Tag: cynicism

Or at least the New York Times Online says so.

Here’s an amusing piece:

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories

Because real life contains conspiracies?  Naah.  Couldn’t be!

Now, of course we could just stop talking about conspiracies, because everyone knows how ridiculous such talk actually is.  But will those messy conspiracies go away if we stop talking about them?  Probably not, which would explain why Maggie Koerth-Baker had to write the NYT piece in the first place. So here’s the solution! We’re going to make up some sort of pop-psychology “theory” to explain why people think about conspiracies.  That’ll do the trick!  Gee, if only members of the human race were to limit their thinking to whatever it is that the “experts” produce on any given topic, they could stay sane, and we wouldn’t have to discredit them.  Maggie Koerth-Baker is of course one of those experts, and she will protect you from the pernicious belief in conspiracy theories by psychologizing them away.  That and Kos will ban anyone who writes “conspiracy theory diaries,” one of which this isn’t.

So, yeah, everyone knows there are no conspiracies, and there are all kinds of events out there that might be attributable to conspiracies, but they’re all caused by people acting alone, and all by themselves, without so much as talking to anyone else.  Right?

Now, maybe some really twisted minds out there think that real-life conspiracies develop as a result of chance meetings at the meetings of the Trilateral Commission, or the Bilderberg Group, or the World Economic Forum, or the Council on Foreign Relations.  Or maybe such conspiracies are said to happen in the secret meetings of the FBI or the CIA or the NSA or ALEC.  But everyone knows that (even if these organizations really did exist, which they don’t) all they really do at those meetings is play ping-pong and eat pizza.  Right?

So, armed with our aerosol can of Conspiracy-Be-Gone spray, ahead into the NYT piece we venture!

“The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,” says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England. Psychologists say that’s because a conspiracy theory isn’t so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview.

There is, of course, an alternate explanation for conspiracy theories — I think it goes like “maybe the official explanations aren’t credible” or something like that.  But only people with a certain worldview believe crazy stuff of that sort.

Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity for developing narratives, and even some of the wildest conspiracy theories can be grounded in rational thinking, which makes them that much more pernicious.

My god, they’re developing narratives!  Human nature must be innately bad.  And I have to wonder in this context whether the perniciousness of a conspiracy theory can be quantified.  Could we put a conspiracy theory on the Wild-O-Meter, and if it goes above a certain number, then we could say it’s pernicious?  This could be important in distinguishing pernicious theories from merely innocuous ones.

Here’s an example.  Just after the disaster of September 11th, 2001, the Bush administration allowed the bin Laden family to be flown out of the country without so much as an FBI question on a day when every airplane in America was grounded.  Let’s say (hypothetically; we don’t really believe this stuff, do we?) that the bin Ladens were allowed to do this because they had urgent family business or something.  Now that’s not very pernicious, is it?  I experience urgent family business all the time.  Don’t you?

On the other hand, some of these theories about who killed JFK, well, we don’t want to break the Wild-O-Meter, do we?  You can’t buy them at the 99 cents store anymore.

While psychologists can’t know exactly what goes on inside our heads, they have, through surveys and laboratory studies, come up with a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief. In 2010, Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The Psychologist, a scientific journal. They found, perhaps surprisingly, that believers are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in particular.

Now everyone here knows cynicism isn’t rational, right?  Your leaders are always acting in good faith, of course.

Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action.

So, you see, if you stop searching for explanations for economic recessions, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, and just accept that your tendency to do so is a product of your errant amygdala, you will be closer to enlightenment!

Our access to high-quality information has not, unfortunately, ushered in an age in which disagreements of this sort can easily be solved with a quick Google search. In fact, the Internet has made things worse. Confirmation bias – the tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports what you already believe – is a well-documented and common human failing. People have been writing about it for centuries. In recent years, though, researchers have found that confirmation bias is not easy to overcome. You can’t just drown it in facts.

And so, you see, our social scientists have everything under control.  All that’s left for us to do is to believe all of that “high quality information” we’re given, and restrain our impulses to reside in the land of “confirmation bias,” which prevents us from seeing the light.

Psychologists aren’t sure whether powerlessness causes conspiracy theories or vice versa. Either way, the current scientific thinking suggests these beliefs are nothing more than an extreme form of cynicism, a turning away from politics and traditional media – which only perpetuates the problem.

Thus if we can all quit “turning away from politics and traditional media,” and learn to accept the system, we can overcome those feelings of powerlessness as they are caused by our belief in conspiracy theories.

See?  Problem solved.  Conspiracy theories are all just in our heads, and the quicker we recognize that, the more easily we’ll be able to ignore them, and get on with the enlightened task of believing what we’re told.

(Crossposted at Voices on the Square and at FDL)

There is a passage in Derrick Jensen’s newest book, Dreams, in which he bridges the gap between his usual anarcho-primitivist plain talk and the more “expert” advice of scientists such as James Hansen and populists such as Bill McKibben.  It goes as follows:

We all know what we must do to curtail global warming.  We must dismantle every oil refinery, every pipeline, every oil and natural gas well.  We must dismantle the infrastructure that is killing the planet. (p. 249)

The first step in such a process, were it actually to happen, would be to phase out the pumping of the oil, the coal, and the natural gas.  I pointed this out some time ago in a blog entry over at Docudharma/ DailyKos.com.  If we really wish to mitigate the disasters that global warming will bring us, we need to keep some of Earth’s fossil-fueled heritage in the ground, rather than pumping it into the atmosphere.  

The problem, in real life, is that nobody’s talking about such a solution.  Oil, like oil-consuming infrastructure, is a commodity, as are petroleum-based instruments such as cars, airplanes, furnaces and so on.  The solution proposed above would be a wholesale divergence from the capitalist system, which accumulates capital (i.e. money and the good things it buys) through the circulation of commodities.  The change that’s needed, in other words, is a change nobody dares to advocate.

Enter Paul Loeb, published in some reading circles as Paul Rogat Loeb.  Loeb wants to explore what makes some people activists, in order to assure that there be more activists.  Certainly if we are to have a movement that will push through the changes that are needed to curtail global warming, we will need more activists.  

I found Loeb’s most recent piece (written with co-authors Alexander Astin and Parker J. Palmer) in a glance at the blog Docudharma, where it had been cross-posted.  It’s titled ““My Vote Doesn’t Matter”: Helping Students Surmount Political Cynicism.”  The problem, of course, is that students today have good reasons to be politically cynical, especially if the solutions to their problems are not on offer.  We are not going to get past the cynicism, then, by encouraging participation in a system which does not cater to real human needs.

Moreover, we can establish a rational cause for the cynicism that infects American politics.  In the frontstage of American politics is a spectacle, sometimes regarded as “Kabuki theater,” in which candidates offer rhetoric calculated to woo the votes of the public.  In the backstage is the world of meetings in Washington DC, in which deals are made between actors of various ideological persuasions and financial needs.  The ultimate source of “cynicism,” in this regard, is the belief that what happens in the political frontstage might have very little to do real policy as formulated backstage.  Here I will explore, with Loeb and his co-authors, what it would take to change this situation.

Co-authored with Alexander Astin and Parker J, Palmer

You’ve heard it again and again. “My vote doesn’t matter,” students too often say. Others complain that politicians are “all the same and all corrupt.” How do we overcome this cynical resignation and encourage students to register and vote despite their conviction that the game is fundamentally rigged?

So much of my life I spend cynically griping about the bad side of human nature.  The work I do every day frequently centers around a ceaseless source of constant frustration.  Seeking strategies to reform destructive behaviors is the basic skill set of many professions and basic activism.  Influencing people so that they might understand the correct means of conducting their lives is a substantial challenge and a constant energy drain.  I’m sure many of you understand this quandary all too well.  While it is true that we all possess a dark side, some more than others, recent events in my life have provided a unexpected but welcome sense of clarity and perspective. I note with joy over the past three days that I have, much to my great surprise, seen the very best in people.  Once again I am humbled to have been proven incorrect in my assumptions about others.

The NYT has 120 plus stories on ‘Clinton’ and ‘gays in the military’ between 92 and 93. If you want to know how the media was able to define Clinton as a divisive figure who alienated people a decade ago, look around. We’re living it. Then, as now, Hillary and Bill are being blamed for the divisions among us.

Campaigning on Race: Who here can deny seeing Obama as a person of color, first; and as an individual, second? Obama has been running on race from day one.

Reverse racism, fears of exclusion, and liberal guilt have been exploited shamelessly by Obama supporters. Policy positions more extreme and right-wing than those of either HRC or Edwards are shuffled to the side in order to present a candidate who voted with the party 97% of the time as an agent of change, rather than simply as more of the same in black.

How often do Obama supporters focus on the superficialities of appearance and ignore the deeply flawed roots of a campaign of cynicism, a campaign that owes so much to bigotry and gay-baiting.

Obama’s Ebenezeer St speech is a milestone in this campaign. Not because Obama spoke out against intolerance, he’s done that before. The Ebeneezer street speech is special because the speech, delivered in a church just a week before the South Carolina primary allowed Obama supporters, many of whom were shocked by the role gay-baiting played in Obama’s campaign, to forget that this campaign of ‘hope’ began by pandering nakedly to bigotry and hatred.

Obama preaches a message of inclusion, but sends anti-gay bigots into the south to drum up dollars and votes. Then he scolds bigots for coughing up the dough. The acolytes see in this astonishing cynicism further evidence of divinity.

Obama devotees place the Ebeneezer Street blindfold over their own eyes and those of others, celebrating themselves, forgetting the message of MLK, forgetting honesty, forgetting, at least until the SC election is over, that there would be no Obama South Carolina victory without bigotry and hate, without Donnie and Mary-Mary.

Gay hatred, bigotry, cynicism and lies will likely carry the day, this weekend, just as they did back in 92-94. When Obama supporters cheer themselves, their morality and their courage, perhaps they can raise a glass to Mariachi Mama, and her son who hung himself last month, and all the gay folks who have taken their own lives rather than endure the kind of hate promulgated from the stage of the candidate for change.