Community Voices: I’ve lost my patience for conspiracy theories – SW News Media
One of my fears about emerging from the pandemic is that I’ve lost my sense of humor. I’ll be forced to get together with friends and family whose eccentricities used to be mildly entertaining, but after the last year, I’ve lost my patience for conspiracy theories and other nutty beliefs.
Conspiracy theories are nothing new. Remember, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned?” Emperor Nero was blamed with causing the fire that destroyed Rome in 64 A.D. Besides the fact that fiddles hadn’t been invented, Nero was out of town when the fire started. Nevertheless, the conspiracy theorists blamed him. So, he started a counter-theory that the Christians started the fire. Thus, many of them were arrested and executed. Crowded wooden buildings stuffed with flammables, cooking fires and high winds had nothing to do with it. Facts have never been the foundation of conspiracy theories.
But today, with social media, these baseless theories are spreading faster than ever. How can people believe these crazy internet rumors? Psychologists have actually researched this.
In one study, participants labeled two clean bottles of sugar water. On one, they put a label reading “Sugar” on the other “Sodium Cyanide, Poison.” Participants then were reluctant to drink from the bottle that they had labeled cyanide. They believed their own lie, even though they knew better.
Psychologists have examined the reasons we accept things like conspiracy theories. Although we think we are totally rational beings, we naturally sort through information and accept the “facts” that agree with our pre-existing beliefs — confirmation bias.
Also, human beings feel more secure in a world we understand. We want control over our lives. However, in a year with a worldwide pandemic, social unrest and an absolutely irrational political environment, we’ve lost control. We crave an explanation of the unexplainable.
Conspiracy theories thrive in this environment. We can blame these problems on groups of powerful people with sinister goals. If someone offers a marginally plausible explanation that fits with some of our previous beliefs, we’ll grasp on to it. It helps make sense of the nonsense.
Then, there are folks who insist they have the explanation that no one else has found. While other people are sheep, they alone (or their group) know the truth. It feeds their ego, or their bank account if it generates more internet exposure.
A University of Chicago poll found that more than 50% of Americans believe in one conspiracy story or another. Nineteen percent believe the government was behind the 9/11 attacks, 25% believe the 2008 recession was caused by a cabal of Wall Street bankers and 11% believe that compact fluorescent lightbulbs make people obedient and easier to control!
It doesn’t stop there. We have the flat-earthers, believers in lizard people and those still questioning the Kennedy assassination. Others insist that the moon landing was faked, Area 51 has aliens, and Princess Dianna, Elvis and JFK Jr are not really dead. I was recently told that JFK Jr had been planning to run with Trump as his vice president. Evidently, he couldn’t fit it into his schedule.
A case study for false theories is the baseless claim that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. There is a birth certificate, a birth announcement in the newspaper and eyewitnesses. As one researcher stated, “It’s as documented as any historical fact.” Yet for some people, there is no evidence that would change their mistaken beliefs.
Sure, I used to nod and smile at these folks, but not this year. I had friends die. People lost lives, jobs, homes, businesses. Don’t tell me the pandemic was created by the deep state, George Soros or Bill Gates. Groups who insist that the virus is just the flu, or an absolute hoax, also insist that 5G cell towers spread the virus. How can someone hold the opposing views that the pandemic is a total hoax but at the same time it was spread on 5G towers, and then burn some of them down?
We’ve even seen the deliberate use of conspiracy theories as a political device. Besides the birther hoax, there was “pizzagate.” That conspiracy was intentionally spread accusing Democratic elites of trafficking children out of a Washington DC pizza restaurant. After a man drove from North Carolina and shot a lock off of a storeroom to free these non-existent children, the story was totally debunked. Yet, there are people today who refuse to abandon the theory because they want so badly to believe it.
Recently, 15% of the people surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute agreed that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
In the last election, there were allegations that “dead people voted,” “voting machines changed votes,” and “the election was stolen.” Although audits, recounts and electoral boards verified the counts as accurate, and numerous courts declared these assertions as false, the conspiracy theorists kept on. People believed them enough to storm the U.S. Capitol. And, although we’ve all seen the violent videos, right now some politicians claim that the insurrection was just a peaceful group of tourists!
I’m truly happy to be fully vaccinated. The CDC says I am free to visit my family, socialize with friends and return to living my normal life. But I am not so sure I want to go back into the world until the world comes to its senses. I may be waiting a very long time.
