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Cassam on Conspiracy Theories (part 1)
519 Plays3 months ago
M and Josh take their first look at Quassim Cassam's 2019 book "Conspiracy Theories". M would like to reiterate that Cassam is not his archenemy; Josh would like to emphasise that that would be awesome though.
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Issues
00:00:00
Speaker
We just want to mention that there were a few, or at least might appear to be, some audio hiccups in today's recording because let's just say there was an issue with the internet. There were technical difficulties, yes. We're not blaming anyone in particular here.
00:00:18
Speaker
Although I'm the one who'll be editing this episode together. So if you did notice any regularities, you're essentially insulting my editing abilities. And I kind of take that personally, but it's fine. It's actually disgusting to think that you would judge Josh on the editing he does for this podcast. Although if you have noticed a difference between one podcast and another, please do send us an email and we can work out who the best editor is. We can make it into a call.
00:00:48
Speaker
competition, there can be a prize, a crown. Yes, anyway, there were technical issues, that's our story and we're sticking to it. Yes. And as you'll find out at the end of the episode, if you're feeling sticky, there's a very good reason as to why.
00:01:10
Speaker
The podcast's guide to the conspiracy featuring Josh Addison and Em Dinteth.
00:01:24
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. In Auckland, New Zealand, I am Josh Addison, and in Zhuhai, China, you will believe a man can fly. Associate Professor M. R. Extentis. And also fall. I think always think that tagline would have worked better as a command. Just going whether you want to or not. You will believe. Will.
00:01:53
Speaker
And there's no money back, no money back at all. But actually it would be a moral failing if you fail to believe a man can fly.
Do Some Religions Believe in Human Flight?
00:02:04
Speaker
yes If you leave the theatre not believing a man can fly, that's your problem and the filmmakers are going to judge you.
00:02:13
Speaker
Depending on your denomination of chris of Christianity, you have to believe a man can fly, don't you? Didn't Jesus? I suppose you got you got more sort of rapture. No, no, it's more you have to believe that the Virgin Mary can fly, because she ascends up to heaven in the Western Roman Catholic and Orthodox tradition. So you will believe, as a Roman Catholic, that at least one woman has flown before the advent of unpowered and empowered flight in the last 200 years.
00:02:43
Speaker
It works for me. yeah So what have you been up to? It's it it's term time, is it? It is. So my call for the systemology of weird beliefs has
Teaching Anecdotes and Bonus Content
00:02:52
Speaker
started. i had so I think I've mentioned this before, but B&UZH has a weird first semester in which only second and third year students can enroll in your course in the first teaching week and first year students can only enroll in the second week of teaching.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I've been teaching for two weeks, but my first week I only had three students. And then on Monday I had 28 students. And on Monday I had the rather interesting experience of when I walked into the lecture theatre, the class burst out in applause. I don't know whether they were really pleased to see me or they were just surprised. I found i actually found where the the room was.
00:03:34
Speaker
is it just a Is it just a respectful way of welcoming your new lecturer or something? I have never experienced before and I've been teaching here for three years. Oh well, maybe it's something new. Well maybe the legend of me is getting around. Or maybe the the myth of me is getting around. Maybe the dark rumours of me are getting around. yeah How's the book going?
00:04:00
Speaker
It's good. I have finished a draft of chapter one, which I've sent out to some readers to read and give me feedback. And I actually thought maybe this might be good bonus content material, where if I slip your draft chech chapter, we can maybe discuss that, that graft chapter, discuss the graft and the craft of the draft.
00:04:26
Speaker
And I can't think of a rhyming word for patron bonus episode. In the daft, patron bonus episode? The main episode. the the Yeah, that kind of works and also kind of doesn't. But it's going anyway. That's good. it is You haven't haven't hit any academic writer's block yet.
00:04:44
Speaker
Not yet. Actually the problem at the moment is that there are other writing tasks I should be doing, but I'm enjoying writing the book so much I'm not doing those other tasks. So I've got two articles I need to revise and I probably should get back to revising them and mark out some or block out as they say sometime next week. Get those things done and then I can go back to just working on the book on a day by day basis. Right. Well, you know what's essentially the same as writing a book?
Consuming Books: Reading vs. Eating
00:05:14
Speaker
reading a book. Is eating a book? That also, yes, I understand you can eat books to gain their knowledge intravenously, but um most people tend to go through the whole eyeballs route, I've never understood.
00:05:28
Speaker
What, you stick a book into your eye? That's what I'm told. I don't know. and I never touch the things myself, you know that. I mean, i've I've got some... I don't think any of the books I've got here would actually fit in my eye. Well, maybe you're not reading them right. Yeah, maybe I'm not. Huh. Anyway. But you know what I have consumed in some manner and therefore gained all the power and wisdom from?
Understanding Conspiracy Theories
00:05:56
Speaker
It's another book for what we're going to talk about today. It's not the Bible. Maybe we should play a chime and then we can tell everyone all about it.
00:06:10
Speaker
As if by magic. So, so, so, so. So you haven't been reading the Bible? I have not been reading the Bible. Why not? For a long time. Because I've already read it from cover to cover.
00:06:26
Speaker
really yeah no you because they say have you read the catholic bible or the protestant bible because they are different the catholic bible has additional books really Yeah, yeah's they're called the Apocrypha. They're in the Old Testament or jewish Jewish scripture. And Protestants get really, really annoyed that Catholics have more books in their Bible. yeah Well, no, we're not reading a Bible of any kind. We've been reading conspiracy theories by Kassim Kassam. They do realise, Josh. Am I pronouncing that correctly?
00:07:01
Speaker
I actually don't know, but you are technically insulting Kassam by saying this is a Bible of no particular kind, because some people might say that this should be the Bible of at least the philosophy of conspiracy theory theory.
00:07:17
Speaker
Now, yeah I agree with you, this should not be a Bible for conspiracy theory theory, particularly the philosophy of conspiracy theory theory. But we'll get into why I think that as we talk through the book.
00:07:33
Speaker
So this is a book from 2019 that has, what, four chapters, I think, in total. We're going to look at chapters one and two today. Now, Kasim Kasam is a name that has come up a fair bit on this podcast. He is a person, I think it's fair to say, with whom you disagree in large part.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yes, he is a generalist, or to use Curtis Hagan's terminology, which I think probably is the fairest way to put it, a generalist in spirit, because particularists tend to identify as being particularists.
00:08:08
Speaker
generalists don't tend to identify as being generalists but they have generalist in spirit style arguments and conspiracy theories which was published in 2019 was at the time of publication Kasam's most recent effort to give a generalist story as to why belief in conspiracy theories is in some sense mad bad or dangerous. We had looked at Kasam's work earlier where he had put forward a notion of explaining the badness of conspiracy theories with respect to conspiracy theorists being subject to epistemic vice. So we had the story of Oliver, the fictional 9-11 conspiracy theorist, and his vice-filled conspiracy theories. This book moves on from the epistemic vice picture. So we're not really going to talk about the
00:09:03
Speaker
forward to this particular text but in that text Kasam does point out he was criticized for his earlier attempt to come up with a theory as to why conspiracy theories are bad and so he's moving away from the vice-laden explanation he had previously to what's going to turn out to be more of a story about ideology.
00:09:26
Speaker
So let's jump straight into it. I've i've taken on chapter one, and Em has done chapter two, so I'll get the ball rolling. Yep, I've definitely done my number two. Yep, I... We'll talk about that later. um So i I started reading this thing. It doesn't have an introduction as such. And I i started reading the beginning book. Okay, I should mention that. I should mention that. i should And then I thought the hell with it. I'm just going to read the whole first four chapters because ah are four chapters, four paragraphs. so its really First four chapters, we'll be here a while. And also, I suspect we'd be breaking quite a number of laws because I don't think
00:10:05
Speaker
We're meant to read out entire books. The entirety of someone else's book. No, no. That's called producing an audio book and you need licenses for that. Masterpiece theatre where we've read enough of an article out loud that I've gone, we might be skirting around copyright here. But in this case, no, we're not going to read all four chapters. No. We're going to read little sections of chapters.
00:10:29
Speaker
But I'm going to read the first four paragraphs because I think each one seemed to have a point that was worth mentioning, and it does a good point of of um establishing the way things are going. So chapter one of conspiracy theories by Cassian Cassand, 2019, begins, conspiracy theorists get a seriously bad press, gullible, irresponsible, paranoid, stupid. These are some of the politer labels applied to them, usually by establishment figures who aren't averse to promoting their own conspiracy theories when it suits them.
00:10:56
Speaker
President George W. Bush denounced outrageous conspiracy theories about 9-11 while his own administration was busy promoting the outrageous conspiracy theory that Iraq was behind 9-11 and cahoots with Al Qaeda. So straight away we have a talk of sort of official conspiracy theories as it were. Also, plus one for using the word cahoots.
00:11:13
Speaker
Continuing, if the abuse isn't bad enough, conspiracy theorists now have the dubious privilege of being studied by psychologists. The psychology of conspiracy theories is a thing, and the use for conspiracy theorists isn't good. A recent study describes their theories as corrosive to societal and individual well-being. Conspiracy theorists, the study reveals, are more likely to be male, unmarried and less educated, to have lower household incomes and to see themselves as being of low social standing.
00:11:39
Speaker
They have lower levels of physical and psychological well-being and are more likely to meet the criteria for having a psychiatric disorder. I believe the study was The Concomitants of Conspiracy Concerns by D. Freeman R. Bentall, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, not a paper that I know anything about.
00:11:58
Speaker
And also now a questionable finding, but admittedly back in 2019, that was a orthodox view. It's now considered to be a bit of a controversial view because we have more up to the date, more fine grained and granular polling, which kind of goes against that particular picture. But that's not a problem for Qassam in 2019. That would be a problem for Qassam in 2024.
00:12:26
Speaker
ah Continuing, he says, in case you're starting to feel sorry for conspiracy theorists, or yourself if you are one, perhaps it's worth remembering that they aren't exactly shrinking violets. They are vociferous defenders of their theories and scornful of their opponents. Anyone who's been on the receiving end of the wrath of conspiracy theorists will know that it can be a bruising experience. I have the honour of being described by one eminent, if that's the right word, conspiracy theorist and fellow philosopher as a bona fide anti-conspiracy buffoon.
00:12:52
Speaker
And yet, on reflection, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, if a conspiracy theorist is someone who believes in the existence of some conspiracies, then surely in that sense we're all conspiracy theorists. History is full of well-documented conspiracies that one would have to be remarkably ignorant not to realise that.
00:13:09
Speaker
Michael Moore once said that he wasn't into conspiracy theories except the ones that are true. Realistically, isn't that actually the position we're all in? Surely what we should be debating is not whether there's anything wrong with conspiracy theories per se, but whether there is anything wrong with specific conspiracy theories. Well, that sounds like particularism to me. I don't think it's either there's any need to read the rest of the book. He's he's he's advanced a particular position. End of story. Can we stop the episode now?
00:13:34
Speaker
If only Joshua, if only because I know you've read these this chapter and the next one so you know how it's going to slide away from this sensible position to something else entirely. Yes that was a That was a rhetorical charade on my part. But before we get to that, we do got buffoonery on your part. Chicaneery. It was a bit of buffoonery. I love that. Exactly. Horse feathers and monkey shines and what have you. So we, of course, like a good philosopher, Kasam has to define some terms.
00:14:08
Speaker
and specifically defining a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory. So he first considers the definition of conspiracy that being two or more people who collaborate to perpetrate an illegal act doesn't question the what the the qualifier of being illegal, but um he does say that that's not quite sufficient because conspiracies are, of course, secret.
00:14:30
Speaker
and so involve a small group of people. Now, I think we've've we've we've questioned the idea that conspiracy theories are necessarily small and that being enormous means they're less... Yeah, the the size criterion, as I call it, is kind of fascinating because there are multiple ways to understand it. If you think that conspiracies are hierarchical,
00:14:51
Speaker
And therefore, there are some people who know more about the conspiracy than others. You might say, look, there's a small core group of individuals who might know about the full extent of the conspiracy that everyone is involved in. But you can still have a very large number of people operating, making the conspiracy work.
00:15:12
Speaker
But also, there are plenty plenty of examples of conspiracies of moderate size, if not large size. No matter what you think about the Moscow trials of the 1930s, the conspiracy involved there was quite large. It involved large amounts of the Soviet government at the time.
00:15:33
Speaker
So it might be easier to conspire with a group of small people, but there's nothing about the idea that they're secret, that that entails the group needs to be small. Unless you have a theory about keeping secrets is only successful when only a small number of people are involved, which you could argue for, but he doesn't really in this particular text.
00:15:56
Speaker
No, no, that that seems to satisfy him there the definition. So we now basically have the idea that it's two people who collaborate to perpetrate an illegal act in secrecy. um Again, I'm sure you must be able to find examples of conspiracy that are of legal conspiracy, certainly governmental type ones, the things they're doing, even even sort of waging war is probably not illegal as such and suit cases. But anyway, Well, well, actually, I mean, it's the thing. If you declare a war on the in the right way, it's a perfectly legal thing to do. So anyway, so so that's that's his definition of conspiracy. He then carries on, suppose that a conspiracy theory is defined as a theory about a conspiracy. In that case, history books are full of conspiracy theories.
00:16:39
Speaker
um And he he looks he looks at a bunch of conspiracy theories, in particular. when One's about 9-11, including the official theory, as as he points out. you know there are these These theories are all theories about conspiracies, so they're all conspiracy theories. So he says, in that case, how can there be a debate about whether one should be a conspiracy theorist? That is, believe that conspiracies happen.
00:16:58
Speaker
And that was the first thing that sounded, first inkling of generalism to me. If a conspiracy theorist is someone who who just believes that conspiracies happen, that now now we're talking as a general class rather than saying that any particular conspiracy ah did or didn't happen.
00:17:16
Speaker
And there'll be more of those slides coming along shortly. yeah And then he also worries that if everyone's a conspiracy theorist one way or another, just just before i talked that I quoted that bit about the study that says conspiracy theorists are more likely to be male, unmarried, less educated, and so on and so forth. Well, how can that be the case if everyone's a conspiracy theory? Surely you know then that means literally every type of person is equally represented.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I mean, this is this is where my bugbear with the literature really comes to shine, because the kind of conspiracy theories being talked about in that study are not the kind of conspiracy theories as defined thus far in the book.
00:17:58
Speaker
So of course you can make a distinction between well look those people used a different definition of conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorists which might be narrower or broader than the than the definition here. So you can't just go oh but look there's one study that says conspiracy theorists are bad but I've given you a different definition to them and oh what's going on there because no you you need to actually be tracking definitions and working out with a the study you're referring to is talking about the same thing that you are, but it's okay. Kasam's going to redefine conspiracy theory to make all these things match up just perfectly.
00:18:38
Speaker
hope he is, and he's going to do it right now. So yeah I got to this bit and then I was like, oh okay, i know here we I know where we are. this is the This is the, you know what I mean when I say, yeah yes, yes, any theory about a conspiracy is a conspiracy theory. But when I say conspiracy theory, you know what I mean. I mean those ones, those ones. And now he's going to talk about what those ones are. He says,
00:18:59
Speaker
But here's the thing. When people argue about conspiracy theories, they aren't arguing about whether individuals have ever collaborated in secret to perpetrate illegal acts.
What Makes a Conspiracy Theory Extraordinary?
00:19:07
Speaker
The conspiracy theories that people actually argue about are different from ordinary tales of conspiracy. In the ordinary sense of conspiracy theory, the official account of 9-11 isn't a conspiracy theory. The theory that 9-11 was an inside job. is. The theory that in 1605 Guy Fawkes and others conspired to blow up the English parliament in the gunpowder plot isn't a conspiracy theory. The theory that the Holocaust is a myth concocted to serve Jewish interests is. So what's the difference? As it happens, there's a sound rationale for being selective in applying the label conspiracy theory.
00:19:39
Speaker
And so he says, what what what he's what he's actually interested in is what he calls extraordinary conspiracy theories. And here, this unfortunately is going to get difficult in a podcast, because the way he he distinguishes between these extraordinary conspiracy theories and any old theory about a conspiracy is that he he calls the extraordinary ones conspiracy theories with a capital C and a capital T. And in the regular, the generic theory about a conspiracy is a lowercase c and a lowercase t.
00:20:05
Speaker
Now, you say that. He actually doesn't really talk about conspiracy theories in the lower case that much. Not often. Not. yes So I think the only way we can get around this is that when we're talking about Qassam's conspiracy theories, which is going to sound awful on audio if we do that every single time, we just call them extraordinary conspiracy theories as opposed to conspiracy theories. Otherwise, we're going to have to do an awful lot over that with a capital C and a capital T.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yes, although I think if if if you hear the words conspiracy theory or conspiracy theorist from now on, assume it's the capital C, capital T version, unless we say otherwise, because those are the ones he's going to be talking about the whole time. um So he says, there's more to it than that. A conspiracy theorist again with a capital C and a capital T is a person who... That's not Josh adding in that. That's what he said. yeah He's hes he's he's he's um reiterating, he's emphasising the scheme that he's using.
00:21:04
Speaker
As a person who is into conspiracy theories, that is, I'm usually fascinated by them and more willing than most to believe them. We're all conspiracy theorists, here he spells it lowercase. We all believe that sometimes people get together in secret to do bad things, but we aren't all conspiracy theorists.
00:21:21
Speaker
capital letters. so And so the the difference here here, I think here might be the last time he compares the two, at least for a while. He says, I don't have a problem with conspiracy theories, lowercase, but I do have a problem with many conspiracy theories, uppercase.
00:21:37
Speaker
Here's one problem. Given the features that make them special, they're unlikely to be true. Conspiracy theories are implausible by design. Sometimes implausible theories turn out to be true, but it isn't usually sensible to to believe that they are true. So it isn't usually sensible to be a conspiracy theorist. Again, capitals. It's no defense to point out that history books are full of tales of conspiracy because for the most part, these tales aren't conspiracy theories in the special sense that I'm talking about.
00:22:04
Speaker
And I have to say, it's starting to sound a bit circular here. If if we're defining conspiracy theories as being implausible, then, you know, of course, it's irrational to believe in the theories that you've if you've defined them as being implausible to begin with. But um it's it's a self ceiling definition here. So conspiracy theories are implausible to believe, therefore, belief in conspiracy theories is implausible.
00:22:27
Speaker
yeah but so now Now, I think we start to get into the main what I assume is going to be the main point of the book. It certainly seems to be the main point of chapter one. What what conspiracy theories are actually for? so he's sort of He's given his this definition under which capital C conspiracy theories are unlikely to be true or indeed are things that have been proven to be untrue. so If that's the case, what's the point in them at all?
00:22:53
Speaker
um As Kassam puts it, what purpose do conspiracy theories serve if not to tell the truth? And why do people continue to peddle conspiracy theories that have virtually no chance of being true? Because conspiracy theories are first and foremost forms of political propaganda. They are political gambits whose real function is to promote a political agenda. They aren't, quote, just theories like any other.
00:23:18
Speaker
and Now, I imagine some of his his Capital C conspiracy theorists, if you ask them, do not believe that their theories are unlikely or have been refuted. And I think we're going to get into the case of how how sincere or what have you people are in their beliefs just shortly. But um there is there iss a mixture of cases here in this case. But anyway.
00:23:39
Speaker
And this is one of those cases where putting the word sum in would rescue the argument. Some conspiracy theories of the capital C, capital T variety, are examples of political propaganda. In fact, in the news segment we are going to be discussing at the end of this episode, we have a very nice example of a piece of political propaganda, which turns out to be a lowercase conspiracy theory, which is the other issue here. Conspiracy theories can also be political prop propaganda, or at least genealogically, political propaganda can originate from conspiracy theories in the form of conspiracy theories. And insert any capitalization you like into that sentence. yes I suggest camel case.
00:24:29
Speaker
oh o it could work. Anyway, so so he he says here that the the their political propagan propaganda they're there to promote a political agenda. So he'll say sometimes the political agenda is obvious, say sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that you know the politics of those gun control,
00:24:49
Speaker
false flag theories, ah yeah your Sandy Hooks and what have you, are clearly there serving a political agenda. Now, he does say at this point, it's not necessarily the case that in his words, Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists are deliberately spreading what they know to be falsehoods in order to manipulate public opinion. So there we go. As he says, they it is the case that certain of these conspiracy theorists believe what they're saying and do not think they're untrue.
00:25:17
Speaker
At this point, he has a slight worry that what he's saying about conspiracy theories with a capital C is, in fact, a capital C conspiracy theory of its own. He's saying that conspiracy theories you know they actually have the secret purpose of of furthering a political agenda. That kind of sounds like a conspiracy theory.
00:25:33
Speaker
for starters, but Sam says, no, that's not the case for a couple of reasons. One is that in order to be a conspiracy, all of the people spreading these various capital C conspiracy theories would need to be collected know would need to be working together. That's what conspiring means. And it doesn't seem like they are. And that just seems like a fairly trite point to make and also not even trivially true in that he's saying If it's a conspiracy theory, everyone who spreads the conspiracy theory must be in on it. But of course, that's not how conspiracy theories work. If there is an actual conspiracy, you want to be duping people to get them to believe it is actually the case what they're speaking about. So they spread it as misinformation rather than disinformation. So, I mean, that first point just doesn't seem to make much sense at all.
00:26:27
Speaker
He also says the subtler reason is that a claim can be propaganda, even if the people making it believe that it's true. And that's kind of resting on the idea that propaganda is necessarily bad. Now, there's quite a lot of literature in communication studies, in philosophy, in sociology about propaganda. And propaganda has a bad rap in a lot of contemporary discourse, particularly in the West.
00:26:57
Speaker
But the Allies spread propaganda during World War II to demoralize the Axis forces whilst telling the truth about the state of the war. Propaganda is not necessarily false. It is information spread for political purposes.
00:27:16
Speaker
And we worry about information spread for political purposes, which is false. And that's one variety of propaganda. But some propaganda is spread for political purposes and is true. Now, there's a big epistemic debate as to what that means, because some people will point out it doesn't really matter whether what you're spreading is true or false. If you're spreading it for politically expedient reasons,
00:27:45
Speaker
That's the problem with such beliefs. But if the focus here is on the truth or the rustic nature of the propaganda, it's taking a very askew view of propaganda that ignores a large chunk of the literate.
00:28:01
Speaker
Well, he still makes the more positive case with the idea that essentially a thing is what it does. He says, conspiracy theories advance a political agenda, in his words, by advancing seductive explanations of major events that, objectively speaking, are unlikely to be true, but are likely to influence public opinion in the preferred direction. So again, he does seem to be baking the idea of of untruth into are propaganda, but his claim is that basically this is what, regardless of what the people who are putting them forwards intend, this is what they do. So therefore, this is what they are. He does point out that this this, here is where he points out this doesn't necessarily mean that proponents of these conspiracy theories think that they're true or false.
00:28:46
Speaker
ah necessarily either way. He says the deluded Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist who sincerely believes that the whole thing was a hoax will be no less effective at getting the anti-gun control message across than an insincere proponent of the same view. Indeed he might be more effective because he actually believes what he's saying. But the sincerity of the person who believes his own conspiracy theory doesn't mean that what he says isn't propaganda. Whatever his intentions, the actual function of his theory is to promote a political agenda by spreading what is, in fact, whether he realises or not, a bunch of selective sorry seductive falsehoods.
00:29:20
Speaker
Now, he does at this point can see that some conspiracy, some of your capital C conspiracy theories have very little or no political content. He gives the example of conspiracy theories around Elvis not being dead. It doesn't really seem that people who promote that conspiracy theory are promoting a political agenda of any kind. But I mean, he basically goes on to say that most of them do. Certainly any time, any time the government is ah involved in any sort of a conspiracy theory, then at that point, it can't not be political.
00:29:50
Speaker
he he has ah ah He has a sort of digression into left wing versus white right wing, a little slippy if it's possibly appropriate. conspiracy Given the examples, a white wing conspiracies theory makes a lot of sense.
00:30:06
Speaker
um he He says that the politics of many conspiracy theories is right-wing, such as your right-wing anti-Semitic ones, ah but not a all of them. He he says um conspiracy theories are as popular with the extreme left as they are with the extreme right. Hitler was a conspiracy theorist, but so was Stalin.
00:30:23
Speaker
right Now i stood um I want to pause here because it is actually interesting that he's putting forward the dictator Stalin as a left-wing ideologue because I think he was a communist. He was a communist but communism under Stalin isn't quite the Marxist ideal that the that, you know, Das Kapital talks about. I mean, it's very it's very easy to argue that Stalin was a right rightw-wing dictator, and it's quite politically naive to go, well, if he was a communist leader, ipso facto, he must be on the left. I mean, Ceausescu was a communist leader, and his government was very right-wing, even engaged in austerity politics.
00:31:14
Speaker
But he what he wants to say is, political extremism of one sort or another is the lifeblood of modern conspiracy theories. And he sort of he talks about the the various targets, right-wing theories, look at ah Jews, the Illuminati, the UN, the Bilderbergs, but left-wing theories tend to be anti-capitalist, anti-American, and also regrettably anti-Semitic.
00:31:33
Speaker
So that's more of a digression. He basically wants to say that it's although he starts by saying the politics of media is right-wing, he eventually is saying that it is not exclusive to any one side of the political spectrum.
00:31:50
Speaker
Now I also want to point out, and this is once again, this isn't a problem for Kasam in 2019 because he is reflecting the literature at that time, but in the year of 2024, turns out there are papers coming out that go actually, it does seem that conspiracy theories are much more popular on the right than they are on the left. So there's a recent paper which is first authored by Adam Enders. And that paper is looking at a whole bunch of commonly polled for conspiracy theories in the US and finds that by a majority, most of them are believed by right-wingers. Left-wing conspiracism in their terms is actually quite low.
00:32:33
Speaker
But um that's the end of that bit. He he moves on now to basically justify, he said before that his his capital C conspiracy theories, they are implausible on on the face of it. So how does he how does he actually justify this? He says, the assumption that conspiracy theories are unlikely to be true can be justified by taking a closer look at what makes them special.
00:32:54
Speaker
Theories about conspiracies can be true, and many are, but the special features of conspiracy theories don't do much for their chances of getting things right. Once you give up on the idea that conspiracy theories are the there to tell the truth, there has to be another explanation of what they are up to. And a bit later he's going to point out that even as capital C conspiracy theories can, it's possible that they can turn out to be true.
00:33:16
Speaker
But he's say he's going to want to say that the features of them mean that you probably you're you're justified in disbelieving them up until the point that they are actually proven true, I guess. But anyway, so he says his extraordinary conspiracy theories with a capital C and a capital T are special. What's so special about them? Well, he has five five criteria that he goes through at this point. He says that they are speculative, as he says, based on conjecture rather than knowledge, educated or not so educated guesswork rather than solid evidence. He gives the example of, say, Operation Northwards. If we're talking about that, that's not one of his conspiracy theories.
00:33:53
Speaker
because we don't need to speculate on it. We've we've got the official documentation that says what operational thoughts was about. um he does it He does at this point point out that when he says speculative, he's also including things that have been disproved. I mean, technically speaking, if ah if a conspiracy theory has been proven false, then you don't need to speculate about it either. But he sees he says, but yeah also hes he's including that in this category also. He goes on to say the next next feature is that the a contrarian So this can be contrary to the official view, and this is a definition of conspiracy theories. We've seen other people point out they're necessarily opposed to the official view, but he he immediately says, well, hang on, there is the issue of governments peddling what seem to be extraordinary conspiracy theories as the official view, such as Bush Jr. talking about Iraq's involvement in 9-11.
00:34:39
Speaker
He says that there's a different sense in which conspiracy theories are always contrarian. The thing that conspiracy theories are contrary to is appearances or the obvious explanation of events. So he'll say that these these conspiracy theories are are the theory that things aren't as they seem.
00:34:55
Speaker
And he says that that conspiracy theorists are nevertheless confident that things aren't as they seem because they believe they have evidence that shows that the way things appear cannot be the truth. For example, your your truth is in your jet fuel can't outsteal beams. They think here's Here's a case where, although we we have what appears to be an obvious explanation of the two towers falling to bloody great airplanes crashed into them, nevertheless, they think they have the evidence point that shows that that there's there's a physical impossibility that the damage from these planes could have brought the buildings down. And so regardless of whether or not there's an official explanation, that they are running contrary to appearances.
00:35:35
Speaker
Now, I want to point out, at this point, on the basis of conspiracy theories for the capital C and a capital T being speculative and contrarian, the explanation of what happened in the Watergate complex break-in as advanced by Woodward and Bernstein would count as a capital C, capital T conspiracy theory at this point. Because at least for the first six months of the investigation that they did for the Washington Post,
00:36:04
Speaker
It was based on conjecture rather than knowledge, guesswork rather than solid evidence. That's Woodwood and Bernstein themselves admitting that. And also the explanation they put forward was contrary to the apparent or obvious explanation of the event that it was just a burglary of an office that just happened to be the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the time.
00:36:31
Speaker
Well, he carries on by saying that, on the other hand, school shooting conspiracy theories don't deny that a lone gunman could have been responsible. They question the reality of the shooting rather than its possibility. So again, they're they're there they're not saying that um evidence shows that this couldn't have happened. yeah It's not like they say, well, no, we we all know that school children are bulletproof. Therefore, any any school shooting couldn't be possible. They'll then go in a different direction and say, well, no, what we think we saw isn't what we actually saw at all.
00:37:01
Speaker
And he does say theorists will appeal to experts, but the only ones that conspiracy theorists are prepared to trust are other conspiracy theorists. Now, the next point is that his capital C conspiracy theories have an esoteric feel, which kind of sounds like we're getting into a vibes based definition of conspiracy theories, although to be fair, a fair few of the other definitions we've looked at have been fairly, fairly vibey in the past as well. So yeah,
00:37:30
Speaker
he he I think he's basically just saying saying that they're a bit weird, or especially you know if if they refer to your secret societies and odd things and suppressed technologies and stuff like that. He says, the more esoteric the theory, the greater its appeal to conspiracy theorists. Now, once again, Watergate.
00:37:49
Speaker
Woodwood and Bernstein were considered to be a bit weird with their claims until the evidence came out six, well, the beginning of the evidence came out about six months later on. Many journalists went, oh, they just they're just being a bit weird. So once again, Watergate is fitting in under this definition.
00:38:08
Speaker
Well, the next bit is that these conspiracy theories are amateurish, by which he means that prominent conspiracy theorists aren't experts in the fields their theories apply to. He talks about various so academics who promote conspiracy theories who who tend not to be that while they are indeed active military experts in certain fields, those fields or indeed those disciplines aren't actually related to the conspiracy theories they're putting forward. He says some 9-11 conspiracy theorists do have qualifications and relevant subjects such as mechanical engineering, but they are in a small minority. Besides having a degree in a relevant subject doesn't mean that one's opinions have greater validity than those of countless mainstream experts in the same field who don't buy into conspiracy theories.
00:38:51
Speaker
And once again, Watergate, the reason why Woodwood and Bernstein were considered to be weird was that other journalists went, we just don't think this is a very likely explanation of the event, your idea of a of a break-in covered up by the White House. What a amatrous claim for a serious journalist to make. And then the final aspect of these conspiracy theories that makes them special is that they're pre-modern. Here he appeals to to Brian L. Keeley's of conspiracy theories from back in 1999.
00:39:21
Speaker
And according to Kasam in that paper, Brian argued that conspiracy theories, quote, embody a thoroughly outdated worldview and a perspective on the meaning of life that was more appropriate in the 20th century. The world drew that clearly describes as pre-modern. It is the view that complex events are capable of being controlled by a small number of people acting in secret. And this is what gives these events a deeper meaning.
00:39:43
Speaker
From this perspective, things always happen for a reason. I worry that I so first read that and thought, could he not pick something a bit more recent? Although he does then go on to cite Pete Mandik's Shit Happens paper from 2007, which you have talked about when describing the the the the opposing view to the idea that things always happen for a reason. But um I have not read of conspiracy theories in quite a while. ah Did Brian say that or is Kasam inferring from what he said to this get to this viewpoint? And so Bryan suggests you might think of…
00:40:18
Speaker
conspiracy theories in this way. But then he goes on to point out, well, actually, it isn't this way because we know people do actually conspire. So, yes, he mentions this, but it's not a core part of his argument. I really do get the feeling here that Kasam, if he has read his Keeley, has not understood what b Brian was trying to argue for.
00:40:43
Speaker
Well, so those are the five points which which brings us to the end of this chapter. So the the final part of the chapter is him so summing up what he's said so far. He said that conspiracy theories are speculative, contrarian, esoteric, amateurish, and pre-modern. He says that, that quote, wide widely discussed theories such as 9-11 truth conspiracy theories are his capital C conspiracy theories because they have all of these features. He doesn't… And I would argue Watergate does as well under his particular conspiracy theories. It's hard to know what he means by pre-modern here, so that might be the get out clause, but it's not quite clear
00:41:24
Speaker
what pre-modern is other than these conspiracy theorists don't think like us. We sensible people, we don't believe in conspiracy theories because we have a modern idea of the way the world works. But they, those people who believe in the already defined as bad conspiracy theories, the reason why they think that way is they've got pre-modern minds.
00:41:46
Speaker
They should upgrade their minds. Yes. He doesn't, as I recall, say much about sort of the necessity or sufficiency of any of these conditions. What if something is, you know, a speculative contrarian amateurish and pre-modern, but not at all esoteric? You know, does that mean oh it's not a it's not one of his conspiracy theories at all? Or does it mean it's a bit of one? or I'm not sure. But he does think that because, I guess, the conspiracy theories that he's going to be wanting to talk about have all five of these criteria.
00:42:15
Speaker
Because of that, they're unlikely to be true. Although he does point out that, again, that they're not, this doesn't mean that they are impossible, just that they are implausible enough that you're justified in not believing them until you have proof otherwise. So I guess that's what he'd say to the case of Watergate, that you were justified in not believing the conspiracy theory until Woodward and Bernstein were able to provide proof positive. I don't know. No, I'm not quite sure. Oh, hi, there is a definition. It's very hard to operationalize this one.
00:42:45
Speaker
ah But the point is, the point that he appears to be driving towards the whole thing is that because, so these theories have these features that mean they're unlikely to be true, and so because they're not about telling the truth, their true function is as propaganda. And he finishes up the chapter by saying,
00:43:02
Speaker
When all of these factors are added to the amateur status of most conspiracy theorists, there is only one possible conclusion. Conspiracy theories could be true, but are unlikely to be. But that doesn't matter if, as I've been arguing, their primary function is to promote a political or ideological agenda rather than to tell the truth.
00:43:19
Speaker
In practice, what counts is not whether a conspiracy theory is true, but whether it is seductive. On that score, it's hard to question the success of many conspiracy theories. They tell stories that people want to hear. Whether these stories are really believed or not is sometimes hard to say. The fact the person re-tweets a conspiracy theory doesn't necessarily mean that he believes it. But there's no doubt that people find conspiracy theories intriguing enough to want to circulate them, discuss them, and think about them.
00:43:43
Speaker
Why is that? This is where some psychologists see an opening. They want to explain the popularity of conspiracy theories, and of course they want to explain it in psychological terms. This brings us to my next question. Are psychological explanations of conspiracy theories any good? That's a question that deserves its own chapter. And that chapter, I assume, is chapter two.
00:44:03
Speaker
It is. Chapter 2. Why are conspiracy theories so popular? And it starts well. He starts with, just how popular are conspiracy theories? It's sometimes suggested that we are living in a golden age of conspiracy theories, but it's actually not clear that conspiracy theories are a hotter topic today than in the past.
00:44:26
Speaker
In their book, American Conspiracy Theories, political scientists Jost Jusinski and Joseph Parent described the result of a fascinating study of conspiracy talk in letters sent to the New York Times between 1890 and 2010. Perhaps surprisingly, they found that discussion of conspiracy theories has diminished in the United States since 1890.
00:44:49
Speaker
at least as far as America is concerned, we don't live in an age of conspiracy theories. So he starts off with a nice statement of the empirical evidence here. People don't seem to believe as many conspiracy theories now as they did in the past, and generally belief is trending down, it's not even remaining stable. So one of the interesting things about the Trump presidency and COVID-19 is that if it has had an effect on people's belief in conspiracy theories, it has not registered in the survey results in the United States, and given that people tend to point to America as being the most conspiracy and-infused Western political system, that's quite interesting.
00:45:39
Speaker
So on that respect, conspiracy theories aren't particularly popular, and you might then wonder why bother to then try and characterise what's wrong with them if very few people believe them. But Kasam has something else to say here. There's no denying that significant numbers of people, producers and consumers do believe, or say they believe, at least one prominent conspiracy theory.
00:46:06
Speaker
A study five years after 9-11 found that more than a third of Americans believed that the government had either assisted in the attacks or knew about them in advance and did nothing to stop them.
00:46:19
Speaker
So the Cassandra tried to have it both ways here. There aren't that many conspiracy theories, they're not particularly popular, but some people believe them, and thus we have to spend some time considering why these unpopular theories are apparently so popular. I had it both ways once. Sprayed my pelvis, don't like to talk about it. It's it's true, but it did make the papers.
00:46:43
Speaker
a So I mean, you you you might not want to talk about it, but it is part of the historical record now. I mean, that it might be the only thing you're known for in 80 years time. Quite possibly. Anyway, so Kasam does make some good points about how there are conspiracy theories in the uppercase and conspiracy theory producers who do not seem to believe their theories or they have reasons to produce these theories other than the truth of those theories. And of course he goes to our good old friend Alex Jones. Alex Jones, who for the last week or so has been interviewing chat GPT to find out what's going on in the world. If you haven't listened to the first Knowledge Fight episode where Alex Jones interviews chat GTP,
00:47:34
Speaker
it's worth listening to because a does reveal just how deeply dull and intellect Alex Jones is but also b how LLMs don't really tell you anything particularly interesting when you want to talk to them but that's an aside let's move back to Kasam. So to quote Kasam A good illustration of the business potential of conspiracy theories is the virtual store on conspiracy theorists Alex Jones' website, Infowars. The range of products for sale includes not only survival gear and other conspiracy-related products, but also dietary supplements, male vitality pills, and toothpaste.
00:48:17
Speaker
The conspiracy theories for which Jones is famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, are a marketing opportunity as well as a political statement. Now, this is true. Alex Jones does make a lot of money out of merchandising, or at least he did in 2019. At the moment, Alex Jones is dead as the one who's making all that money out of merchandising, because due to the bankruptcy thing, due to the Sandy Hook trials, Alex Jones is kind of in hock to a large number of their families and for some reason the things that Alex Jones used to sell on his own are now sold by a completely separate company owned and operated by his father who of course has no connection to the Alex Jones Empire in any way shape or form. But, and this is the big but here,
00:49:14
Speaker
It is true that Alex Jones makes money from his conspiracy theories. It's important to note that Jones, before he had the media empire he has today predicated on selling supplements, he had an empire of telling wacky conspiracy theories on air, which is to say, arguably he monetized his interest in conspiracy theories.
00:49:43
Speaker
rather than decided to make money by being a conspiracy theorist. And the best illustration of that is that if you go back and listen to the really early Alex Jones when he's still basically on public access radio or the very beginning of Infowars,
00:50:02
Speaker
He is selling VHS and DVD copies of his documentary films, but he's selling them to be able to distribute physical copies of the media to other people. Physical media, he is then telling the people who buy said media to copy and spread to other people.
00:50:22
Speaker
So Alex Jones is not trying to make money off of his conspiracy theories there. He's basically using that money to pay for the distribution of the content in an era before we had things like YouTube and the like. And so it's quite clear that Alex Jones might be in it for the money now.
00:50:42
Speaker
But Alex Jones was a conspiracy theorist of either a lowercase or uppercase variety well before he became someone who may or may not be interested primarily in the graft here and now. Yeah.
00:50:57
Speaker
I think, I mean, he'd he'd mentioned that in back in chapter one, that that some people sincerely believe the theories that they're putting forward and some people might necessarily not. So I don't, I guess he doesn't need to say that Alex Jones definitely doesn't believe any of it. He he could he could say it's a a bit of both.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yes, and I mean he is going to try to have it both ways, but I think this is an issue for his thesis in general, because he wants to make the claim that conspiracy theories exist primarily as political propaganda. Yet the kind of story he tells about belief in conspiracy theories of the capital C, capital T, variety, or conspiracy theorists of the capital C, capital T, variety, means that yes, in some cases,
00:51:46
Speaker
the producers are invested in producing political propaganda. But in some cases, the people who are putting forward these capital C, capital T, conspiracy theories, the actual producers, not just the consumers, seem to be doing it because they really do think they are true. But Kasam takes it that propaganda is false.
00:52:07
Speaker
And thus there is a dichotomy here between the account he wants to make and the concessions he's willing to make to get his argument to pass muster. So I think it's a problem that's kind of structurally baked into his account of the problem of belief in conspiracy theories and the problem of the production of conspiracy theories. Because yes, he does admit that some conspiracy theorists in the upper case, particularly the consumers, do not necessarily believe the conspiracy theories that they consume. To quote, it's even more obvious that consumers of conspiracy theories don't have to believe them.
00:52:48
Speaker
There are plenty of ways of actively engaging in with a conspiracy theory you don't endorse. so One way of course is to argue against it, and people engaging in conspiracy talk include both opponents and proponents of conspiracy theories. Some people talk about conspiracy theories because they find them intriguing or entertaining.
00:53:08
Speaker
Posting details of a conspiracy theory on Facebook is a way of engaging with it, but it's not unusual to put it mildly for people to post things on social media that they don't necessarily think are true. The extent to which people are agnostic about conspiracy theories is just as striking as the extent to which these can these theories are actively supported or opposed.
00:53:33
Speaker
And once again, if you take it that conspiracy theories are first and foremost a form of political propaganda, and political propaganda is by its nature false, then if you're not a conspiracy theorist of a capital C, capital T variety, and you're having discussions about what Qassam takes to be obviously false theories here,
00:53:59
Speaker
Then it's hard to know what's going on with the consumption of conspiracy theories here. Is this something which applies to only some consumers of conspiracy theories? Or is it meant to be an account that applies to all consumption?
00:54:15
Speaker
It's not clear from the way he writes about the consumption of conspiracy theories, exactly what this concession of not everyone who consumes a conspiracy theory necessarily necessarily believes it, what it's actually meant to an intact entail. And I think this is a problem of the way Kasam has defined conspiracy theorists here.
00:54:39
Speaker
Conspiracy theorists are someone who believes the capital C, capital T conspiracy theory. and Those theories are clearly false, so being a conspiracy theorist of the capital C, capital T variety means that you are entertaining or consuming false theories here.
00:54:56
Speaker
And arguably the way he puts it forward is that these things are quite clearly false to sensibly minded people, which means you ask you have to ask what's going on with the water cooler talk about conspiracy theories in these kinds of situations, which is to say there's something which is missing in this discussion.
00:55:19
Speaker
which is a rather nuanced take about how disinformation, misinformation, and merely sharing entertaining stories is being talked through. They're all being talked about in the same way, when it's quite clear they're rather distinct practices.
Psychological and Political Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories
00:55:37
Speaker
It's not quite clear what's going on with the consumption story here, in part because we have a pretty pejorative and evaluative definition of conspiracy theory, a pretty pejorative and evaluative definition definition of who counts as a conspiracy theorist,
00:55:55
Speaker
It seems if you're spreading political propaganda knowingly, then you're going to count as a conspiracy theorist of the Alex Jones variety. If you're doing it for any other reason than the supposed belief in truth of the theory being put forward. So what a caller talk seems like you're engaging in political propaganda, whether or not you are ah supposed believer in the theory. Actually this comes up again in chapter 4. So in chapter 4 he's going to bite the bullet on that to a certain extent and say look you should never be talking about conspiracy theories, which is a bit awkward for someone who's written a book about them.
00:56:37
Speaker
then say but we should shouldn't talk about these things because then you're spreading propaganda even inadvertently but we'll get to that problem in chapter four when we do. it Probably more importantly for our discussion here is that having talked about how Conspiracy theories are an example of political propaganda, which not necessarily everyone believes. He wants to be able to talk about the psychology of the capital C, capital T conspiracy theorists themselves.
00:57:08
Speaker
So this is going to be interesting because he's going to tell us a somewhat cautionary story of psychology in the same way that Neil Livy told a somewhat cautionary story of psychology in bad beliefs, in that psychology isn't great But it's very suggestive and thus we should act as if it is great. So to start, Cassam writes, given that conspiracy theories are unlikely to be true and a good number of them have been conclusively refuted, it's reasonable to ask why people still believe them.
00:57:44
Speaker
Whether this reasonable question is one to which psychology gives a reasonable answer remains to be seen. It would be rash to deny that psychology has anything useful to say about this, but psychological accounts of belief in conspiracy theories are incomplete in one crucial respect. They don't pay nearly enough attention to the role of politics. And that's a fairly common and dismissive view of psychology by a philosopher, something which I've engaged in in the past. It's very easy as a philosopher to look down on psychology as being in dismal science in the same vein as economics. And sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. But let's look at what Kasam says about psychology and belief in conspiracy theories. so
00:58:36
Speaker
So he considers three things psychologists think about conspiracy theory belief. One is a problem of the intentionality bias, the tendency to assume that things happen because they are intended rather than accidental. There's confirmation bias, the tendency to look only for evidence that support took one already believes while ignoring contrary evidence And then there's the proportionality bias, the tendency to assume that the scale of an event's cause must match the scale of the event itself. So basically, this is big events need big causes. If a big event happens, it must have been caused by a big cause, and it must have been intended to be caused. Nothing happens by accident. Everything is true. Something-something assassins creed.
00:59:29
Speaker
Now... I don't think this is an entirely representative view of psychology and the psychological work in conspiracy theory theory. It might be that I'm more aware in the current day of work going on in psychology in 2024 than I am of work going on in psychology going back to 2019 because I always seem to be working with the most recent work in psychology and rather than the ancient work.
01:00:01
Speaker
But I actually don't think this is actually a fair representation of the state of psychological science on conspiracy theories in 2019 as well. There's a lot of work going on in psychology in 2019. And these particular biases are talked about particularly in evolutionary psychology, but they're not necessarily representative of psychology in general, particularly social psychology when it comes to discussion of conspiracy theories.
01:00:31
Speaker
It is true, some conspiracy theorists do suffer from the intentionality bias, the confirmation bias and the proportionality bias, but as we've already seen, there are there isn't that much belief in conspiracy theories in the first place.
01:00:50
Speaker
And it's also not clear that people who are engaging in talking about these conspiracy theories which aren't widely believed necessarily believe them when they're expressing those beliefs anyway. So this account can really only be about a subset of the some conspiracy theorists who engage with it.
01:01:11
Speaker
So it's an incomplete story from psychology, which is why Kasam's been able to say this. Psychological studies like this should always come with a health warning. Their guinea pigs are almost always undergraduate studying psychology, and so are hardly representative of the general population. There are also concerns about whether their findings can be reproduced in matching studies. Still, taking the psychological evidence at face value, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that there is such a thing as being conspiracy-minded or having a conspiracy mindset that predisposes you to believe conspiracy theories. so Yeah, i i did I don't know enough about the evidence and everything to really comment at this point. Where where does he take it from here? Well, he needs consider psychological studies to have these particular health warnings. He's going to take it from here to say that, look,
01:02:08
Speaker
No matter what you think about the like the psychological work, which he's being both praising and dismissive of at the same time, which is fairly common for a philosopher when it comes to talking about psychology, he has already said, look, these stories are missing something, and that is the story of ideology.
01:02:28
Speaker
Now, admittedly, you might think that psychologists aren't actually interested in ideology when it comes to giving psychological dissections of belief in conspiracy theories because they're looking for psychological factors for belief rather than necessarily political factors for belief.
01:02:49
Speaker
Maybe if you want to look at the political factors for belief, you might want to be looking at, say, what the political scientists are saying about belief in conspiracy theories. And political science tends to have an interesting overlap between political theory and psychological work, particularly work in social psychology. So it might be that his target here is the wrong target to be looking at. He should be looking at what political scientists say rather than necessarily social psychologists.
01:03:19
Speaker
But yes, he's going to take this to say, look, what's missing from the story is ideology, and the ideology we need to be thinking about is extremism as expressed by belief and promulgation in false political propaganda. So he states,
01:03:39
Speaker
Tying conspiracism this is that conspiracy mindset ideology in this way is a good way of building on the notion that conspiracy theories are forms of political propaganda. For propaganda to be effective, people need to believe it, and the propaganda model needs to explain why conspiracy theories are believed by some of their consumers.
01:04:01
Speaker
It's not just a matter of these consumers having a general tendency to believe conspiracy theories. They're also inclined to accept particular conspiracy theories or particular types of conspiracy theory.
01:04:15
Speaker
so Conspiracy theorists in that uppercase sense really are just subscribers to an ideology which gets expressed in the narrative of a conspiracy theory in the uppercase. And this gives you a kind of interesting chicken and the egg situation.
01:04:34
Speaker
He's going to say, look, ideology produces propaganda, and that propaganda gets expressed in the form of conspiracy theories. But he also might take it that conspiracy theories here are just the epiphenomena of ideology. The issue is ideology, and sometimes extreme right-wing ideology gets expressed in the form of a conspiracy theory. And sometimes extreme right-wing ideology gets expressed in the form of being an explicit racist. Sometimes extreme right-wing ideology gets expressed in the form of being an explicit sexist. There are lots of different ways to express your extreme right-wing ideology. and Conspiracy theories seem to just be one aspect of that particular thing. thing. So that that but the ah he used the word particular twice in that quote, which is interesting. Particular conspiracy theories are particular types of conspiracy theories. So having already carved this this particular this one group of conspiracy theories, is his exceptional capital C conspiracy theories out of the general class of conspiracy theories, he he casually mentions about particular types of this type of conspiracy theory. Does he go into that more about what kinds of
01:05:53
Speaker
capital C conspiracy theories there are, or did was that just a throwaway? There's going to be some discussion of this in chapter four. So he's going to say there are certain people who are more inclined to have explicit anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And then there are going to be people who are more inclined to have more crypto anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. So the types of more subject matter than than than qua yeah So they're all examples of extreme right-wing propaganda. The expression of that extreme right-wing propaganda can be moderated by a variety of different features. So yes, that is a really and in interesting little all potential lacuna or potential way of sneaking some particularism in, but he's not going to pursue that kind of view in any way, shape or form.
01:06:45
Speaker
And I think that's because he's a concern despite the fact he denies this in the previous chapter, he really is a conspiracy theorist of the capital C, capital T variety, of the theory of conspiracy theories of the capital C, capital T variety.
01:07:05
Speaker
would be interesting to apply to his particular theory of what makes a conspiracy theory as to whether it's speculative, contrarian, has an esoteric feel, is amitrous, and embodies a pre-modern view of the world, because certainly it seems to be based a large amount on conjecture. It's contrarian to the consensus view in philosophy at this particular time, particularism. It has an esoteric feel by virtue of being contrarian to the consensus view.
01:07:42
Speaker
And it seems somewhat amateurish in part because Kasama is not recognised as being an expert on this particular topic because once again it's a contrarian and esoteric feel and he clearly has a fairly pre-modern view of conspiracy theorists, which means that this does appear to be a capital C, capital T conspiracy theory about his theory of capital C, capital T conspiracy theories. and du du Well, I can actually even do the... you Because I can. I just can. In fact, I can do it again.
01:08:32
Speaker
Anyway. I know. Anyway. I also have to do that because I'm scrolling back. I had to scroll up the list to then get back to the list of criteria. You're seeing how the sausage is made, people. You're seeing how the sausage is made. So you also say, look, it's undeniable that you all believe some conspiracy theories lowercase.
01:08:52
Speaker
It is some accounts of conspiracies, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether we are all prone to believing conspiracy theories with a capital C and a capital T. That's unlikely. And this is Kasama speaking. I have no urge to believe that 9-11 was an inside job, that Sandy Hook was a false flag, or that Oswald didn't act alone in in assassinating JFK.
01:09:15
Speaker
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't think I'm unique in this regard. We aren't all conspiracy theorists, let alone natural-born conspiracy theorists. And I have to ask, what does that mean? Just because Qassam has no urge to believe that 9-11 was an inside job. I mean, could he not be persuaded 9-11 was an inside job if there was sufficient evidence to show it?
01:09:44
Speaker
I mean, what does it mean to say, look, I have no urge, therefore from that I can generalize to the idea that we aren't all conspiracy theorists, therefore those conspiracy theorists are deeply weird people. yeah And it's because of the definition. He's defined those conspiracy theories with a capital C and a capital T as being political propaganda and obviously false theories. And because he's a sensible centrist, he's not an extremist,
01:10:11
Speaker
And therefore that shows that he's not a conspiracy theorist of the capital C, capital T, variety. And given that he knows other sensible centrists, there are other people who aren't conspiracy theorists of the capital C, capital T, variety. But I don't think that's particularly informative.
01:10:32
Speaker
No. This now gets complicated because he's going to say, well, look, actually, some people might believe in capital C, capital T, conspiracy theories for the right kind of reasons, even if they're wrong. So he runs the argument from history saying, look, in the case of African-Americans who are aware of previous medical misadventures, they are likely to believe conspiracy theories about medical misadventures now.
01:11:02
Speaker
So they are inclined to have a belief in something which will turn out to be, say, political propaganda by people who are trying to create more political polarization in society. But they've got the prize to be able to go, well, look, actually, maybe this kind of thing has happened in the past, which explains why I believe it now.
01:11:24
Speaker
So it seems you actually can rationally come to belief in a conspiracy theory, even if you build in that these conspiracy theories are in fact false. Yeah, does does he does he just bring that case up and then move on? It does seem like a a bit of an obstacle.
01:11:46
Speaker
it's This book is filled with concessions and exceptions, which he seems to run by saying, well, look, I'll admit these things do happen, but I'm going to move on from that point now. And I think he's going, look, I can accommodate your objections, but the general thesis is correct. Well, as I find the concessions and exceptions keep on weakening an argument that admittedly I don't think is very good to begin with.
01:12:14
Speaker
but is weakened by these exceptions being admitted to. So on one level, he gets marks for going, well, look, there are some exceptions here. But the exceptional nature of the exceptions is making me begin to think that maybe the argument itself is not particularly strong.
01:12:30
Speaker
Anyway, ah because this has gone on long enough, the chapter ends, and although I say the chapter ends, we're going to talk about one more point in this chapter before we bring this to a close, the chapter ends thusly. Meanwhile, the take-home message of this chapter is that there is no simple answer to the question why people are conspiracy-minded. Sometimes it's because of their wider political or ideological commitments.
01:12:53
Speaker
or it's a response to being marginalised or conspired against, or because conspiracy theories satisfy a spiritual need, or it's some combination of these factors, or something completely different that I haven't mentioned. There's no one simple or single explanation of conspiracy-mindedness, but there was never any serious hope of that. The answer to the question why people believe conspiracy theories is, it's complicated.
01:13:19
Speaker
And I agree with the last sentence. I just don't agree with how we get to that conclusion. Yeah, it does but does take me back to chapter one. um I immediately think the answer to the question why people believe some conspiracy theories is because it turns out they're true. ah even Even your capital C ones, or Watergate being the example they've come up.
01:13:41
Speaker
There is, again, the problem that we've seen in the past where you have conspiracy theories, especially where you have conspiracy theories as opposed to the official theories, then there's always the case that one can turn into the other.
01:13:55
Speaker
yeah so when when ah He acknowledges the fact that these capital C, capital T conspiracy theories can can turn out to be true, even though that seems unlikely. So if one is does turn out to be true, does that mean it isn't a capital C? I i guess that means it's no longer speculative, at least, if we know that it's true. So maybe that's yeah that's enough to say, okay, he doesn't satisfy this. That particular point, yes. Anyway, he does, I understand, mention MH370.
01:14:24
Speaker
the most important conspiracy theory of all, because it's the one on which this podcast exists. It is the urtext of this very podcast, once it is solved, this podcast comes to an abrupt end to the point where, if, for example, we had a kind of ticker tape of news things, and MH370 just comes across the airwaves as the situation is solved, the plane is found, we now know exactly what happened. We were just in the episode that yeah very moment, release the audio, close the Patreon down and move to Mexico. yeah I mean that's that's the existing plan. as far as mut and He mentions the disappearance of MH370 and of course this is back in 2019 so we can probably assume the book was being written in 2018.
01:15:10
Speaker
He seems to think it's more likely to have been an accident, which seems to be the general thesis these days. But he mentions to claim that it was suicide by pilot. And Kasam takes it, this has been labeled as a conspiracy theory, to mean that actually it's been put forward as being a conspiracy theory with a capital C, capital T.
01:15:37
Speaker
Now, we've talked about the variety of different theories for the explanation of the disappearance of MH370. And whilst it seems to be that the official theory at this stage is still the, it was a tragic accident, in part because there's an information vacuum here. We have very little information about what happened to MH370 once the transponders were turned off. The suicide by pilot theory seems to at least be something which has been considered plausible by authorities and has been investigated.
01:16:17
Speaker
And technically because it involves only a single person, it's not a conspiracy anyway. but Well, in a conspiracy, there would be that Malaysian air that they're covering it up. In the same respect, the flat earth theory isn't technically a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is, why do people not believe the earth is flat? Then you go, oh, because we've been lied to by the government. It's people like me. you University lecturers are being paid off to make people believe the earth is is an obliques theroid rather than the perfectly flat disk we know it to be flying through space.
01:16:52
Speaker
So yes, he's kind of confusing the fact that because it's been labeled as a conspiracy theory, which is to say that it's considered to be less plausible than the official theory, then it must be one of those, capital C, capital T, conspiracy theories. And this is why I'm kind of worried about the general approach he has. And he's giving a lot of power to people who label things.
01:17:20
Speaker
as conspiracy theories here. I'd be quite curious to know what his view would have been if he'd been writing this book in early 2003, when Bush and Blair are first putting forward the what you know Saddam Hussein is producing weapons of mass destruction thing. Because there was at least a period of a few months where the media were unquestioning about the veracity of the material being put forward.
01:17:50
Speaker
by the US and UK government. People were going, well, the government can't be lying. It must be the UN weapon inspectors inspectors who are wrong. And so in that particular period, if you're taking the label of people say that's a capital C, capital T conspiracy theory seriously, you are conceding an awful lot of power to people in society who actually might be the conspirators.
01:18:19
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the end of chapter two. Chapters three and four will follow in and in a later episode, like not this episode. This episode's always finished, but we do have a bit of news, I understand.
01:18:33
Speaker
Yes, I mean there's a lot of news we could talk about. I watched the presidential debate yesterday morning and then kind of wish I hadn't because it was actually stunningly boring. Trump was nowhere near as wakey as I thought he would be and Harris was not quite as polished as I thought she was going to be. So basically both sides let me down and I'm telling you now Josh,
01:19:03
Speaker
I don't know how I'm voting in that US election. I just don't know how I'm going to be able to vote in that US election.
Influence of Russian Propaganda in the U.S.
01:19:10
Speaker
i am We all need to figure that out. Yeah, how to vote in that election. And whether I'm even allowed to vote in that election. I think the answer is I just I just can't. Can I? Doesn't seem fair. I mean,
01:19:24
Speaker
i mean I mean, actually, it really doesn't seem fair when they are a superpower and we live on the very edge of the world and we heard awful government, but that's another matter entirely. But the other news, this was came out last Wednesday, turns out Russia's been running prop propaganda in the United States. Really?
01:19:44
Speaker
I know! And you you'd be surprised to find out who their disinformation agents have been, although miss Lee, these people claim to be unwitting disinformation agents. Actually, so here's a here's a good way of polling. I'm going to give you six names here, and I want you to tell me whether you've even heard of these people. right So the people who were
01:20:12
Speaker
Inadvertently or advertently, producing Russian propaganda are one temple. No. Benny Johnson. Never heard of him. Dave Rubin. Sounds familiar, but no. Taylor Hanson. You mean the Taylor Hanson who was from the band Hanson that that released Imbop in the early 1990s? I'm hoping not. Right, in that case, christianson no. No. Laura's, sorry, Lauren Southern. She's the only one I have actually heard of, cause her and Watts's face smiling you've
01:20:46
Speaker
came to New Zealand and gave Patrick Gower a... They did get here, but they didn't manage to do their events yet. They gave Paddy Gower a brain aneurysm, yeah. Yeah, so I know of Tim Paul, in part because Tim Paul has hosted Alex Jones. is tim i think tim paul's the is Is Tim Paul the one who has the... No, no, it's level with crap Crowder who had the change my mind table thing, but Tim Paul's kind of on the same spectrum there.
01:21:15
Speaker
Peter Johnson don't know, Dave Rubin is on the Rubin report, ah he and Alex Jones have some degree of rapport, Taylor Hampton and Matt Christensen I've never heard of, and yes, Lauren Southern is always going to be famous back home for so many different reasons. But yes, they were revealed last Wednesday to basically be working inadvertently for Russia Today. So Russia Today, which is the supposedly independent, but everyone is fairly sure, is directly controlled if not funded by the Kremlin Media Organization, which was bankrolling a US $10 million dollars campaign. I'm assuming that per year.
01:22:03
Speaker
through a company which I think we still only suspect to be called Tenant Media, given that the unsealed indictment has enough identifying factors to link the person responsible for the work in the US.
01:22:20
Speaker
to an organization in the US. And if you start matching company registers with names, Tenant Media is the only company it can be. And essentially, Tenant Media was paying for non-exclusive rebroadcasts of the shows of the aforementioned six people. So I think Tim Paul and Dave Rubin were getting about 100,000 US per episode.
01:22:49
Speaker
to have give non-exclusive rebroadcast rights. And it's all kind of fascinating because this is a case of a Russian company operating in the US running an information campaign, which is basically unannounced, which is why it's illegal. It's actually not illegal to spread Russian propaganda as long as you register yourself as doing it. It is illegal to spread that propaganda if you don't register yourself as a foreign agent and this was a unregistered foreign agent agency here but the response by the people involved in it particularly Tim Paul and Dave Rubin is to go I mean they gave us money but it didn't change anything we said
01:23:39
Speaker
We were willing to spread Russian propaganda for free. It's just very convenient that they paid us for doing it. And we had no idea the much money came from Russia. We just love Russia so much, we were doing it on our own edges and suddenly someone said, hey, take some money for the good work you're doing. Well, nice work if you can get it. could could Can we be paid?
01:24:02
Speaker
by the Russian media to spread propaganda, like could I could do it with $100,000. The thing is, my my work contract doesn't allow me to have more than one job, so all the money would have to go to you, Josh. i just have to be I'd have to be the the sidekick, and you could do all the Russian propaganda, and I'd be going, uh-huh, really? I don't think you should be saying that.
01:24:29
Speaker
Okay, that's a bit weird. In fact, you can just cut all those segments out and you can do the you you can do it yourself and just put those segments in. It could be something weird. Wow, really? You believe that? So these people are basically ah exactly what we always thought of them. Dave Ruben the Rube. So there you go. Interested it'll snippet and and and germane to what we've been talking about in this episode.
01:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, the other thing which is interesting about this is that people reporting this are saying, well, look, when the Russiagate stuff came out, people went, oh, it's ridiculous to think that Russia would be engaging in such things. We now have actual evidence and people are going, we need to be going back to that Russiagate stuff because we were probably not credulous enough when it came to what Russia might have been doing back in 2016.
01:25:28
Speaker
Indeed. So this episode's gone on long enough, and the next one's probably going to be the same. So we better quit now while we still can. Of course, we are going to record a bonus episode for our patrons once we finish doing this main episode. our beloved sweet-smelling patrons who are the nicest and shiniest and least sticky of all people unless you're into that, in which case they're the most sticky. At which point you might be the most sticky of all people. We do not judge you on your lack or
01:26:02
Speaker
non-lack of stick. Yes. That sounds like it should be slang. Ah Josh, you've got a whole non-lack of stick there. We're too old to know what slang is these days. ah but But you know who isn't too old to know everything? It's our patrons. They're fully versed in all forms of communication. If you want to be one, it's as simple as going to patreon.com and looking for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy and you will get apart from your precise desired level of stickiness, access to all of our bonus episodes. This week's one we're going to talk about the sinking of the Bayesian.
01:26:34
Speaker
someone called their boat the Bayesian. But we'll get into that. I am aware of this and am not and not willing to accept it even at this stage. So ah that's that's what's coming up in the bonus episode. and For the rest of you you, you listened through to this episode and that's that's quite enough, quite frankly. So to to you and our patrons and everyone in general, I say goodbye. Goodbye.
01:27:04
Speaker
The podcast is Guide to the Conspiracy, stars Josh Addison and myself, Associate Professor M.R.X. Denton. Our show's cons... sorry, producers are Tom and Philip, plus another mysterious anonymous donor. You can contact Josh and myself at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com, and please do consider joining our Patreon.
01:27:40
Speaker
And remember, nothing is real, everything is permitted but conditions apply.