also lack the meta-cognition which gives them the awareness that they are making mistakes. In other words the less they know, the more sure they are about it. Not understanding history only means that their assertions regarding it will be delivered with extreme confidence. For instance Eric Von Daniken is likely more sure that aliens built the Pyramids than an archaeologist who has spent his entire academic career figuring out exactly how it was done. This effect is what makes arguing against them so difficult. They not only refuse to question their own beliefs they are nearly incapable of actually doing so.
Try explaining to someone at the natural food store that GMOs have never been proven to cause cancer. I guarantee that they will bring up glyphosphate (the active ingredient in Round Up) but it will be nearly impossible to get them to understand that those two things are unrelated because they are so sure GMOs are harmful.
To conclude: the harm conspiracy endorsement causes is myriad. For the individual they lose critical thinking abilities, become emotionally attached to their ideas, and begin a broad spectrum denial of expert advice and opinion. Externally they can become dangerous to those that they perceive as the enemy--which depending on the conspiracy can result in harm to others.
Works Cited
Kruger, J; Dunning, D "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999
Bessi, Allesandro; et. al. "Science v. Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation" PLoS One 2015
Miller, Joanne; et, al. "Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust" American Journal of Political Science 2015
Swami, Viren; et al "Putting the Stress on Conspiracy Theories: Examining Associations Between Psychological Stress, Anxiety, and Belief in Conspiracy Theories" Elsevier 2016
(1) That the CIA killed JFK and framed Lee Harvey Oswald?
(2) That the person "William Shakespeare" did not write the plays attributed to him?
(3) That the figure "Jesus of Nazareth" was married and had children?
(4) That a secret group of Jewish elders controls the world's banks and media?
With 1 and 2 there's very little harm that can be recognized. 1 would mean that the government has lied to the population regarding the murder of a president. Belief in this might lead someone to be skeptical or wary of their government which may be regarded as something everyone should do anyway. 2 is more difficult. You might think that Sir Francis Bacon (or Queen Elizabeth, or Christopher Marlowe, or any of the number of other suspects) was the real "Shakespeare" but that might not even effect your enjoyment of the plays. 3 depends on your religious sensibilities. The Bible never mentions the marital status of Jesus, but it never mentions a wife or children. However, the publication of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" upset a great number of people who felt that it was heretical. Protests and a cottage industry of books ensued that sought to disprove the allegations inside this fictional book. 4 is rather obvious, this is the exact type of motivation that is used in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, and by the 1930s German Government to demonize an entire group of people leading to war, terrorism and genocide.
Those are just specific examples but in order to develop a comprehensive theory of harm we must make a more general claim. The short answer to "is there harm" is "yes,' with a 'but.'" What gets missed in looking at specific theories is their effect on the believer. If you are a believer then we can induce a couple of things regarding your beliefs. The first is that the media, all of it, is manipulated by some force. Even in the case of 2, because no one is directly addressing the theory and because Shakespeare still is taught as a pillar of English literature it means that even in this seemingly innocuous case there has to be the manipulation of media. You would also have to believe that the government is controlled and that all world events are shaped by an unaccountable organization that is, for all intents and purposes, anonymous.
The conspiracy world view is one that has simplified world events. The French revolution, for instance, was not caused by a wide variety of factors but by a secret group that wanted to overthrow the old order of France and execute the nobility. Conspiracism simplifies history, ignores complex explanations, and reassigns blame. This is harmful to the believer not merely because it makes them ignorant of actual history but also because it turns history into a narrative that needs to be fought against. This effect can be dangerous to others in already unhinged individuals. A person engaging in anti-science conspiracy theories may choose to ignore evidence based medicine in favor of a wide variety of "treatments" to their own health. It leads to the distrust of experts, in every field resulting in the assertion of a false balance fallacy (we'll cover that in more detail in a future post) wherein every person's opinion carries the same weight. Thus a person claiming that aliens built the Egyptian Pyramids would claim to have as much authority as a PhD specializing in Egyptian Archaeology.
Conspiracy theorists become more rabid in their beliefs as well. On social media, they are exponentially more aggressive in commenting, liking, and sharing stories which confirm their worldview (Bessi et. al 2015). The reason for this is a mystery. Perhaps it is a need to share what they consider vital information it is also possible that because they have constructed their own worldview they feel the need to protect it by flooding their various sites with information that only admits of the beliefs that they already have. The further effect of this is that their ability to think critically diminishes as well (ibid). They will begin to pass along satire and jokes as being real information provided that it fits into their narrative. If you've ever seen someone post a story from the Onion or the Daily Currant as though it were real you've seen this effect in person.
This leads us to "Fake News" a label that once meant stories designed to have a political effect, with little to no actual truth or information in them, but has since been coopted as a polemic against stories that report information that disagrees with a specific world view. On the right we have sites like Breitbart, InfoWars, Redstate, (really anything with the words "Conservative," "Red," or "Right" in it) that provide a heavily biased spin toward conservative issues. Just the same on the left with ThinkProgress, MoveOn, and Daily KoS (and again any site with "Liberal" or "Left" in its name). These sites get traffic because people have a desire to seek out information that they agree with and an innate repulsion to that which they don't (Miller et. al 2015).
A correlation between stress level and conspiracy endorsement also exists (Swami et. al 2016). The correlation gives an insight into the motivation as well. If a person believes that there life is out of control, they may seek an explanation for the events around them. An explanation, any explanation is often more comforting than just the reality, that the individual is just the victim of a series of events and they are merely coincidental in it. More problematic is that this creates a feedback loop of stress, anxiety, and more endorsement as the individual will feel powerless against the phantoms that they have, themselves, created and/or adopted.
This, along with the Dunning-Kruger Effect (Dunning, Kruger '99) wherein the less an individual knows the more likely they are to make mistakes regarding conclusions based on subjects outside of their realm of knowledge. This much is obvious, but the Dunning-Kruger Effect also shows us that those same individuals also lack the meta-cognition which gives them the awareness that they are making mistakes. In other words the less they know, the more sure they are about it. Not understanding history only means that their assertions regarding it will be delivered with extreme confidence. For instance Eric Von Daniken is likely more sure that aliens built the Pyramids than an archaeologist who has spent his entire academic career figuring out exactly how it was done. This effect is what makes arguing against them so difficult. They not only refuse to question their own beliefs they are nearly incapable of actually doing so.
Try explaining to someone at the natural food store that GMOs have never been proven to cause cancer. I guarantee that they will bring up glyphosphate (the active ingredient in Round Up) but it will be nearly impossible to get them to understand that those two things are unrelated because they are so sure GMOs are harmful.
To conclude: the harm conspiracy endorsement causes is myriad. For the individual they lose critical thinking abilities, become emotionally attached to their ideas, and begin a broad spectrum denial of expert advice and opinion. Externally they can become dangerous to those that they perceive as the enemy--which depending on the conspiracy can result in harm to others.
Works Cited
Kruger, J; Dunning, D "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1999
Bessi, Allesandro; et. al. "Science v. Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation" PLoS One 2015
Miller, Joanne; et, al. "Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust" American Journal of Political Science 2015
Swami, Viren; et al "Putting the Stress on Conspiracy Theories: Examining Associations Between Psychological Stress, Anxiety, and Belief in Conspiracy Theories" Elsevier 2016
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