Our Post-Truth Reality
Non-evidence based belief, conspiracy culture and limits of debate.
(This article was originally published on Medium and has since been updated, cleaned up and transferred to this substack)
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
- Frederick Douglass
The Story War:
Our lives are organized around stories. Regardless of one's perspective on evidence, known facts, and the vigor of science, when it comes to how the mind navigates belief, we inevitably reduce things to narratives.
A news article, whether true or not, tells a story. A peer-reviewed paper published in a scientific journal, no matter how academically sourced, is still presented in a narrative form. The very nature of who we think we are and where we think we came from, whether by way of an all-seeing God or a chemically charged Big Bang, is still a story on the level of comprehension and communication.
The same applies to long-standing traditions, social devices, and cultural symbols that we share. For example, the legal system, as an embodiment of society’s conduct codes, is often supported by moral narratives commonly advanced by religion or secular philosophy, related to what is deemed “right” or “wrong.”
Likewise, the very notion of what defines personal “success” in modern society is built around narratives—narratives that also happen to be largely self-referential and culturally subjective. Today’s presumption of personal success rests almost entirely on the story of fame, status recognition, and wealth, with the commonly shared, arguably dubious assumption that such aspirations actually have integrity.
Regardless, saturated in this world of stories, we, as individuals and as a civilization, are faced with the task of trying to decipher which narratives—and hence beliefs—present the closest approximation to truth, weeding out what can't hold up to intellectual scrutiny. Since the Enlightenment era specifically, there has been an attempt to funnel our stories through the filters of logic, reason, and the scientific method.
We recognize that opinions and conclusions are not equal. Yet, while the never-ending corrective process of information filtration has brought civilization into an age of accelerating scientific and technological understanding, many areas of established consensus remain stuck in arguably false and dangerous narratives that perpetuate not by force of reason but by force of ideology, tradition, and gravitations related to social inclusion, status, security, and personal identity.
While the purpose of this article is to address a subset of this problem, specifically the growing phenomenon pejoratively termed "conspiracy theories" in modern pop culture, we cannot comprehend such a phenomenon without a proper framework for understanding how and why ideas perpetuate themselves. This includes examining how our sociological condition intersects with our biological nature, influencing why individuals choose to believe or not believe in certain concepts.
All such intersecting aspects are perhaps best framed within what is referred to today as the field of social psychology, an area of study that unfortunately receives little popular interest. This is regrettable given how crucial it is to understand not only when it pertains to social outcomes but also in relation to our own personal beliefs and behaviors.
Truth vs. Acceptance:
Our species has evolved powerful social characteristics. Without a doubt, we are deeply social organisms, and one characteristic we share is the pursuit of collaborative group cohesion. While biological science is often presented as emphasizing competitive aspects of survival, the collaborative aspects, particularly as related to more complex organisms such as humans, are equally if not more critical.1
Yet, while we might embrace collaborative behavior, in contrast to all the horrors we've seen through war, human exploitation, and "out-group" apathy resulting from competitive expression, this doesn't mean our collaborative gravitations are without issue.
The drive to be accepted and belong, particularly with respect to one's perceived "in-group," reveals aspects of our social adaptation and hence social nature that do not always serve a positive role. How we behave when faced with information that challenges our views and identity, along with how suggestible we can become to information presented in a given social environment, is often far from rational or objective.
Behavioral research and study in social psychology reveal troubling evolutionary baggage built into us that can only be kept at bay through education, critical self-awareness, and strategic structural social change.
The battle not only occurs within the interpersonal and intergroup "story war" we experience in our pluralistic society, nor is it just about social acceptance in knowing you have to maintain a respectable reputation to get a job and survive, etc. Deep down, we are also at war with ourselves, rooted in our very evolutionary nature and, by extension, our sense of identity.
In terms of identity, as counterintuitive as it is, who we think we are can only be a result of the culture we have been born into. Without the social condition and cultural context, we wouldn't really even have a conception of identity or status, as the very ideas wouldn't exist due to a lack of reference.
In terms of our evolutionary-social nature, it's almost as if part of our minds has evolved to actively counter the ill effects of other parts, particularly with the development of the prefrontal cortex as it pertains to conscious, critical thought, in contrast to the more ancient lower brain limbic system, which is more autonomous and reactionary (fight or flight, etc.).
Not only are we vulnerable to commonly recognized cognitive biases—such as the interest to avoid the emotional pain common to being wrong and hence gravitating toward seeking out only information that confirms an existing bias in a given area ("confirmation bias"), or avoiding any information that may challenge our beliefs ("ostrich effect") and beyond—but humans also tend to be deeply affected by the beliefs of others and the force of group pressure ("groupthink"). It is this latter issue, this kind of coercion stemming from our social nature (hence group acceptance-rejection dynamics), that reveals potential inhibition in one's ability to think critically and objectively.
Study in the field of social psychology, inevitably embracing the overlap between sociological, psychological, and biological forces (hence reactionary tendencies), has shown just how vulnerable we are to real or perceived group pressure, the desire to be accepted, along with defending culturally rooted identities, even if it means conforming to ideas and beliefs that are simply wrong.
To explore this observationally, in the mid-20th century, there was a study called the Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment.2
In this experiment, an unknowing subject was placed in a group of people who were secretly part of the experiment (called confederates). The group, including the subject, was shown a set of lines of different lengths and asked which was the longest. The confederates purposefully expressed the wrong answer, each stating it out loud when asked. The last to give their answer was the unknowing subject, who had to decide if he/she would state the obvious, given it was clear which line was the longest, or conform to the group for whatever reason.
Over the 12 experiments, about 75% of participants conformed at least once. In the control group, with no pressure to conform, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.
When the unknowing subjects were then asked why they conformed, they stated two reasons: because they wanted to fit in with the group (normative influence) and/or because they believed the group must be somehow more informed than they were (informational influence), revealing a lack of confidence to disagree.
The Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment is one of many social psychology experiments of this nature that continue to highlight the power of group pressure, as evident in many areas of social life.
Similarly, and more specific to group identity in this regard, there is the observation of "communal reinforcement," something best exemplified recently by the unfounded conclusion that Donald Trump won the 2020 US election. Communal reinforcement is the phenomenon that a given idea, if repeated often enough in a given "in-group" or community, will grow to be perceived as fact. This phenomenon is, of course, quite rampant as a force of propaganda through repetition in the political sphere, merging with bias confirmation tendencies as well.
Considering the insurrection and invasion of the US Capitol on Jan 6th, 2021, where a legion of people were led to believe, with no viable evidence, that Trump had the election stolen from him, shows the inherent power in this, highlighting the force of narratives energized by group-think communal reinforcement.
In this context, truth becomes a social outcome, not a rational one, and it is arguably the most inhibiting force we face as a civilization when it comes to knowledge development and belief systems.
While the mechanics behind all this indeed include cultural factors, such as reputation and security in relation to public perception of one’s self, behavioral-biology dynamics are also undoubtedly integral in this synergy. Evolution has wired us to seek and form social bonds with others, and by extension, to seek and preserve group inclusion.3 How we interact and are interacted with engage a basic evolutionary design, with our minds having certain built-in social expectations.
While this might exert a particularly strong influence over us in our formative years — as evidenced by the fact that infants lacking direct human social contact and emotional connection can suffer tremendous psychological and physical consequences — at no point in our life cycle are we not inexorably linked to others and ultimately groups, due to how our brains are socially wired. Of course, this is not an issue of predetermination but one of predisposition.
Social isolation and feelings of rejection can cause not only emotional pain but also long-term neurosis and pathology, highlighting the fact that in the general design of human beings, socially-related experiences are expected to occur in our lives to ensure positive physical and mental health — and there are experiences that simply should not occur for the same reason.4 The bottom line is our sociability and sense of social inclusion have a powerful influence on our health, beliefs, and behaviors, as also shown through the study of our primate analogues.5
For instance, research has shown that our nervous system actually responds quite dramatically to the experience of being group-condemned or ostracized due to conflicting beliefs—a kind of reflex. Neurobiologist Vasily Klucharev states that “the deviation of individual opinion from the group behavior (opinions) is interpreted by the nervous system as behavioral error or ‘reward prediction error’ — which starts the process of behavior change, based on the dopaminergic mechanism of reinforcement learning.”6
It has also been found that social or group rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. fMRI studies have found that essentially the same regions of the brain fire when dealing with both physical pain and emotional pain originating from social experience. While intuitively clear, since we talk of “being in pain” when feeling emotionally hurt by another, emerging biological evidence suggests a far less metaphorical reality.7
What this means when it comes to what people choose to believe in the “story war” we face is that humans appear to be trapped in a kind of conflict of loyalty, for lack of a better expression, due to how we are made to feel—both through learned processes and biological ones—in response to social stimuli. Abstractly, we can be loyal to the process of objective reasoning as best we can, irrespective of what our conclusions may mean in terms of our social status, reputation, relationships, and emotional comfort—or we can willingly or subconsciously be persuaded to conform to mass consensus on the basis of group acceptance and the normative systemic effects therein.
Worst of all, without being conscious of our built-in reactionary tendencies, from both a cultural and biological standpoint, most people go about their lives without any awareness of the automaticity of any of these forces.8
We can observe this tendency playing out today in real-time with the rise of a new kind of dynamic, persuasive, mass group interplay: social media. Through this new system of communication, it is very possible that non-evidence-based belief has evolved into an arguably unprecedented and unpredictable form, becoming immune to conflicting rational forces.9
While the persistence of theistic belief and other forms of anti-science, faith-based traditional ideologies, along with mystical notions and beyond, has been with humanity for a very long time, I would argue society is now entering a period highly vulnerable to new disinformation, reinforced by these powerful mechanisms of irrational groupthink.10
One reason for this is the fact that civilization is under pressure in a way never before experienced in human history. If trends continue uncorrected, historians may label this period of time “the great reversal.” At no point in human history has civilization expanded its scientific and technical knowledge and consequential material production and standards of living, only to have the trend trigger ecological decline, causing emerging scarcities that actually inhibit this advancement.11
Put another way—we have been on a forward path of material economic development with increased output for a long time, incurring great population growth while giving rise to a general culture of consumption and acquisition due to the nature of our economic system. However, we are now experiencing the limits of that growth trend, by force of the ecosystem itself, due to the inherent lack of sustainability of today’s social system design, as I have long argued.12
When you combine the emerging ecological crisis with the socioeconomic inequality crisis—a crisis at the root of most group vs. group tension in the world both nationally and domestically—a very bleak picture emerges, especially given how the two stated crises complement and reinforce each other.
Based on current trends, it’s clear that a dramatic decrease in the standards of living for many should be expected if current “business as usual” trends go on unabated. With all life support systems now in decline and very little proactive technical design or economic changes occurring to shift course—there is no viable reason to be positive about the future from a sustainability standpoint at this time.
It is not the scope of this article to argue the depth of such a conclusion, but I will say that anyone assuming a positive future today, without accounting for the fact that tremendous socioeconomic and industrial change is required to create habitat and hence societal balance, is simply a delusional gainsayer.
Now, I raise this issue because there will be deeply destabilizing sociological consequences as environmental stressors increase and put more pressure on the social fabric, a process we have already begun to see.13 Psychologically, we all know how irrational a person can become when under great stress, with biological hormones running through one’s body, etc., interfering with clarity of thought.
High-stress experiences tend not to coincide with rational thinking. High-stress experience tends to result in the energizing of our more primitive, “fight or flight”, lower brain sensibilities, creating more impulsive, short-sighted, reactionary, selfish, and anti-social behaviors. Given this, consider the consequence of large masses of people undergoing such collective stress and how the “madness of crowds” can emerge as a result. As exemplified by Charles Mackay, author of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," once certain patterns get set in motion, herd behavior can then take over in a powerful way.14
The rise of “conspiracy culture” and the irrational mistrust of existing institutions and established narratives is, in part, a consequence of stressful influences over time, generating a particular sociological precondition.
Generations of poor education, lack of economic and social security, feelings of disregard and competitive oppression/bigotry, exacerbated by old evolutionary baggage as related to our hard-wired social nature, has set the stage for what could be termed a “post-truth reality,” suggesting an actual regression of belief integrity, fostering more social division and loss of the shared mutual focus needed today to galvanize problem-solving efforts in the correct direction.
All of this to say that, as will be further touched upon, fringe, non-evidence-based conspiratorial believers occur as a kind of social side effect. They are “outliers,” if you will, in the same way that the United States has become plagued by mass shootings for many years. Why such a phenomenon? How do these people come to be? Why are there more public mass shootings in the US than in the rest of the world? The answer rests in the social precondition, once again, where a certain unpredictable percentage of the population, vulnerable to aspects of this precondition, are going to commit to such behavior as a statistical probability.
The same applies to conspiracy culture. The question then becomes what defines and perpetuates the precondition and how can we change it, if need be?
True Crime or Fringe Conspiracy?:
I have a unique history when it comes to the general subject of criminal conspiracy, or what has ubiquitously become known today, in a derogatory, overly generalized encapsulation, as “conspiracy theory.” In 2007, I produced a live performance art piece called “Zeitgeist.” It was a 2-hour, staged multimedia work that was never meant for release to the public. As a classically trained percussionist and composer, fascinated by provocative ideas outside of normative assumptions, I created and performed “Zeitgeist” in a free, open-to-the-public six-night run in lower Manhattan for groups of unsuspecting tourists.
Working as a freelance video editor and music composer at various NYC ad agencies, along with day trading the equity markets, I had no intention of being a filmmaker or author and certainly not an activist. I was just playing the business game like everyone else, hoping to get my investment capital up to where I could turn the 12% I was earning a year trading the stock market into something livable, allowing me to finally quit my advertising jobs and finance my musical and artistic interests. That was my life plan at the time.
Well, all that changed rather dramatically after Zeitgeist. A friend who attended the original Zeitgeist live event encouraged me to upload the raw audio/video of it to Google Video. In 2007, Google Video was the only free online service allowing feature-length films. YouTube was in its infancy and was mostly 15 min. cat videos. So, not thinking much of it, I threw the work on Google Video as a kind of archive. I never promoted it in any way.
Once online, for reasons I do not know, it caught public attention and went super-viral. I mean viral before “viral” was even a thing. In the first year, about 50 million people had watched it. So, I scrambled to make a website, cloaked my name, got a lawyer, and slowly worked through not being sued into oblivion since I did not own most of the footage in it. Suddenly, “Zeitgeist” the performance piece turned into “Zeitgeist: The Movie” as it is known today, still with great popularity, having been on Netflix for many years prior, winning awards, translated into 60+ languages and beyond.
The work was composed of three sections, unified by the through line theme of social mythology. The first part discussed comparative religion and how the root of the Judeo-Christian religions was really pagan in origin. The second section was a kind of montage of many Sept. 11th, 2001 documentaries questioning the official narrative, while the third section addressed little-known history related to money, the banking system, exploited financial panics, the business of war and speculation in regard to Orwellian notions of a totalitarian surveillance state.
Much debate has occurred in regards to Zeitgeist: The Movie, along with much projection into it, drawing conclusions that I, myself, actually did not intend. In terms of mainstream public perception of the film, it has been dismissed as a rogue, trashy “conspiracy theory” movie, associated with people like Alex Jones, David Icke and beyond. The level of personal attack over the years has been visceral, with most really not understanding who I am as a person and why the film was made to begin with.
In turn, once I realized what was happening, now with a large swath of people interested in me, I shifted gears and made two sequels (a fourth I am currently considering today). These sequels moved away from the theme of criminal corruption and instead focused on societal solutions, particularly economic solutions, as is still my focus today, most notably expressed in my 2017 book "The New Human Rights Movement." I also founded The Zeitgeist Movement, once a 501c3 non-profit, an attempt to harness and guide this mass interest, working to inspire social change through economic education.
Now, the reason I bring all of this up is to point out that I have talked to literally thousands of people via public events all around the world and have responded to literally tens of thousands of emails over the years about Zeitgeist. I have experienced a vast range of personality types and worldviews, including those dreaded “conspiracy theorists,” as they are termed by the media. Unlike academic types who sit behind a desk and theorize why some people gravitate to so-called “conspiracy theories,” I have been in the field probably more than anyone — and I have heard it all.
I have grown to understand the so-called “fringe,” whether on the right or the left, and I actually have great sympathy and compassion for people who fall victim to beliefs that are ultimately unfounded, understanding where they are coming from. No matter how much we may disagree with another on an issue, we have to remember that everything is learned one way or another — and everyone is vulnerable. We are all victims of culture in this way, whether we want to admit it or not.
One notable problem within the modern, established cultural schema — and one that subjectively condemns so-called “conspiracy theorists” — invokes what can best be described as intellectual bigotry. We are all familiar with the vocabulary of bigotry in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, and beyond. Bigotry generally involves certain assumed characteristics of a given group, applied to the entire demographic, with prejudice. Intellectual bigotry functions the same way. It is true that there are certain learned schemas (or mental frameworks) that create extended belief systems around associations. This is why certain sets of beliefs tend to exist in a person’s mind. They share relationships, as opposed to just singular beliefs, forming a belief system. In other words, it is true that some beliefs tend to lead to others. However, that phenomenon doesn’t justify the overt derisive dismissal or condemnation of people who happen to hold a belief that does not comply with mainstream narratives.
To derisively label someone a conspiracy theorist, as defined by pop culture today as “false conclusions regarding secret plots by powerful groups seeking nefarious ends”, may be appropriate when it comes to someone like Alex Jones. His entire economic foundation has been based on mostly provably deceitful narratives created in this way, making him a multimillionaire through the direct propagation of fear and paranoia.
The problem is the mainstream makes little distinction between true crime events, where credible critics may disagree with an official narrative, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 — and metamagical speculation that borders on delusion — such as Qanon, Sandy Hook being staged, Pizzagate and beyond. While it is not the scope of this article to debate any known “conspiracy theory,” we can make a qualitative comparison along a spectrum.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy has critics from all walks of respected academia, with hundreds of books and extensive analysis conducted in the context of ballistics, forensics, medical analysis, interpersonal associations, and beyond. In the late 1970s, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations even concluded that JFK was “probably” assassinated as a result of a conspiracy — with more than one shooter.15 This is not to express a personal opinion on the debate but to show the depth.
Yet, despite the complexity and depth of such an investigation as a true crime event, it is still routinely presented in articles written about “conspiracy theorists” as equivalent to something as deeply unfounded as the Qanon conspiracy, where some mysterious online entity claims to be revealing secrets about an underground pedophilia ring run by powerful people, seeing Trump as the savior to end it.
All this is to say that the true crime criminal conspiracy regarding JFK’s assassination should not even be put in the same room as the fringe, utterly uncorroborated subjective idiocracy of Qanon and others. They are two completely different animals.
What this overgeneralization does is establish categorical limits of debate by sociological force. Since the very structure of our minds takes ideas and associates them into categories or “boxes” (schema), we have a heuristic tendency to form opinions and draw conclusions about entire “boxes” of seemingly related ideas.
If people are conditioned to sidestep critical thought about a given issue, lumping it in with other issues under one categorical distinction, then judging the entire categorized box itself makes it much easier for public attention to be deterred. Loosely put into common sociological terms related to human power hierarchy, this would be known as “hierarchy-enhancing,” as opposed to “hierarchy-attenuating.”16
Hierarchy-enhancing phenomena are more or less synonymous with establishment-preserving, meaning being unchallenged. It serves no positive function for a power system such as a government (or corporation) to endure public opposition to what it declares as true. To have a mechanism to stifle and limit the debate about what should and shouldn’t be taken seriously, creating a condition of derision and humiliation for those who dare to pose such challenges, is a powerful hierarchy-enhancing, power-preserving tool.
The terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” do this well as such categorical, intellectual bigotry tactics have no doubt been part of public persuasion by various institutions for a long time.
Suddenly, if you talk about perceived problems with the official story of JFK’s assassination, you are then no better than a Qanon believer or a flat-earther. Regardless of how this tendency has arisen, the result is a mechanism to limit debate on controversial subjects by the threat of being seen as incompetent or wearing a “tin foil hat”, setting the stage for being socially condemned or ostracized. The average person, sensing this, will instinctively distance themselves from such subjects due to fear of being criticized, serving as a form of social control.
Foundations & Framework of Conspiratorial Thought:
Putting aside the weaponization of the “conspiracy theory” label for establishment-preserving purposes, as discussed, the rise of conspiracy culture, in the context of actual non-evidence-based belief, is undoubtedly a dangerous force. In fact, I would put the emerging problem on par with religious extremism.
In this section, I will highlight some common characteristics related to irrational conspiratorial conclusions, along with pointing out how the nature of modern society has manifested a toxic precondition that ensures the continuation of such irrational beliefs.
In my experience, three things consistently happen in conspiracy culture’s general schema.
First, there is an immediate mistrust and rejection of mainstream, established narratives. Many in conspiracy culture often credit themselves with being critical thinkers. Yet, it is one thing to actually research things for yourself, working through any cognitive biases you may hold, arriving at your own conclusion regardless of where the original claim came from. It is another to simply dismiss information outright because you don’t like the messenger. There is nothing critical in the process of simply not believing something because of the source.
The accusation of “fake news” has become a means by which biased people dismiss conflicting information. Of course, the classic modern example of this is the “fake news” phenomenon. While this has been used specifically as a propaganda tool by some politicians to protect their interests, it is still a widely accepted assumption, allowing for one’s psychological protection against conflicting information.
While there is a good reason to be skeptical of the mainstream media, as by nature of commercial and political ties ensuring firm limits of debate along with biased loyalties to ideology and the bottom line — to dismiss the data flow outright is simply intellectually irresponsible.
When one encounters information of relevance, it is diligent to cross-check that information from other sources to arrive at an informed opinion, rather than assume trust in any single source. Those embedded in conspiracy culture, rather, tend to insulate themselves from conflicting information while constantly seeking bias confirmation, as touched upon above.
Second, superficial associations are irrationally given undue weight. In the shared schema common to conspiracy culture, erroneous, exaggerated, and superficial associations are vast. It works like this: Some event, institution, or the like is analyzed, and rather than take a holistic view of the situation, any association perceived as nefarious, no matter how minor, is sought out and pounced upon, redefining everything based only on that often singular association.
For example: George Soros. Soros has been a magnet for paranoid criticism for a long time, propagated by people like Alex Jones and his large audience. Whether one cares for the philanthropic work of Soros or not, the mythology of his interest in world domination, socialism, eugenics, or whatever — has taken on a life of its own at this point.17
Do rich, powerful people like Soros have influence? Of course, and disproportionately and undemocratically so. I have long been critical of billionaire philanthropy, as it avoids society’s attempt to democratize intent. Why should Bill Gates be able to almost unilaterally affect the health of another nation, for better or for worse?18
As an aside, it should bother everyone who believes in some kind of democratic self-determination that wealthy people, who usually avoid paying taxes, start their own influential mini-governments with their vast wealth, under the guise of charity. It is not any particular individual that is the problem; it is the undemocratic social feature itself.19
That said, what has occurred in conspiracy culture when it comes to George Soros himself is just bizarre. The point being, if Soros is perceived as involved in anything, no matter how distant or minor, conspiracy culture places undue weight on his involvement. If Soros donates money to something, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, suddenly Soros “owns” BLM as if the agenda is now his own.
Again, this is not to dismiss the ego of Soros nor his known financial crimes, etc. He has simply become a mythic boogeyman in conspiracy culture, particularly coming from the conservative right, for no real specific reason.
More broadly on the subject of superficial associations, I suspect most are familiar with perhaps the most notorious term in conspiracy culture: New World Order (NWO).20 You can search for this common phrase and find a vast amount of conspiratorial speculation surrounding world domination theories.
While the phrase has been used in passing by figures like George H.W. Bush, the origin of the term goes back to H.G. Wells in his book titled (you guessed it): The New World Order. The funny thing is: there is nothing remotely nefarious in this book, unless presenting theories in an attempt to support world peace is a thought crime. H.G. Wells was a socially concerned author, famous for science fiction, who also wrote non-fiction theory. The New World Order, written in 1940 at the beginning of World War II, explores ideas concerning how to avoid future wars, establishing peaceful co-existence.
So how did this book about peace inspire so much paranoia? Once again, undue weight is superficially placed on certain aspects.
One issue is it was considered socialist, suggesting a fundamental change in the way the world worked. Naturally, we are still faced with this irrational anti-socialist ideology today by people who generally have no idea what the history of socialism is nor could they likely even define it, buried in pro-capitalist propaganda. The anti-NWO crowd is fundamentally rooted in pro-capitalism, “freedom” oriented bias.
Another issue is Wells talked of a kind of “world government” in the sense of global collaboration, which is a big no-no in the anti NWO conspiracy culture, due to the common idea that human beings will only be corrupted by power, regardless of the social conditions. A deep belief in national sovereignty is also common to this subculture and Wells was challenging this tradition. How dare him!
It is not the scope of this article to debate the value of Wells’ ideas in the work but to show the “trigger” points. Just as any involvement of George Soros raises red flags in conspiracy culture, for reasons that are generally indefensible, any suggestion of “socialism,” “collectivism,” or “world governance,” no matter how subtle, nuanced, or logical the context, is embraced as nefarious, with undue weight.
As an aside, by nature, global problems require global consensus, and in many cases, some problems simply cannot find resolution from an internal nationalistic standpoint. You have to have global cooperation to a degree, and that is really what Wells was saying, as opposed to this contrived mythology that a nefarious “illuminati” group will sit in some mountain somewhere and dominate all humankind.
Moving on, a third common characteristic in the schema of conspiracy culture has simply to do with which events and institutions draw conspiratorial neurosis. This is fairly obvious in that the institution must be disproportionately powerful and the event must be disproportionately impactful. Assassinations, terrorist events, dramatic political events, health crises, economic crashes, along with large institutions such as the FDA, the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, large social movements and beyond — are all magnets.
While armchair psychologists have often argued that people gravitate towards erroneous conspiracy theories because of a kind of disbelief in simple explanations, feeling that something like one “lone nut,” such as Lee Harvey Oswald, “couldn’t possibly kill the most powerful person in the world” (JFK) — nowhere in my experience have I seen this argument verified nor have I found any real substance to the argument, academically.
Rather, in conspiracy culture, the bigger the event or institution, the more impact it may have and therefore it is simply assumed that there may be some larger interest behind it, pulling the strings for some end. For instance, over the past year, I’ve gotten many emails about how Covid19 could be a planned, even “false flag” event. While I always keep an open mind, the truth is there is no evidence to support such an idea nor is it logical as speculation.
In fact, humanity has been flirting with this kind of “super-flu” problem for a long time and even if it is true the virus came from a lab, it doesn’t change the expectation. In fact, statistically speaking, we should be surprised more super-flus have not emerged, given the rapid loss of biodiversity that is unearthing and disturbing protective elements of our ecosystem.21
The mass shooting at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012, sparked many irrational conspiracy theories, some based on the idea of restrictive gun laws being introduced. Healthy skepticism is good, but conspiracy culture takes it all too far. A classic case study would be the caustic Sandy Hook narrative, consisting of crisis actors and beyond. In conservative circles, the idea that violent events using weapons are staged or manipulated to be used as an excuse to take away America’s weapons is also a common theme.
Hence, people within conspiracy culture become primed with these narratives, and they then begin to look and seek out circumstances that support those narratives, even if they are completely superficially circumstantial and hence baseless. Social priming of these value system-related beliefs, compounded by communal reinforcement and groupthink, serves as the foundation by which conspiratorial paranoia arises. This is probably why the vagueness of Qanon has been so powerful. The very vagueness itself allows people who have been primed a certain way to project their assumptions into their environment.
That understood, the final issue to address in this section has to do with the broader sociological precondition that fuels irrational beliefs of a conspiratorial nature. In terms of the framework, we are dealing with group vs. group dynamics by the very nature of the idea. It’s a classic Us vs. Them storyline, while pinging our socio-biological nature, as touched upon before.
In contrast to a systems-science perspective, viewing the world as a series of non-linear, interconnected events with outcomes that often can’t be understood by the summing of parts, group vs. group dynamics is the most common vocabulary people have when trying to understand the world.
All one has to do is look at politics.
We have categorically divided political philosophy into (mostly) two groups, the right and the left, and people navigate their understanding within that framework. Rarely is this loyalty betrayed, with most Congressional votes being mostly split along party lines. Team vs. team, business vs. business, political party vs. political party, race vs. race, creed vs. creed — the Us vs. Them social pattern is ubiquitous. Hence, why it is no surprise we now have a power vs. power abstraction that creates hidden or secret groups that work against the general population — hence irrational conspiratorial assumptions.
In a world where people are not educated to understand systemic outcomes, there is no choice but for the mind to create group identities to cope. For example, one could look at all the suffering in the 3rd world as a deliberate conspiratorial act to depopulate the planet, as many have speculated.
However, if you take a systems-science view of how the global economy works, understanding its systemic effects, you realize that poverty and premature death are actually natural system outcomes of the kind of economy we have. No conspiracy required. The system doesn’t need a nefarious group to pull strings — the system kills people off by its very nature through the inevitable outcome of socioeconomic inequality and poverty.
In other words, outcomes we see in the world that have been speculated upon as being conspiratorial via some powerful group are often actually natural outcomes due to the design of our social system. However, since systems science is counter-intuitive, most people fail to see it. They also don’t understand that you do not need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. In other words, if business and political leaders all share the same self-interested world-views and goals, their collective intent will produce outcomes that, in hindsight, might appear to be something that was planned in advance.
The point I’m getting at with this “group vs group” dynamic is that it is within the very social system itself that we find the seeds and roots of conspiracy culture. In a world economy based upon Us vs. Them competition, with the playing field not only inherently slanted at all times but subsumed in a condition of artificial scarcity, as dictated by the capitalist model, why should we be surprised when group vs. group competitive antagonism is elevated into the irrational or metaphysical? If people suffering under stress do not understand the origin of it, they will seek group blame.
Consider the rhetoric of the white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, with the chanted slogan “You will not replace us.” The root of this is the idea that the white race is in danger of extinction, pushed notably by author Renaud Camus who promoted the idea known as the “great replacement” theory.22
Racism aside, who are they referring to? Who is the “You”? In the minds of the white nationalists, it would have something to do with government, naturally, likely invoking some wealthy or political influence, such as the Clintons, Soros, or whatever.
Yet, the very premise makes no sense at all since the increase in non-white diversity is not some policy switch. It has been governed by economic logic and vested interests, not exactly political ones. People migrate to the US to get work, and the work they provide, often more cheaply, competes with the existing population’s labor force. Ethnic diversity in the market game becomes increasingly natural, given population growth and more robust international travel. In other words, there is no “you” in the “You will not replace us” phrase. It’s an illusion. A dangerous one as well, as some may remember the 2019 Walmart shooting by Patrick Crusius, who killed 22 people, mentioning the great replacement in a hate-filled, anti-immigrant manifesto written before the event.
All of this to say we live in a society that produces group antagonism by design, not just as a side effect but as a system function. The sociological result is a range of group blame.
At the start of this article, I quote Frederick Douglass: “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” Note the portion: “…where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them…” This observation couldn’t be more psychologically acute. The 2019 count found 58,936 homeless people living in Los Angeles County alone.
It is in this tenuous, insecure social space we can theorize the root of the issue. How does our society make you feel? How do you think the homeless sleeping on the streets of affluent nations feel about social justice? How do the endless laborers barely making a living due to low wages, perhaps unable to form a union, working and living in perpetual stress, feel about the overall sentiment of our society’s class system? How does the black experience in the United States, inching out of a vast period of severe oppression, only to continue to watch repeated rights abuses; police brutality and beyond — feel about the integrity of the nation they are citizens of?
Likewise, how do the legion of those in global poverty, watching the endless waste and decadence of the West, feel when they reflect on the global social order, with the US Empire at the helm, consuming most of the world’s resources and outputting most all of the pollution per capita?23
The fact is, the rise of conspiracy culture is not an anomaly. It is a direct, expected outcome of a general culture and resulting social psychology oriented around the scarcity-based competitive economic system we call Capitalism. As previously stated, we are dealing with statistical outliers or extremes. Not everyone living in today’s economic system moves toward extreme views, in the same way not every teenager becomes a school shooter. Yet, the patterns are consistent statistically and make sociological sense when you think about the kind of incentives and behavior required to survive in the market economy.
Hence, while educational work most certainly needs to be done, particularly the teaching of critical thought processes along with a better understanding of our problematic social gravitations as covered (cognitive biases, limbic system reactions, etc.), the real issue is how our society is organized. The existence and persistence of conspiracy culture and such groupistic, non-evidence based belief are largely the result of a basic lack of trust or social capital in the ever-angling, overly competitive capitalist world.
And as pressures continue to emerge, we can only expect the seductive draw of disinformation and group vs group antagonism to worsen.
In pop culture, the phrase "survival of the fittest" has often been interpreted as a function of competition in organisms. However, this interpretation is a misunderstanding, as "fittest" refers to any behavior that serves a survival or reproductive role. Since Darwin, the study of humanity's collaborative behavior has proven to be as important, if not more so, than the competitive aspect.
Biologist Peter Corning, director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, suggests in his book "Holistic Darwinism" that "one aspect of this more complex view of evolution is that both competition and cooperation may coexist at different levels of organization, or in different aspects related to the survival enterprise. There may be a delicately balanced interplay between these supposedly polar relationships" (Corning, 2005; p.38).
Also see: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219303343 & https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25708081/
The 1950s Solomon Asch — Conformity Experiment study is summarized here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html with further exposition here by:
by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo.
Notable research has been conducted by public health and addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté. He states, “The human infant and toddler are highly vulnerable creatures, and emotional stresses of all kinds in the rearing environment can create long-lasting wounds in the psyche that a person will later try to soothe or numb with addictive behavior. In addition to things that do happen that shouldn’t, like abuse, there are things that (developmentally speaking) ought to happen that don’t. For instance, any sustained sense of emotional disconnection with the parenting figure — which can often occur when the parent is excessively stressed or preoccupied over a period of time — has the capacity to have this sort of impact, especially if the child is constitutionally very sensitive. In a stressed society like ours, with fewer and fewer supportive resources for parents, this is more and more common.” [Source: Gabor Maté, “Addiction — Dr. Gabor Maté,” 2016, http://drgabormate.com/topic/addiction/]
Also see: Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (North Atlantic Books, 2012).
Also known as Kaspar Hauser Syndrome, there is a phenomenon in which extreme emotional deprivation leads to endocrinological disturbances that harm development and can even lead to death. The same phenomenon has been witnessed in feral children, who are often abused through social isolation. Some of these children can never learn to speak, in fact, because the critical learning period for language attainment was also never utilized.
See Robert Sapolsky, "Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers" (New York: Owl Books, 2004), 103. & L. Eugene Arnold, "Childhood Stress" (New York: Wiley, 1990).
Studies of social exclusion and the generation of anti-social or neurotic behaviors have been corroborated in many contexts, including primitive studies with nonhuman primates. A classic study of social isolation was the controversial Harlow monkey study, in which baby monkeys were left alone for up to one year from birth or repetitively separated from their peers and isolated in the chamber. These procedures quickly produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed, and they were used as models of human depression.
[Source: Harry F. Harlow and Stephen J. Suomi, "Production of Depressive Behaviors in Young Monkeys," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 1, no. 3 (1971): 246–255, doi:10.1007/bf01557346.]
V. A. Klucharev, P. Zubarev, and A. N. Shestakova, “Neurobiological Mechanisms of Social Influence,” Experimental Psychology (Russia) 7, no. 4 (2015): 20–36, http://psyjournals.ru/en/exp/2014/n4/73771.shtml.
See “Social rejection shares somatosensory representations
with physical pain” https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/108/15/6270.full.pdf
See: R. Custers and H. Aarts, “The Unconscious Will: How the Pursuit of Goals Operates Outside of Conscious Awareness,” Science 329, no. 5987 (2010): 47–50, doi:10.1126/science.1188595.
Also: Eben Harrell, “Think You’re Operating on Free Will? Think Again,” Time. com, 2010, http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2000994,00.html
See: Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144139
Irving Janis’ 1972 book Victims Of Groupthink describes it as “a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.”
Also see: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/16/social-media-creates-group-think.html
[11] There is no shortage of research showing the acceleration of environment decline which will result is great social stress/pressure. See: UN: Huge changes in society needed to keep nature, Earth OK. https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/un-huge-changes-in-society-needed-to-keep-nature-earth-ok/
I have addressed this issue in my book, "The New Human Rights Movement." "The cyclical consumption needed to keep employment up, along with the need for economic growth to recover from previous contractions, powers the machine’s structure. Earthly resources are inventory to be exploited, along with human labor. At the same time, negative externalities flourish, and increasingly so, as our technological capacity grows, often being used for the wrong purposes. This is all embodied in the market structure, like the tiny seed that sprouts a towering tree" (Joseph, 2017; p.154).
[13] One of many destabilizing forces is the rise of “Climate Refugees”, or those being displaced by environmental instability.
See: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-climate-crisis-migration-and-refugees/
While some forms of stress can arouse more focused behavior in certain circumstances, chronic stress leads to depression, anger, and a lack of impulse control. More specifically, economic stress has been found to be a precondition for poor decision-making.
See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5346059/
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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/19/stress-brain-can-lead-to-you-making-some-bad-financial-decisions.html
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614482/
While common to what is called “social dominance theory”, “hierarchy-enhancing” vs. “hierarchy-attenuating” factors deal with myths, ideas, behaviors, institutions and the like which work to increase or decrease existing power relationships between groups.
See: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23324196?seq=1
Every time I read a Peter Joseph article, I am left with a greater understanding of human nature and empathy for mankind ✨❤️🫶🏾🌏🌎🌍
Hard to put into words how impactful and enriching Peter’s writings and explanations of our troubled world have been for me. And I’m not sharing this to get likes. I’m just trying to express gratitude for an understanding I never thought I could hope for.