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4059
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
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While listening to the Coast To Coast AM show the other night (July 13, 2013) the opening news segment had an interesting item regarding a study by psychologists researching the social psychology of 9/11 conspiracy theories. The paper was published in the July 8th, 2013 issue of Frontiers in Psychology, and written by Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the School of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. You can access it at the following website. http://www.frontiersin.org/personality_science_and_individual_differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00409/abstract Basically, the researches analyzed the viewer comments posted on news stories on various mainstream news websites. The comments contained lengthy discussions pro and con for the 9/11 official story and the conspiracy theories. The study was not about the theories themselves, but rather about how the people argued their viewpoints. The authors refer to "conspiracists" and "conventionalists", each a label for the sake of discussion to represent persons who, respectively, either proposed alternative theories regarding the events of 9/11 or those who supported the conventional explanations. As well, the authors define a "conspiracy theory" as a belief "that powerful people or organizations are plotting together in secret to achieve sinister ends through deception of the public." Although the study focuses on the events of 9/11, I found the study can be generalized to be relevant to discussions on any controversial topic. Many of the features and results of their study I found to be very familiar. I have observed these exact things on this and other forums. I hereby present several quotations from the research paper, which was with some of own comments. "One particularly important element of the conspiracist worldview is thought to be a generalized opposition to official or received narratives. In this view, conspiracy belief is not about believing in particular alternative theories, but in disbelieving in whatever the official story is." "...conspiracy theory belief appears to be more of a negative belief than a positive one — it is more concerned with saying what the cause of a condition or event was not (i.e.,whatever the official explanation is) than with putting forward a specific alternative account." "In spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of mainstream public acceptance for their theories, many conspiracists, both prominent and otherwise, appear to see themselves as having a duty to spread their views to the public at large. They often exhort the unthinking masses to “wake up.”" I can't count how many times I've been told, or have seen others being told to "wake up", "open your eyes", open your mind", "think outside the box", and similar statements. It is a VERY COMMON cry made by those who do not accept the official stance by any sort of authority. In focusing on the actual argumentative method employed by both sides, some interesting conclusions were found. They refer to this as "persuasive communication", that is, what type of argument is made in an attempt to persuade others to their point of view. "there is the issue of to what degree the content of persuasive communications reflects the properties of the author rather than the demands of the situation. Rather than faithful representations of internal psychological processes, commenters’ methods of argumentation might instead reflect strategic considerations regarding the audience, the venue, and the subject matter." "...where one’s goal is implicitly (or even explicitly) to persuade others rather than to provide an honest and straightforward account of one’s beliefs." Basically, people have a tendency to say whatever they feel the need to say in an attempt to convince others of their point of view, even if it means behaving in a way that is not representative of their normal behavior. "In general, then, it is likely that persuaders use the self as a model for argument generation: in other words, they argue in a way that they would themselves find convincing. This, in turn, suggests that the types of arguments used by persuaders can contain information relevant to understanding how they think about the issue at hand." "...people will generally tend to use arguments that they themselves would find most convincing were they the audience rather than the persuader." So that means conspiracists use a logic and argument style that would convince other conspiracists like themselves, but rarely convinces the conventionalist. Likewise the reverse is true - the conventionalist uses a logic and argument style that would convince other conventionalists, but rarely persuade a conspiracist. This goes a long way towards explaining why subjects are debated ad nauseum with neither side convincing the other except in rare cases. The study also revealed that conspiracists have a strong tendency to deny official stories simply because they ARE official stories; something which I myself have attempted to point out to others. But in doing so, the conspiracists are remiss on promoting a coherent alternative theory. "...conspiracist comments were more likely to contain expressions of mistrust than were conventionalist comments." "...conspiracy advocates showed a tendency to spend much more time arguing against the official explanation of 9/11 than advocating an alternative. Conspiracy opponents showed the opposite pattern, advocating their own explanation more than they argued against the opposing one." "This pattern of results supports the idea that conspiracy theories have their basis more in opposition to officialdom than in beliefs in specific alternative theories..." In other words, they go to great lengths to deny the offical story simply because it IS the official story rather than positing a viable alternative explanation. This is often apparent when the conspiracists claims fail to converge. There are sometimes as many alternative explanations as there are conspiracists. They can't agree on the alternative but there MUST be an alternative because they don't trust the official story. The authors also found something which I disagree with based on my own experiences on this and other forums. "We also found that hostility was higher in persuasive arguments made by conventionalists than in those by conspiracists." "conventionalists, rather than focusing on presenting novel information, instead attempt to enforce conformity to the majority viewpoint..." I find the opposite to be true. In my experience, those that deny the official story appear more prone to allowing their arguments to devolve into pissing contests with vehement personal attacks and vulgar language. That isn't to say that I haven't seen conventionalists do the same, just that I see more conspiracists doing it that the conventionalists. This is something I am considering contacting the researchers about. As for the the phrase "conspiracy theory" itself I have seen many conspiracists take great umbrage to the usage of the term, sometimes saying they find it insulting. I myself have recently wondered if my arguments could be reworded to avoid the usage of the term. It's difficult to find an alternative as I feel it so aptly describes the subject, yet I do recognize that insulting people should be avoided. "...the statistics on the usage of the phrase “conspiracy theory” provide an instructive illustration of how the term is viewed. Few people were eager to apply it to their own positions. Conspiracists were more likely to apply it to the conventional narrative, often counterintuitively referring to it as “the official conspiracy theory,” or to dismiss the term as needlessly loaded and derogatory..." The authors also noted that in an effort to be more convincing, some members of both camps may concede that in most cases the other party is correct, but that in the specific subject being argued they the feel the other party is wrong. Thus portraying themselves as having otherwise expecting to be against their current point of view they have come to accept it as valid, and this has a stronger persuasive effect on others. "...some conventionalists said that while some other conspiracy theories are true, there is no evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy, and some conspiracists claimed that while most conspiracy theories are bogus, in the case of 9/11 the evidence is sufficient to reject the official story. This form of argument might ultimately be persuasive: people who portray themselves as nominal conventionalists who nevertheless find 9/11 conspiracy theories plausible are essentially portraying themselves as deviant ingroup members. Such people can be very effective in exerting social influence on the majority..." The conclusions of the authors are pretty straight forward. "The coherence of the conspiracist belief system is driven by higher-order considerations such as a disbelief in official narratives, rather than positive beliefs in particular alternative narratives." "One tactic which conventionalists often accuse conspiracists of using is “anomaly hunting”: They imagine that if they can find (broadly defined) anomalies in that data that would point to another phenomenon at work. They then commit a pair of logical fallacies. First, they confuse unexplained with unexplainable. This leads them to prematurely declare something a true anomaly, without first exhaustively trying to explain it with conventional means. Second they use the argument from ignorance, saying that because we cannot explain an anomaly that means their specific pet theory must be true. I don’t know what that fuzzy object in the sky is-therefore it is an alien spacecraft (Novella, 2009)." "...conspiracy belief is not based around specific theories of how events transpire, though these may exist as well. Instead, conspiracism is rooted in several higher-order beliefs such as an abiding mistrust of authority, the conviction that nothing is quite as it seems, and the belief that most of what we are told is a lie. Apparent anomalies in official accounts seem to support this, even if they do not point to a specific, well-defined alternative. For many conspiracists, there are two worlds: one real and (mostly) unseen, the other a sinister illusion meant to cover up the truth; and evidence against the latter is evidence for the former." For myself this paper was most informative. It put into words observations I have made in the past which have given me an intuitive feel for what goes wrong in discussions of controversial subjects, but I have until now been unable to describe it very well. Further, it also highlights a shortcoming in my own argumentative style. I have for some time contemplated the fact that mine and other conventionalists arguments are for naught. As much as the conspiracists claim I dismiss their views out of hand, I find that they do the same to my own arguments. Further, attempting to point out this hypocrisy is met with offense and indignation. I now have a greater understanding of why this happens and have hope for finding a new way of expressing my views more effectively. Brian |
Responses:
[4061] [4062] [4063] [4060] [4069] [4073] [4088] [4091] [4092]
4061
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: very informative, it does explain a lot. (NT)
| (NT) |
4062
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: very informative, it does explain a lot. (NT)
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Yes. It was a real eye opener for me. I love the irony that I learned about this while listening to the C2C show. But, not everything on there is crankery. Brian |
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[4063]
4063
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: very informative, it does explain a lot. (NT)
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Hi Brian, Yes, it is a real eye opener, but it makes so much sense. For example: "One particularly important element of the conspiracist worldview is thought to be a generalized opposition to official or received narratives. In this view, conspiracy belief is not about believing in particular alternative theories, but in disbelieving in whatever the official story is." Bingo! I discovered years ago that a common theme of the crankery is the anti-NASA theme. It seems people can put out the nuttiest theories as long as they frame the evil NASA as opposite of the stupid ideas that are being put forth. And it works. I saw people who were obvious frauds or crazies say the dumbest things about Planet X/Nibiru but as long as they pushed the anti-NASA theme people who were smart enough to know better would fall for their BS. I see chemtrails as another great example. People will put forth different and contradictory claims of the origin, purpose and even who is doing the spraying... but the common theme is that the evil powers that be don't want you to know and people believe. Thanks again for posting this! Cheers Jim |
Responses:
None
4060
From: Jimmy C., [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
| Conspired treason is no conspiracy! |
4069
From: trapper/austin, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
| 911 is the litmus test - do you believe what government tells you or do you believe your own lying eyes? |
4073
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
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Do you disbelieve the government simply because it IS the government? Even better, would you disbelieve a third party simply because they came to the same conclusion as the government even if they came to that conclusion 100% independently of the government? Brina |
4088
From: trapper/austin, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
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how many times do you touch a boiling pan and get burned before you just play the odds and assume? bring proof. |
4091
From: Skywise, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
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Isn't that an over generalization? (a known logical fallacy) Not all boiling pans will burn you. Likewise, to borrow from Lincoln, All of the authorities may lie some of the time, And some of the authorities may lie all of the time, But do all of the authorities lie all of the time? Before you hasten to answer "Yes", really REALLY think about it. If you still feel the answer is "Yes", then I'm afraid you are in dire need of mental help for a debilitating case of paranoia. A little paranoia may be a good thing, but too much does harm. Brian |
Responses:
[4092]
4092
From: trapper/austin, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: It's not about believing alternatives, but disbelieving authority
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i dont concern myself with whether they are lying or not. i keep my bullshit detector tuned up and trust that. a rule of thumb is just that - an estimation. there are always exceptions to the rule. if i cant get a reading on something then i take peoples word for it until further notice. its how i would want to be treated. "Not all boiling pans will burn you." damn chemists! or is it physicists? either way. lol |
Responses:
None
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