Holly Rae Research

With every controversial topic, you’re bound to hear or see the words “conspiracy theory” pop up to discuss how some fringe people believe some kind of outlandish and farfetched slippery slope fallacy about that controversial thing. While the actual term cannot be accurately traced down to any moment in history, it has been a popular term used by the public since at least the early twentieth century. You’ll normally encounter the term to describe the suspicion that certain groups of people or individuals may be conspiring to, either publicly or secretly, accomplish something using their combined efforts. But this more generous definition of “conspiracy theory,” which is fairly self-explanatory, more and more becomes “an irrational idea that is considered to be incorrect.” The term has strong connotations to misinformation, and is generally accepted as something that harms society. There is plenty of pondering and pathologizing of the “conspiracy theory” in many disciplines, with the contributing editor of Scientific American Melinda Wenner Moyer equating being a conspiracy theorist to being a murderer and declaring:

“New research suggests that events happening worldwide are nurturing underlying emotions that make people more willing to believe in conspiracies. Experiments have revealed that feelings of anxiety make people think more conspiratorially. Such feelings, along with a sense of disenfranchisement, currently grip many Americans, according to surveys. In such situations, a conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable. “People can assume that if these bad guys weren’t there, then everything would be fine,” Lewandowsky says. “Whereas if you don’t believe in a conspiracy theory, then you just have to say terrible things happen randomly.”

The implication that “conspiracy theories” simplify complex matters into a “hero vs. villain” story that makes the narrative more “controllable” is interesting given that many “theories” actually complicate many popular narratives about authority and history and events. First, Moyer’s lack of a clear definition of what she means by “conspiracy theory” or what she thinks defines that term makes it difficult to parse out what she means aside from the two extreme examples she cites. So what she’s working with is a broad term for “far-out, hateful ideas that have no basis.” But there are many other types of research-based thinking that also fall under the “conspiracy theory” umbrella.  For example, one of the most well-researched and documented “conspiracy theories” about 9/11 contradicts the official commission report written by a government-created panel. The “theory” poses that there are many coincides, cases of misconduct, and more details about the story than the public is sold. But allowing oneself to ask these kinds of questions means that you don’t fully believe in the authority of the commission report and thus the State, putting yourself in a vulnerable marginal position. Because delving into the list of things the commission report doesn’t cover or address thoroughly deserves its own article and many others have done their due diligence in researching these matters, I will leave this as an example of a reasonable point of contention many have with an official narrate e created by the State and perpetuated by the American media. How, exactly, does interrogating the matter and asking for more answers and poking holes in the popularized reasoning for something simplifying the matter? Sure, there are some ideas such as “everyone in a position of power is secretly a lizard” and “aliens built everything” that can simplify worldviews, but there is also a huge difference between “aliens built everything” and “I don’t believe everything about the 9/11 commission report, even if it was done by people the Bush administration elected the people who wrote it.” The popular narrative about 9/11—the one that simplifies the entire attack into “bad middle eastern terrorists did this because they hate America” is more simple than the dozens of lines of reasoning that independent investigators have brought up while trying to truly solve the crime. And wouldn’t a group of crazy middle Eastern people be a convenient scapegoat as opposed to the hundreds of others that may have been involved in the 9/11 investigators are right? Such as those who committed insider trading the days before the attack? And I can’t speak for everyone, but every “conspiracy theory” I’ve heard, from marginally convincing to impossible-to-ignore, I’ve heard is actually quite unsettling and thought-provoking than the explanations I can find with a couple of Google searches.

Moyer, in her article, goes on to cite how anxious the average person in 2015 is in comparison to years prior, and uses this study to explain how people who feel more anxious are more likely to be conspiratorial thinkers. Although the author does not link the source so you can’t find this to read it yourself (lol. Such a low standard to get published in Scientific American I guess?). Next, she cites a study about how people who feel alienated and unwanted are more likely to be conspiracy theorists too.  In her final and most developed point, Moyer connects shared and individual experiences of being out of control of global events, combined with anxiety, makes people believe conspiracy theories. But the closest she gets to defining “conspiracy theory” is citing Qanon and Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. The way “conspiracy theory” is thrown around without scrutinizing the rhetoric of this term makes it difficult to engage in the subject matter of any alternate views on anything because it constituted doubt and insincerity in the people who tend to write about that. After all—no one who wants to preserve their ego and social standing wants to be caught trying to actually pay credence to “crazy,” “irrational” ideas.  But the word “conspiracy theory” is used as a blanket for any idea that seems outrageous or a far reach—not just ideas that literally connote some kind of conspiracy happening behind closed doors (or out in the open, in what is often called “open conspiracy”). But if you can convince your readers that any particular line of reasoning or perspective is a conspiracy theory, then you can quickly dismiss it because no one really wants to be involved in one, since we that are willing to go down those paths are doing so at the risk of our reputation. So maybe instead of calling such people “alienated” and “unwanted” for being more likely to engage in “conspiracy theories,” the researchers could drop the value judgments and consider that such people are maybe not just weird outcasts, but those likely to value integrity over fitting in. But since the author of this article did not name the studies or the researches she cites, I can’t trace back the research to the original source to scrutinize the language of their actual results.

This type of pathology of the “conspiracy theorist” is common, and I once, too, thought that people who believe in a kind of alternate history of understanding of events must feel some kind of camaraderie with people who agree with them, I understand the entire “conspiracy” differently after going through several years of higher education studying rhetoric, epistemology, anthropology, and becoming a researcher. I also began to look deeply into the American government’s relationship with media companies in my country and began drafting The American Propaganda Machine. Through my own critical lens of society, language, and how those two things are entwined, I have noticed this:

La-belling every idea that seems outlandish or that seems incorrect to you as a conspiracy theory and immediately thinking you’ve “won” for pointing that out is a juvenile approach to discussion from an academic or intellectually rigorous perspective.

Academics should certainly know better than this reductionist. Putting “conspiracy theories” such as the Pittsburgh synagogue killer and Qanon in the same pile as any other person who doesn’t trust the grand narratives generated by the State and their allies. Not all lines of reasoning and beliefs labelled as “conspiracy theories” are about conspiracy, or are even theories, and the term has been thrown around to dismiss everything from vaccine hesitancy to long-held conservative beliefs about limiting government.

To be more specific, “conspiracy theory” has become a convenient blanket term to describe any line of reasoning that seems to suggest that there is more to the narrative than the general public has been led to believe through their formal education and their exposure to media. For example, many believe that the apparently benevolent global policymakers the UN and the WEF are not benevolent and do not have the best interest of the public in mind. So when they endorse things or want to ban things, the “conspiracy theorists” of the world will be first in line to have questions about their motivations and their views on the populations they are trying to control—especially since these groups are not held accountable to the public as they are not elected. Being concerned about this, from a general critical perspective or what some may just call pessimism, seems normal to a lot of people but is considered irrational and crazy by those who are more loyal to popular presses who condone these organizations. But having a lack of faith in the UN, WEF, and government in general is predicated on philosophy and ethics that is not popular or normalized in schools and media: that authoritarian structures in of themselves are at best ineffective, and at worst immoral. And the other presumption that the skeptics of government and power structures rely on to justify our mistrust of these groups is that individuals should be in charge of their own destiny and choices, not other people. The world’s best philosophers and thinkers have been arguing about whether or people are capable of making their own choices for centuries, so where someone lands on that issue is up to their own judgment. But for the people who are more willing to oppose grand narratives, the presupposition that humans don’t need human authorities to arbitrate Truth, morality, and ethics is a pervading principle behind the mistrust of said government leaders.      

Since academia and research is supposed to consider and champion the marginal—the novel, the unusual findings and ideas of the world, it is ironic to see innocuous questions about the grand narratives of the world labelled as “irrational” and shelved by the mainstream.  Journalists, in a perfect world, would be held to a higher standard than the authors whose posts end up on the top of Google searches about any controversial issue, but the bar is so exceptionally low when it comes to the handling of “conspiracy theories” that all you’re likely to get is a “fact check” word salad instead of the author actually engaging with the subject matter. In my article about the controversies around the “15 minute city,” I explicated the rhetorical reasoning of an author trying to call the dissensus about Oxford’s new traffic rules by appealing to definition and straw-manning the argument of the dissenters—never truly engaging with what dissenters were actually saying, but engaging with a simplification of what the concerned citizens were protesting.

The term “conspiracy theory” has long been an efficient tool to delegitimize an idea without engaging with it or doing due diligence in research in order to engage with it and actually attempt to refute it. Labeling something as a conspiracy theory and walking away has become a legitimate refutation of any idea in of itself.  Because the term has a negative connotation to falsity and irrationality, the common understanding of “conspiracy theories” is flat earth and lizard people running the government, which are the low hanging fruit that media discourse can pick up on to attempt to dismiss every other “conspiracy theory” that has merit and research behind it. This is why some independent journalists and researchers have attempted to reclaim the term by calling themselves “conspiracy realists” to separate themselves from people whose marginal ideas are not based on thorough research and reasoning. But to the vast majority of the public whose only access to discourse about world events and news is mainstream media, that distinction doesn’t exist, and having beliefs that go against what the State and State-funded media expounds as the Truth makes someone dangerous and irrational.

“Conspiracy theories,” whether they are based on research and solid reasoning or not, are predicated on a mistrust of the State and a mistrust of popular media and some academic research, depending on who it is funded by. So the disconnect between people entrenched in the State-funded popular media and people entrenched in independent media is in the sources they choose to listen to and those that they mistrust. And typically there is a binary distinction, for both groups, between who they trust and who they do not. For the popular discourse people out there who rely mostly on large media conglomerates and the State for news and explanations about the world, independent writers and researchers who do not agree with their sources must be wrong most of the time. And for the people in the independent or “conspiracy realist” community, independent writers and researchers are always right and the popular media and the State are always wrong. The “conspiracy theorists” don’t trust the state and popular media, while “normies” don’t trust the “conspiracy theorists.” This division and dichotomy between these two opposing groups is typical of popular hegemonic discourses that don’t allow much room for nuance:

• Vax vs. anti-vax
• Pro life vs. pro choice
• “Follow the science” vs. “science denier”
• “Experts say” vs “misinformation”

The practical application of knowledge and ideas is much less divisive: people on either “side” of an issue can have valuable contributions to the overall conversation about a topic. And, as I pointed out in my article about the Coronavirus lab leak hypothesis, it does feel a bit silly when the independent media, who are usually the first to say that the FBI and other three-letter agencies are not to be trusted, taunt everyone with “I told you so!” as soon as that organization is now saying something they like. Picking a “side” is a lot easier than carving out your own space and considering information for what it is instead of what “side” said it, so demagoguery and binary oppositions are powerful phenomenon that can divide people and turn them against each other: one side calling the other “sheeps” and the other side calling their “opponents”  “conspiracy theorists.”  I don’t think anyone needs me to point this out to them, but it is still worth saying that the average person has more in common with the person they call a “sheep” or “conspiracy theorist” than anyone who works for the State and their apparatus of influence—popular media, subsidized food companies, subsidized pharmaceuticals, and the other State conglomerates who control the vast majority of human activity on the planet. The usage of divisive terms is only the beginning of the division between people who otherwise all want the same things—to have a decent life for themselves and the people around them. In the process of trying to find out who to trust, isn’t it more important to sense credibility according to judicious usage of sources and research with honesty and openness as opposed to listening to whoever is on your “side?” This is where we find ourselves having strong opinions about things we really don’t know about because it is the consensus among people on our “side,” which enables a feeling of safety and understanding, but is also bandwagon logic.

A closer look at the words we choose to describe things we experience, especially when we are using those terms in a discussion or argument, can be far more important than popular media sources lead us to perceive.