Why Conspiracy Theories Are More Popular Than Facts

Commentary

Last month at a Saturday afternoon open-air rally in rural Pennsylvania, former U.S. President Donald Trump was grazed by an assassin’s bullet, which left three others injured and two dead, including the shooter.

The FBI quickly identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, an intelligent but friendless young man with an affinity for firearms. Investigators have so far been hesitant to ascribe a clear motive to his actions. This has encouraged many to fill the knowledge gap with assumptions, gossip, and dubious conspiracies.

But as with Lee Harvey Oswald, the gunman who killed John F. Kennedy in 1963, it appears the July 13 would-be assassin acted alone. Whereas conspiracy theorists often place too much faith in government and others to organize behind the scenes, the truth in many cases like this is more banal.

In the July 13 case, multiple law enforcement agencies were responsible for security that day and some—tasked with covering the building shot from—were inside due to the heat. Others, like the Secret Service, busily texted each other about the suspicious individual, but differing responsibilities meant a gap in security opened up. The shooter exploited that.

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Similarly, in 1963 in Dallas, Oswald, an ex-marine marksman, perched at the window of a nearby schoolbook depository overlooking Kennedy’s open motorcade. Gaps, opportunity, and a lone gunman coalesced to kill Kennedy, not a conspiracy.

While conspiracies do exist—such as the Nixon White House’s conspiracy to cover up the Watergate break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters—incompetence and luck exist, too.

Such acts are often imitative of other lone offenders and influenced by cult films, fringe political ideologies, or conspiracy thinking. Though they lose their lives in the process, they “win” by becoming a national headline or an historical icon. Case in point: Sixty years after the death of President Kennedy, is anyone not familiar with the name Lee Harvey Oswald?

Violence perpetrated by alienated loners is nearly impossible to prevent. It also leaves onlookers perplexed. Moreover, sociological explanations often leave us with no clear solutions or culprits to blame. These are not the sorts of answers people find meaningful and uplifting, nor will the major media wish to bore their target audience with complicated analyses by long-winded academics and finger-wagging social critics.

Stories about nefarious plots have always found fertile ground in public discourse, and not just on the political fringe.

These include interpreting every anomaly or enigma as proof of deception, projecting one’s fixations onto the mind of one’s rivals, demanding more freedom than one is willing to give others, demonizing one’s opponents, refusing to empathize with “the enemy,” and rejecting compromise at all costs.

Conspiracy theories are useful crowd-sourced myths that emerge and evolve to meet the cognitive needs of people in an emotional crisis. They help us simplify a complex reality into an understandable narrative. They help explain unpleasant events and separate the world into unambiguous categories of “good” and “evil.” They give us a sense of purpose and help us justify our actions. Most importantly, they allow us to claim the moral high ground in our life story—the conspirators are powerful, evil men behind the scenes, while the rest of us are innocent lambs. In short, we crave a simplistic take.

But because conspiracy theories are by nature speculative, born of a mixture of rumours, assumptions, and known facts, it can be very hard for their proponents to distinguish truth from fiction. If the theory offers a more satisfying explanation of reality than a dispassionate expert can offer, they will continue to shape the worldview of those whose emotional needs depend on them being true.

In short, conspiracy theories are empowering and self-affirming narratives, but they are also a dangerous buck-passing device that invite self-delusion and social conflict.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.