Quote of the Day... and Conspiracy Theories.

“The conspiracy theory of society... comes from abandoning God and then asking: ‘who is in his place?’

Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1967 (pp. 123).

The anniversary of 9/11 is cause, among other things, to revisit the topic of conspiracy theories and their place in modern society.

I've always thought that there was a link between “conspiracy thinking” and religious belief. The link is not, as some might suppose, "belief without evidence". Conspiracy theorists will tell you that they have real evidence of the things they believe. Rather, link is a common “way” of thinking, a deferral, to the transcendental, which in this case, involves a common postulate of agency in nature and order in randomness. For most religions, the agency in nature is God. God orders, plans, and designs the seemingly random events and architecture of the natural world. The magnitude of the plan varies with doctrine. Creationists, for example, believe that God literally created people, animals, the earth, and the universe. (On the other end of the spectrum, some believe that God was just the ‘first cause’, not a micromanager). The logic works in such a way that even the most innocuous events can be ratcheted up to prove the bigger picture. It’s easy to justify or excuse both positive and negative events as part of Gods plan.

As Michael Shermer points out here, conspiracy theories share many of these traits. For example, they share the belief that there is agency in nature. In the case of most conspiracies, the agents are people, but they plan, control, and design the random, chaotic events, institutions, and architecture of human societies. In some cases, the agents, whether they be the global elite, the illuminati, secrete societies, or even alien reptiles, usually have some qualities that border on the supernatural. Even the more restrained conspiracy theorists ascribe to members of government the ability to plan and execute extremely complex, far reaching designs and plans. Furthermore, conspiracy theorists are very adept at using the greater narrative of agency in society to make sense of innocuous events, extrapolating from these, in a circular manner, to support the greater conspiracy picture.

The 9/11 conspiracy shares many of these traits. It’s an attempt to make sense of a series of random, chaotic events with reference to a greater plan. Of course, as Shermer points out: it really was a conspiracy, but it was a small plan executed by 19 people - that it succeeded in itself is quite remarkable given that incompetence demonstrated by other notable terrorists; the 9/11 “Conspiracy theory” of course goes beyond this: The agents in question are members of the global elite; and the plan simply follows from a greater plan of world domination. The conspiracy to fake a conspiracy is one of a much larger magnitude, and is possible only if we ascribe to the designers powers that go far beyond what we would normally think possible from any institution. Furthermore, 9/11 conspiracy theorists easily connect small events to the larger picture: OBL’s death, for example, provides evidence that the fake was even more elaborate than previously thought. OBL’s recorded claim of responsibility for 9/11 is, in the same vein, proof of an even more elaborate hoax. It is not, as some might think, confirmatory evidence for the official story. In this manner, contrary evidence is paradoxically, as evidence of an even larger conspiracy. In this respect, and like religion, conspiracy theory has certain self-referential nature. Finally, anomalies are the bread and butter of conspiracy thinking (also religion). Events that don’t make complete sense by the official account can always be explained, in a sort of ad hoc manner, by the conspiracy story. This is also a bit like religion, which in its own way thrives on anomomolies and unexplained natural events; seeking, in the modern context to position God into the gaps in scientific knowledge.

But is it necessarily wrong to assume “agency” when it comes to the order of human society? After all, society is ultimately the product of human decision making. Yes and no. The issue is not that human decisions create institutions, but how institutions and society evolve. Most social scientists agree that the current structure of society owes little to “top down planning.” Rather, things generally evolve in a more decentralized, unpredictable, and organic fashion. To quote Popper, again:

Only a minority of social institutions are consciously designed, while the vast majority have just “grown,” as the undesigned result of human actions, as I have said before; and we can add that even most of the few institutions which were consciously and successfully designed (say, a newly founded University, or a Trade Union) do not turn out according to plan – again because of the unintended social repercussions resulting from their intentional creation. For their creation affects not only many other social institutions but also ‘human nature’ – hopes, fears, and ambitions, first of those more immediately involved, and later often of all members of the society.

Ultimately, what separates conspiracy theory from society science is what separates intelligent design from natural science. Science examines the role of social and natural processes larger outcomes of interest.

It is the task of analysing the unintended social repercussions of intentional human actions-those repercussions whose significance is neglected both by the conspiracy theory and by psychologism, as already indicated. An action which proceeds precisely according to intention does not create a problem for social science....the conspiracy theory of society cannot be true because it amounts to the assertion that all results, even those which at first sight do not seem to be intended by anybody, are the intended results of the actions of people who are interested in these results.

When it comes to logical discussions in these matters, it is often better to diagnosis than to refute. Jonathan Kay (author of: Among the Truthers: A Journey through America’s Growing Conspiratorial Underground) noted that he did not manage to dissuade a single person who he interviewed in his travels through conspiracy websites. So I offer this diagnosis. It is not entirely original, but I’d like to make the case that Popper gets it right:

At its root, stripped of its magical thinking and logical fallacies, conspiracy theory thinking is a symptom of the inability to cope with the modern world, in the absence of God. As the Popper quote at the beginning illustrates: “The Conspiracy theory of society begins by denying God and then asking: who is in his place.” If it was the perceived randomness of the natural world, along with the fear of death, that gives rise to religion, it seems that in conspiracy thinking might play a similar role in secular, technological society.