Contemplating Conspiracy: To Entrench or Engage?
This article is the first chapter of the book Contemplating Conspiracy: Excursions into Undiluted Madness. The full book is available here.
‘Even our most basic assumptions, our most solid beliefs, and our most conclusive arguments can be changed—improved or defused, or shown to be irrelevant—by a comparison with what at first looks like undiluted madness.’
Paul Feyerabend
I first encountered conspiracy theories twenty years ago, just prior to the day that would inspire so many of them, September 11th 2001. Back then they were a fringe activity. I’m sure most people didn’t personally know anyone seriously interested in the topic. Indeed, I was the only person I knew with an interest. Prior to picking up a book on the subject, the only conspiracy theories I’d even heard of were the ones about John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the Moon landings. I’d thought that was as far as they went.
I’d also assumed they weren’t true—the Kennedy one in particular. How could such a thing escape the notice of the media and academia? If there was even a hint of conspiracy, how could American democracy go on? It would be a farce. Surely such theories consisted of nothing more than fertile imaginations being picked up on by pop culture.
Fast forward to today and the landscape has completely changed. The internet has led to the massive proliferation of conspiracy theories. For good or ill, they have performed well in the marketplace of ideas. The porous nature of the net means such theories are thrust into the faces of people who’d really rather ignore them altogether. Covid19 has certainly exacerbated this. We have all been forced to recognise that we share space with those who think very differently from us, and whose thoughts we may consider both objectionable and dangerous.
People who perceive Covid as a deadly pandemic may see conspiracy theories as perilous, detracting from entirely sensible public health measures. Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, may believe they are witnessing a deliberate destruction of the economy and the emergence of the global fascist state they’ve long warned about. Both sides have never felt a stronger moral imperative to speak out.
In recognising this state of play, I would suggest two possible paths emerge. The first—and overwhelmingly more popular—leads us to dig our trenches deeper and lob bricks even harder at the other side. This is the path of seeking to insulate ourselves ever more firmly in our existing worldviews, whilst dismissing all other views—optionally in a condescending and sneering manner.
The second—and often far more distasteful option—is to emerge from our trenches, let go of our egoic grip on our opinions and open up to mystery. The sense of mystery that arises from acknowledging that we don’t actually know what this world is or how it works. We don’t know who, if anyone, pulls the levers of power. We don’t know to what extent conspiracies operate, to what extent randomness is at play, or to what extent global circumstances are the inevitable consequence of incentives and the structures we establish. It may even be the case that nobody knows—even those at the top of whatever power structures do exist.
If we can acknowledge rather than hide from this fundamental sense of not knowing, we may find that our attempts at understanding are enhanced by ideas that, as philosopher Paul Feyerabend says; ‘at first look like undiluted madness’. This door swings both ways: just as conventionally minded people may learn something from considering conspiracy, so too may conspiracy theorists be enriched by taking seriously the undiluted madness of mainstream opinion.
The path we take is our choice—and many will contend that resisting wrong ideas with all our might is the more virtuous course. It’s a course that I, however, am insufficiently convinced of my own righteousness to be able to follow. I am therefore suggesting a kind of philosophising about conspiracy theory: taking the ideas seriously—if not always literally—and respecting their proponents enough to not write them off with cheap psychological dismissals.
In the next chapter I’ll continue this philosophising, by examining my own history with arch conspiracy theorist—David Icke.
This article is the first chapter of the book Contemplating Conspiracy: Excursions into Undiluted Madness. The full book is available here.