The truth behind conspiracy theories
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From the truly bizarre to the borderline-believable, there are alternative theories for almost every aspect of human life and history, whether they are widely followed, or lurking in the darkest corners of the internet. In its simplest form, a conspiracy theory is “a proposed explanation of events that postulates secret plans and actions on the part of a group and conflicts with the official story (or stories) of the same events,” explains senior Philosophy lecturer Dr Stuart Brock. Brock, who teaches Victoria’s 200-level ‘Conspiracy Theories’ course. He says that conspiracy theories don’t necessarily deserve the ‘crazy’ label that society has painted them with. “If we understand conspiracy theories in this way they need not conflict with reality. Sometimes they correspond to reality and sometimes they don’t.” Why then, do we always put the theorists in the crazy box?
The first official study of conspiracy theories was American historian Richard Hofstadter’s 1966 essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’, which described a conspiracy theory as a belief in the existence of a “vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character”, concocted by a group of “right-wing paranoids”. Hofstadter went on to argue that conspiracy theorists were “uncommonly angry minds” whose judgment was somewhat “distorted”. These early depictions set the tone for future research in the area. Scholars began to view conspiracy theories as a product of mental disorders such as extreme paranoia, delusion or even narcissism. Indeed, in their essay ‘The Truth is Out There’, psychologists Dr Viren Swami and Dr rebecca Coles wrote that, in all of these earlier studies, conspiracy theories were simply assumed to be incorrect.
However, conspiracy theories aren’t always quite so untrue. During the 1950s conspiracy theories had been flying around that white males were doing medical experiments on the black race. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (‘The Tuskegee Experiment’) conducted in the years 1932 – 1972 turned out to be more than just a conspiracy theory. Scientists from the U.S. Public Health Service had round up 399 illiterate and poor syphilis-infected black males promising them free treatment for their ‘bad blood’, but in reality only measuring the progressive effects of syphilis on the participants and conducting autopsies on the deceased. They were never told they had syphilis, their ‘treatment’ only being aspirin, even when penicillin became a standard cure for syphilis in 1947. As a result 28 of the participants died due to the disease and a further hundred or so died of related complications. After the study and its consequences became front-page news in 1972 the experiment was ended within a day, with only 74 of the original participants still alive.
Conspiracy theories on the Iraq war may be turning out to be true as well. The war that was started 10 years ago by Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush based on evidence that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD) “beyond doubt” seems to have evidence mounting of its own conspiracy as well. New information released states that it wasn’t “beyond doubt” and that two highly-placed sources close to Saddam Hussein had affirmed, previous to the war, that Iraq did not have any active WMD only “some chemical weapons left over from the early 90s” writes Peter Taylor in his BBC article Iraq: The Spies who fooled the World.
So are conspiracy theorists really restricted to a small class of UFO-spotting psychopaths? Apparently not. According to research conducted by Victoria Associate Professor of Psychology Marc Wilson, 78.7 per cent of 6000 New Zealanders surveyed believe that it is likely that the “Iraq war is about oil, not democracy”. 3.3 per cent of those interviewed consider it is likely that Elvis faked his own death, and 35.7 per cent suspect that it is likely that the us government knew about, or planned, 9/11. Given these figures, “I’m fairly confident, based on the research I’ve conducted, that everyone believes in the reality of at least some conspiracy,” says Wilson.
So why is it that some of us seem bent on questioning the world around us, while others just swallow the pill?
Wilson explains that “generally speaking [they] don’t think ‘differently’ because they are us.” However, the “less than five per cent” (as Wilson claims) who believe in a ‘monological belief system’—a network of conspiracies, where one conspiracy may prove to be sufficient evidence for the findings of another—have quite different tendencies. Swami found that the beliefs of this particular group were significantly associated with the Big Five personality trait of ‘Openness to experience’, suggesting that intellectual curiosity, an active imagination and a proclivity for new ideas results in greater exposure and subsequent assimilation of conspiracist beliefs. These types were also found to be more supportive of democratic principles, considering the conspiracies to be examples of non-democratic activity, thus leading to their political cynicism and a tendency to support minority parties as well as a distrust of the powers-that-be. In his research, Wilson has also noted a correlation between belief in paranormal activity and belief in conspiracy theories, and a weak but consistent correlation between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories.
While paranoia has become synonymous with belief in conspiracy theories, a correlation between the two does not necessarily mean that these beliefs are the result of a psychological disorder. As Swami notes, “over time theorists may also become more distrustful of others… because in extreme cases they feel under constant scrutiny and rejection.”
In New Zealand, conspiracy group NZ911Truth.org seeks to uncover the truth behind 9/11, citing New Zealand’s involvement in “an illegal war” as motivation to push for an independent inveatigation into the attacks. Despite these pacific motivations, NZ911Truth.org’s Phillip Rose says that the group “are outcasts in the local ‘peace’ community. While we have an obvious anti-war position, and consider ourselves peace activists, we are shunned by almost 100 per cent of the peace activists we have met… they don’t want to have anything to do with us.”
So, what is it that motivates so many of us to create stories that question the world around us? One study found that conspiracy theories are often based on epistemic biases, meaning that we expect significant events to have significant causes. When we find that information is lacking to adequately explain major events, a narrative is created in order to “provide a convenient alternative to living with the uncertainty”. This is especially true in traumatic situations, where a conspiracy theory may provide for the psychological needs of the individual as a coping mechanism. “When people are outraged or distressed [they] seek to justify their emotional state by claiming intentionality of actions even in the absence of evidence,” explains Swami. Humans will also tend to judge fictitious accounts as more plausible if these accounts are more consistent with pre-existing beliefs; a tendency called ‘confirmation bias’. In a poll of seven predominantly Muslim countries, for example, almost four fifths of respondents did not believe that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Arabs, but instead was the work of the us or Israeli governments.
Given that some conspiracy theories do end up being true, and how much our psychological needs can impact our perception, I ask Dr Stuart Brock how can we decide which purported truth to believe?
His answer: “Enrol in PHIL236 (Conspiracy Theories). This is not a question that can be answered in just a few words.”