Critical Thoughtlessness: Conspiracy Theories and Why They Suck
After such a shameless tweet plug, perhaps it’s best to come back down to Earth…and look at some people who are clearly on another planet.
The last few months have tired me greatly. I can’t summon up the effort to write my cultural criticism blogs that have appeared here before.
Despite the displays of overt fascism made by the so called leader of Free World, yet more draining for me are the endless conspiracy theories around:
George Soros and race wars, Bill Gates and vaccine delivery, COVID19 and cover-ups by the WHO. And sometimes a twisted narrative that combines all of them.
Yes, you almost certainly to have a friend lurking in your feed posting this kind of half-baked potato in tinfoil. For a while now, as a healthcare professional, I have been irked by these people and their fusion delusions. But now, in pandemic times, it is impossible to ignore them. I feel more compelled to share some bile.
Some of these people have the audacity to call their leaps of paranoid imagination CriticalThinking Here’s one of their less zany, but more dangerous tweets for those naive enough to believe it:
To get into the whos and the whys of posts like can be interesting, but a simple argument shows this up as cringeworthy bullshit: what harm does wearing a mask do exactly? The answer is that in the majority of cases — absolutely none. Even the source cited in this tweet admits, after the usual meandering fashion, that some small groups may have problems with masks. But not the general population.
Religious groups wear masks, soliders wear masks, fire fighters wear masks, builders wear masks, nurses and doctors wear masks. Everyday. For hours. All for a variety of reasons. Admittedly different masks. But if you are going to fear-monger you at least need to be specific. Even if the evidence for wearing a mask was suspect (there are questions to be asked — whilst they don’t warrant a frothing tweet like this) they clearly do very many people negligible harm. You can debate the efficacy all you want — while wearing a mask please. And not too close.
Is it possible then that masks are bad in some other way? Are we being controlled? Ahah!
Masks are being “enforced.” That’s the nub of it.
Well Bob’s your racist uncle and fanny’s your 5g fearing aunt! Social control at its most despicable!
Er…but in 2018:
And in numerous tweets since 2018 regarding the usual suspects (microchip vaccines created by bored information tycoons, to name but one) we are encouraged to be living in fear of imminent mind control by the New World Order. Surely in these NWO times masks are a form of identity protection. Did I miss something? Have my thoughts of some mild bank robbery to fund my Sherbert Dab habit really been in vain? 🙀 Oh woe is me…
Clearly good old fashioned CCTV is less effective if people are wearing masks. The same folk who read this kind of waffle, will share a tweet by Anonymous and think nothing of it. Who. Use. A. Masked. Guy. As. An. Emblem. Facial recognition technologies (which indeed have got many people worried) seem to be in an identification arms-race with mask coverings and ways to avoid detection. Surely we should be critical thunking about that…
But there’s deafening silence about this battle over the wearing of masks and FR, clearly a freedom issue, from the not so CriticalThinking .
Instead we are prompted to worry about the devious implants in vaccines put there by a shadowy group of people who want to give you a “quantum dot” (another claim easily falsified) Even though most of our information is already available to those who may want, or need it. Dating websites, shopping companies to name but a few, are harvesting data on our every click-stroke. I doubt them and the big government collusion are concerned if your dressed in this season’s antifa. They have so many other ways to know who you are, ducky.
This type of uncritical thinking is symptomatic of pages like this (and I must say I feel a little guilty for highlighting such a small one compared to the pulpits of David Icke and of Alex Jones, those babbling titans of conspiracism). But if you call yourself “critical thinking,” and you can’t even do the simple thoughts, then your arguments may not be as clever as you think they are.
Poor old CriticalThinking . Perhaps we may yet find something in common.
Looking at conspiracy theory pushers more generally, the claims they make often follow a certain pattern:
Our claims cannot be proved true due to a cover-up, and if you challenge them you are obviously involved in that cover-up. It is twist on guilt by association. An argument can involve a variety of participants all pushing their view, some perhaps in partial agreement. That does not make people who disagree with you against you.
Another common pattern is “shotgun argumentation” (a type of appeal that I remember vividly from those pushing the 9/11 cover-up theory back in my uni days — which though I thought suspicious did not warrant a conspiracy theory). In “shotgun argumentation” the conspiracists says that: there is so much evidence against x, that that there must be something strange going on. Does a weighing up of evidence take place? Very rarely. There is a lot of evidence to suggest Jeffrey Epstein was a prolific sex offender. But within that evidence the video recordings of his crimes that exist far outweigh the creepy fact he bought books called “SM 101: A Realistic Introduction”, “SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude — Principles, Skills and Tools” As ghastly an image as this portrays of a depraved individual, it is suppositional. Conspiracy theorists frequently have little regard for categories of evidence. It is why they wade through the global warming debate-swamp with the crocodiles of meta-analysis snapping at the sides.
This is not to say that conspiracies don’t happen. But they do not often remain secret. It’s a well-worn phrase, but conspiracy theorists want to have their cake and eat it. If the evil plans were so cunning and well contrived, how the Hell could anyone find out about them? And if you were so powerful and dastardly, wouldn’t you hide them better in the first place? Can you imagine Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, being at the fulcrum of anyone’s plans? The man is pure reaction. He needs his myopic, and brazen adviser Dominic Cummings to do the thinking. People who are malevolent through the mechanisms of capitalism seldom need to hide, unless what they’ve done is truly reprehensible.
Unfortunately, while some conspiracists may be harmless cranks, or purport the kind of euphoric and delerious ideas present in the New Age and hippy movement, or really just regurgitate the Fortean Times, others provide fuel for more extreme and cynical ideas (at heart many of the aforementioned people have a nagging and valid suspicion that not all is right with The World). This video does a great job of explaining how manipulative Neo-fascists individuals like Steve Bannon prey on the unwary:
Legitimate and sporadic anti-fascism is redrawn as the work of puppet masters. Ethnic minorities conspire to undermine the fabric of society. It sounds like crazy shit, because it is crazy shit. But underneath there is a tension — the tension that leftists know…the fact that capitalism is harming our planet and making our lives a misery. The CTs try to cast their line in the pool of ideas. Instead of pulling out the prize catfish of structural understanding and empathy with our fellow man, they pull out an old boot, that leaves more questions than answers. “Will we really ever know?” is their defensive riposte when a spidery synergy of anti-semitism, quackery and suspicion crumbles to ash in their limpid hands…
Yes I bloody well hope so.
So what can we do about conspiracy theorists?
Nurses, doctors, scientists of different schools, lawyers and other professionals can make a huge difference in highlighting the nonsense that emerges out of their pulpits. Many times I have seen paranoaic fantasies shredded by people who actually work in a given area and can give almost tactile and convincing examples. We can pressure social media to take things down sharpish. However, quite often as with an inferno it can be hard to find where the flames first broke out. Not every conspiracy is a theory, as stated before, and some people may just be mistaken in a understandable assumption.
People often believe those within their social ambit. It may be cruel at times, but defriending and asking others to de-friend people who push the more harmful ideas of the CT world (those unvalidating the existence of the vulnerable, or capitalising on tragedies like Sandy Hook) may be an option. Social stigmatising is a brutal but necessary part of human life. Asking a small group of mutual friends if they will conditionally commit to unfollowing such individuals could be a powerful tool. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. And subsequently, people should be able to come back from their worst comments and notions, should they remedy them. The fact that so much of interaction nowadays takes place digitally allows people to diseminate their most wild ideas, and see them in a vaccuum, without realising their impact.
In every case, the above suggestion may be a little harsh, Speaking to people on their level can be important. If you’ve been following the news over the last few weeks, the problem of white supremacy can’t be far from your mind. Whilst I am not singling out women specifically, in I Need to Talk to Spiritual White Women About White Supremacy (Part One)Layla F. Saad makes a valiant effort in addressing white privilege in the New Age and spirituality movements. A simple conversation with someone you trust, someone who knows as much as you on a topic and shares your interests, can have lasting impacts.
But we shouldn’t be afraid of calling things out; all of us are guilty of not doing as much as we can. Perhaps CriticalThinking and I could one day end up as some kind of allies. I don’t despair so much when I read a Twitter handle description like this:
Centralised, hierarchical structures result in unequal distribution of wealth and institutions that fail to deliver on their promises but the world is changing.
And perhaps we could do that whilst wearing masks, or not wearing masks.
I’m easy.
If the stars align, my destiny manifests and the healing crystals allow I may try and write up a second part to this post, that looks at the interaction between left wing theory and conspiracy theory, and how we can push against tinfoil warriors’ corrosive output. But if I disappear you know they got me.
Reading (other links as inserts):
https://www.livescience.com/face-masks-eye-protection-covid-19-prevention.html
Other useful links / sources:
