1. Crippled epistemologies. Why do people accept conspiracy theories that turn
out to be false and for which the evidence is weak or even nonexistent? It is tempting to
answer in terms of individual pathology.
Perhaps conspiracy theories are a product of
mental illness, such as paranoia or narcissism. And indeed, there can be no doubt that
some people who accept conspiracy theories are mentally ill and subject to delusions.
But we have seen that in many communities and even nations, such theories are widely
held. It is not plausible to suggest that all or most members of those communities are
afflicted by mental illness. The most important conspiracy theories are hardly limited to
those who suffer from any kind of pathology.
For our purposes, the most useful way to understand the pervasiveness of
conspiracy theories is to examine how people acquire information.
For most of what they believe that they know, human beings lack personal or direct information; they must
rely on what other people think. In some domains, people suffer from a “crippled
epistemology,” in the sense that they know very few things, and what they know is
wrong.
Many extremists fall in this category; their extremism stems not from
irrationality, but from the fact that they have little (relevant) information, and their
extremist views are supported by what little they know.
Conspiracy theorizing often has
the same feature. Those who believe that Israel was responsible for the attacks of 9/11, or
that the Central Intelligence Agency killed President Kennedy, may well be responding
quite rationally to the informational signals that they receive.
Consider here the suggestive fact that terrorism is more likely to arise in nations
that lack civil rights and civil liberties.
An evident reason for the connection is that
terrorism is an extreme form of political protest, and when people lack the usual outlets
for registering their protest, they might resort to violence.
But consider another possibility: When civil rights and civil liberties are restricted, little information is
available, and what comes from government cannot be trusted. If the trustworthy
information justifies conspiracy theories and extremism, and (therefore?) violence, then
terrorism is more likely to arise.