Last night’s post renewed my interest in the beleagured field of “conspiracy theorising”. I’ve spent a lot of time defending some such work but I’m no fool – not too much of a fool, anyway – and know a lot of it is crap. Indeed, theories of conspiracy have done and could do grievous harm: demonising people and turning communities against important discoveries and innovations. Yet I can’t help thinking that one factor behind the popularity of more unbalanced speculation is the disdain expressed towards – or simple ignoring of – more conscientious research.
How about a parable? One can’t have too many parables. Imagine that on founding Australia the colonists decided that their people would be better off innocent to the threat of crocodiles. Aussies grew up unaware of the existence of the things. Sometime the discovery of the savaged corpses, and the glimpses of a large, reptilian beast within the swamps, would enlighten people as to the fact of — something. Some vicious beast they knew little of except that it existed.
Well, there would be uproar. Legends would spread about the place of creatures who grew every more ferocious with each retelling. Soon they’re claimed to be at least a hundred foot long, with teeth as big as axe blades and appetites that could only be sated once they’d eaten half of Queenslade. Some people may be too frightened to venture beyond their homes. Others may grow fat and rich off their claims of expert knowledge of the improbable beast. Any swimmer whose form isn’t obvious from the land is gunned down by neurotic vigilantes.
The point, o’ course, is that people are bound to act unreasonably towards things they’re unfamiliar with. They won’t know how to behave. So, if we raise people to trust institutions that aren’t all that trustworthy they won’t be prepared to deal with the latter fact when they discover it, and if we don’t teach them what that untrustworthiness entails and how it should be analysed they’ll do it wrongly. I’m not saying that’s the single cause of political kookiness but I’m sure a solid grounding in the facts of parapolitics, allied to some lessons on the nature and worth of diligent empiricism, would be more effective in countering it than sneering in the face of reality.
