The Conspiracy Finally Comes to a Head
I know, I should be updating this more but dissertation writing is hard work...and then there's the plague.
Which should have made this blog easier to write but there's just so much. It's the paralysis of choice, what exactly do I talk about: 5G, Bill Gates (for some reason), vaccines? The list just goes on and on. However there's a larger issue that I see developing and it's best to talk about that.
One of the draws of conspiracy thinking is that it gives a reason for an event that is personally frustrating. If something occurs that is beyond the control of an individual, that the individual is personally affected by, a conspiracy theory provides the answer. Let's be clear: it doesn't give a person any more control than they had before, but it does give them an answer to why it is occurring which provides some level of comfort. If you have a perpetual shoulder ache, one of the frustrating aspects is not knowing where it comes from. If your doctor tells you that it's because you sleep on it, that doesn't make it go away but it does make it more understandable. Conspiracy theories provide a similar level of comfort.
One of the more persistent theories I have heard from a podcast I know longer listen to is that Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. There is no concrete evidence that this was the case but fans of Nirvana, who have apparently never listened to the lyrics of their songs, have latched on to the conspiracy theory as a means of coping. Does it change anything? No, Cobain is still dead and the Seattle police have concluded their investigation. It does offer some glint of comfort that someone these people idolized did take himself from their life.
The virus has inconvenienced every single one of us. I have not been able to go to my café on Friday nights, or see friends at the bar. In one week I was supposed to be a keynote speaker at a conference, my wife and kids were supposed to head South for a vacation. All of these things are now not happening because of the virus. A few weeks later things on the internet started getting weird and the spectre of a grand conspiracy began forming.
Now this has little to do with the actual infection but more to do with the lockdown. Apparently we are in the final stages of a conversion to groupthink and communism because officials in both government and medicine are telling us to stay home and not go out. Our individual identities are being robbed by the government because private employers are sending people home. We are being turned into the Borg, speaking with one voice and from one will, even though I haven't seen my neighbors in a couple of weeks. Our only hope: protestors who have apparently decided that confederate flags are the symbol of resistance who scream at medical professionals.
What is going on? Well it's merely a symptom of the frustration. The virus doesn't care about your political party or affiliations but because one group of people have spent three decades deriding people who have dedicated their lives toward a particular study (in this case medicine) as not knowing as much as what their gut tells them; it seems to them that they have no control over their lives. Why would Dr. Fauci tell people to stay home when they aren't even sick? Isn't this just like a flu? I've had the flu and I was fine so what gives governor X the right to close the local tavern? etc.
I sympathize with the frustration. I'm an extrovert, I need to see people--even people that I don't know--it is oddly calming for me. That Friday night jaunt to the café is where I get a lot of writing done because the white noise of the crowd focuses me. The fact that I can't do any of these things is hard, but I'm unwilling to be intellectually dishonest and claim that there must be something more to this when the threat is so obvious. Just because we can't see it (even though it is entirely visible with the right equipment) doesn't mean it is not there.
I've engaged with some of these people on social media and every time I ask the same question: what do you think is really happening then? I've yet to get a response.
They don't have one because they aren't rationally thinking about the situation--not that they are all dumb people--but because they are arguing emotionally. They've long suspected that something malevolent was working behind the scenes to upturn their way of life/thinking, and this is now proof of that. Let me be absolutely clear: it really doesn't matter if it's a virus or something else just as long as it is a national emergency that they can play off a universally shared frustration. This causes them to latch on to some kind of anchor that they can argue about: like the economy, whether or not they understand the underlying problem of prioritizing finance over health.
The grand conspiracy with regard to this virus isn't fleshed out yet. Everything is too new, and it's causing them to have to shift their arguments as the news changes. Fauci was once a hero to these people but now he's a villain for instance. This, of course, doesn't matter. Just as the claims of how we are all being turned communist or whatever doesn't have any evidence for it-it just has to be the case because otherwise why would everything be happening? Other than the actual reason of course.
Which should have made this blog easier to write but there's just so much. It's the paralysis of choice, what exactly do I talk about: 5G, Bill Gates (for some reason), vaccines? The list just goes on and on. However there's a larger issue that I see developing and it's best to talk about that.
One of the draws of conspiracy thinking is that it gives a reason for an event that is personally frustrating. If something occurs that is beyond the control of an individual, that the individual is personally affected by, a conspiracy theory provides the answer. Let's be clear: it doesn't give a person any more control than they had before, but it does give them an answer to why it is occurring which provides some level of comfort. If you have a perpetual shoulder ache, one of the frustrating aspects is not knowing where it comes from. If your doctor tells you that it's because you sleep on it, that doesn't make it go away but it does make it more understandable. Conspiracy theories provide a similar level of comfort.
One of the more persistent theories I have heard from a podcast I know longer listen to is that Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. There is no concrete evidence that this was the case but fans of Nirvana, who have apparently never listened to the lyrics of their songs, have latched on to the conspiracy theory as a means of coping. Does it change anything? No, Cobain is still dead and the Seattle police have concluded their investigation. It does offer some glint of comfort that someone these people idolized did take himself from their life.
The virus has inconvenienced every single one of us. I have not been able to go to my café on Friday nights, or see friends at the bar. In one week I was supposed to be a keynote speaker at a conference, my wife and kids were supposed to head South for a vacation. All of these things are now not happening because of the virus. A few weeks later things on the internet started getting weird and the spectre of a grand conspiracy began forming.
Now this has little to do with the actual infection but more to do with the lockdown. Apparently we are in the final stages of a conversion to groupthink and communism because officials in both government and medicine are telling us to stay home and not go out. Our individual identities are being robbed by the government because private employers are sending people home. We are being turned into the Borg, speaking with one voice and from one will, even though I haven't seen my neighbors in a couple of weeks. Our only hope: protestors who have apparently decided that confederate flags are the symbol of resistance who scream at medical professionals.
What is going on? Well it's merely a symptom of the frustration. The virus doesn't care about your political party or affiliations but because one group of people have spent three decades deriding people who have dedicated their lives toward a particular study (in this case medicine) as not knowing as much as what their gut tells them; it seems to them that they have no control over their lives. Why would Dr. Fauci tell people to stay home when they aren't even sick? Isn't this just like a flu? I've had the flu and I was fine so what gives governor X the right to close the local tavern? etc.
I sympathize with the frustration. I'm an extrovert, I need to see people--even people that I don't know--it is oddly calming for me. That Friday night jaunt to the café is where I get a lot of writing done because the white noise of the crowd focuses me. The fact that I can't do any of these things is hard, but I'm unwilling to be intellectually dishonest and claim that there must be something more to this when the threat is so obvious. Just because we can't see it (even though it is entirely visible with the right equipment) doesn't mean it is not there.
I've engaged with some of these people on social media and every time I ask the same question: what do you think is really happening then? I've yet to get a response.
They don't have one because they aren't rationally thinking about the situation--not that they are all dumb people--but because they are arguing emotionally. They've long suspected that something malevolent was working behind the scenes to upturn their way of life/thinking, and this is now proof of that. Let me be absolutely clear: it really doesn't matter if it's a virus or something else just as long as it is a national emergency that they can play off a universally shared frustration. This causes them to latch on to some kind of anchor that they can argue about: like the economy, whether or not they understand the underlying problem of prioritizing finance over health.
The grand conspiracy with regard to this virus isn't fleshed out yet. Everything is too new, and it's causing them to have to shift their arguments as the news changes. Fauci was once a hero to these people but now he's a villain for instance. This, of course, doesn't matter. Just as the claims of how we are all being turned communist or whatever doesn't have any evidence for it-it just has to be the case because otherwise why would everything be happening? Other than the actual reason of course.
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