So why do people believe conspiracy theories. Who are the people most likely to believe them and why would they? Can conspiracy theories be combatted and how? What consequences are there for individuals and the general societiy if the spread?
Conspiracy theories usually claim to reveal the secret activities or “facts”, which aim to undermine or bring doubt to activities or actual known facts. Conspiracy theories have a neat way of avoiding having to produce evdience as they claim they are based on secret information which is not readily available. The lack of evidence can actually strengthen the theory by “proving it must be right because the evidence has been has been covered up”
Neat.
Equally someone denaying a theory can actually act to strengthen the theory. Becasue obvioulsy the authorities are going to deny the theory, because they do not want to acknowledge its truth.
Here is how conspiracy theories can work, or this video itself could be part of a larger conspiracy. It is always difficult to know which side of the fence to be on. From a young age most societies teach the children to believe what the older members of the society says, this could have been in years gone by a good survival technique the younger ones benefit from past learnt experience without the risks.
Initially the children are encouraged to not question and to just believe the narrative laid down by the elder members. You could suggest that this would improve the chances of survival for the children who followed the instructions and this could imply a darwin-type natural selection situation. Does this mean that at low level we are from the start programmed to believe what we are told, it is a good question. However as the child gains in age it becomes apparent to them that everything they are told may not be true. This new understanding of their surroundings can be brought on by personal experience, humans are naturally inquisitive animals and usually like to test things for themselves.
However does the revelation that they have been told untruths ever leave them, has the child learnt its first lesson in skepticism or as the child gets older do they start to look for other sources of absolute truth to try and restore some order to their life. In effect looking for something to believe in. This could be why conspiracy theories can be so powerful, they play to the skeptical side of the child’s brain that has already been lied to and yerns for some higher authority to tell the truth.
Another facet of conspiracy theories is that they can appeal to the herding instinct of humans, naturally most humans like to be in a group or collection of some sort. This can include teams and associations etc, however being part of a group, who know the truth can be very appealing to some despite the fact that they have no proof that this particular theory is true. They feel they have been let into a special group, the saying goes all good conspiracies start with a grain of truth this again plays towards the experiences in childhood where as the child gets older it begins to understand it has been told little lies to help it understand and learn. This can be a difficult lesson to forget as it plays to the very base of our learning experience.
Conspiracy theories cannot be written off as just affecting those in society who are less enlightened or those with less experience of the world, these theories can be quite seductive and can play to all levels of society. They can provide a kind of an answer to all those things we wish were true, which were not true and those things we can blame for past bad experiences or present challenges.
Some of the most powerful people in the world appear to believe in some of these theories or do they, are they just leading us to believe that to further their own goals. What we have just done is to put forward a very simple conspiracy theory it could easily be believed it could be used to explain some of the more weird things that go on in the world and it is very difficult to disprove.
The advent of the internet has only caused the spread of such theories to increase. Anyone with a device can now without too much difficulty start a theory. These then can spread very quickly due to there being so many community platforms being available. The internet can also be a huge source of misleading and confusing information because the content on the internet is mostly ungoverned it can provide some seriously flawed information. Which again can contribute to these theories, given enough effort these theories can in effect cause people to unlearn facts that are widely accepted. This can have dramatic effects. Consider a fact that you know and that you trust, a simple thing like I did switch off the hob when I left the house, you know you have done this because you were there and conscious when you did it. You know you can trust your own mind on this, however if the companion you are traveling with continually asks you if you are sure you did switch off the hob and say they are not sure you did. You know yourself it takes a lot of character to not go back and check. This response again could be traced back to an inbuilt response to work as a team as a survival strategy. Why would your companion be questioning you like this, surely they must know something you do not.
Now consider the amount of information you consume on a daily basis and consider how relatively easy it would be for someone in power to be able to get you to question what you already know. However the internet is also a great source of information to validate any such theories.
The message being, always consider what you read and do not believe all you are told.
