If the protesters who gathered in a violent demonstration in Sydney on Saturday were a thoroughly eclectic group — right-wingers, anti-vaxxers, fundamentalist Christians, disgruntled small business owners, anti-government types, Gladys Berejiklian haters, self-appointed tribunes of south-west Sydney, spivs and chancers — they also reflected that conspiracy theorists are increasingly a threat to public order.
A lot of contumely was heaped on the protesters — quite correctly — in Sydney, along with considerable mockery. The police minister resorted to a term of yesteryear (“boofheads”) in lieu of something less evening news-friendly. But the presence of conspiracy theorists — claiming that the virus is a hoax, that vaccines are a threat, that the media is manipulating people — shouldn’t be treated as a subject of derision.
As we saw on January 6 in the United States, conspiracy theories can lead to insurrection, attacks on democracy and killings. In fact the logic of many of the COVID conspiracy theories parading on Saturday in Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere leads inevitably to violent insurrection.
If you think governments have invented a virus, or the story of a virus, as a pretext for destroying your freedom, or that vaccines may be a tool of mind control created by large corporations and governments, or that the media is complicit in manufacturing a grand narrative justifying oppression, then violence is surely required — there can be no democratic response against such powerful measures. Indeed, you may conclude you don’t even live in a democracy if both sides of politics believe lockdowns and vaccinations are essential.
Conspiracy theorising was dramatically accelerated by the arrival of the internet. Long a small and disconnected minority, conspiracy theorists — whether legitimately sufferers from apophenia (the tendency to see patterns in random information) or actual paranoiacs — were now able to link together online, sharing information, reinforcing one another and recruiting in ways they were unable to in the analog world.
But conspiracy theories have been turbocharged over the last decade. Social media has enabled an even more rapid spread of conspiracy theories; platforms like Facebook mainstreamed them as a part of people’s news and information feeds; platforms like YouTube provide hours-long videos cherry-picking all the evidence required to demonstrate that reptile-people control the world, that the UN plans to impose a world socialist government, that the Jews control world finance, that governments spray their populations with chemicals from aircraft for reasons unclear, etc, etc. And each time you watch one, YouTube’s algorithms will serve you up another like it, taking you further and further down the same path.
But it’s not technologically determined. The internet enables; it doesn’t cause. The cause lies with the precarity and uncertainty of modern economies and cultures. In abandoning the communitarian and economically secure world of the post-war Keynesian consensus for the neoliberal consensus of individual freedom and responsibility — by trading economic security for freedom and self-reliance, at least for those not powerful enough to sway policymakers in their own interests — we’ve moved into a far less solid, certain world.
And we’ve encouraged tribalism and nativism by imposing globalism, free flows of labour and finance and temporary migration on western workers while preventing them from enjoying the benefits of those policies — which have instead accrued to corporations, wealthy elites and knowledge workers. Ordinary workers believe, with plenty of justification, that they’ve got the worst end of the neoliberal bargain, and live in a world of dangerous uncertainty — economically and culturally — as a result.
Conspiracy theorising is one way of seeing such a precarious world. Conspiracy theories are a kind of populism, in which a small in-group (including you) has worked out that a powerful elite is exploiting and controlling the people. The powerful elite changes from theory to theory, sure — reptiles, liberal paedophiles, the Illuminati, the Jews, the Masons, the Templars, the Catholics — but it’s always a sinister elite.
But it’s also a psychological balm: faced with an existence that seems more precarious and less certain, the conspiracy theory provides comfort that someone is in charge, that it’s not all random, that a virus couldn’t suddenly emerge from nature and kill millions of people, any more than the planet start heating up, or a lone gunmen kill JFK.
The drivers of conspiracy theorising aren’t going away, and the platforms that enable it and accelerate it aren’t going anywhere either. It will become more widespread, more aggressive and more violent. It’s not a movement, it’s not organised, it’s not led, other than by opportunists; it’s a condition of our precarious society, which is only becoming more so.
So why do they keep voting for the neoliberals who fracked them over?
Now that is a very good question. A limited but interesting study to which I refer in another post, posits that
”researchers find that people who exhibit high levels of distrust, particularly towards government institutions, are most likely to believe false information.”
Arguably conservative voters outnumber progressives worldwide, and conservatives have been found in scientific studies to have an enlarged amygdala.
Research suggests that conservatives are, on average, more susceptible to fear than those who identify themselves as liberals. Looking at MRIs of a large sample of young adults last year, researchers at University College London discovered that “greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala”.
The amygdala is an ancient brain structure that’s activated during states of fear and anxiety. (The researchers also found that “greater liberalism [progressiveness, NOTHING to do with the Liberals here that’s for sure] was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex” – a region in the brain that is believed to help people manage complexity.)
The researchers studied their subjects’ reactions by tracking their eye movements and monitoring their “skin conductivity” – a measure of one’s autonomic nervous system’s reaction to stimuli.
Conservatives showed much stronger skin responses to negative images, compared with the positive ones. Progressives showed the opposite. And when the scientists turned to studying eye gaze or “attentional” patterns, they found that conservatives looked much more quickly at negative or threatening images, and [then] spent more time fixating on them.
Ironically too, and portentously, covid 19 has been found to have an impact on the grey matter of the brain including the anterior cingulate cortex region. Covid 19 could be the revenge of the planet upon the most destructive and plague numbered species on earth.
I have had that thought more than once since December 2019
Some hope that to be true.
Gaia’s Great Reset?
Or put simply, conservatives dislike uncertainly and complexity and yearn for simple answers and solutions. Anti immigration, law and order, might is right, etc.
At the other extreme are the radicals who get mired in the intricacies of problems and solutions. Intersectionality, esoteric social theories etc.
Monty Python summed it up well..https://youtu.be/R7qT-C-0ajI
Because the ultra concentrated media in Oz always favours LP/NP/LNP governments, and the Labour party bends in such a away that many voters can’t see any difference, so vote the status quo… roll on any serious (i.e. large) left wing media efforts.
I reckon it’s because neo-liberalism is a superficially appealing philosophy when it’s first offered up.
“Instead of envying the wealthy….you can BE one of them!”
“Rules and regulations are holding you back from being as wealthy as you deserve to be”
“Why should you pay for others to be lazy? Everyone for themselves!”
In practice, the winners in this gladiatorial arena are always those who started off the new game with the most money and power. What the super predators succeeded in doing, was to con the average voter into voting away their own protections, under the notion that they could join the club of the rich and fab too.
Fast forward three decades, a tiny percentage own the vast amount of wealth, the majority are living pay cheque to pay cheque while neck high in debt, essential services have been hollowed out increasing social insecurity, and voila…the neo-liberal paradise, but only for the very few.
But even then, the average voter had invested so much emotional energy in believing they will get their turn at the king’s dining table too, they are loathe to change direction. Anyone who suggests it, is threatening to derail all they have worked so hard for!
The only things the neo-lib world can’t stand against, are crises that require communal co-operation.
Enter Climate change and Covid, as if on cue!
Hopefully people will rediscover the positives to living in a fair society rather than just a kill-or-be-killed economy, and will start voting again in their own best interests.
“Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!”
Like the Forrest Gump myth in the US – that anyone can become president.
I could argue that for almost the entire human history the rich and powerful have set the rules of the game in their favor. The relative exception is the post war period. Maybe we are just sliding back to that status quo, as horrible and unfair as that is.
Agree that the 2nd half of the last century was a golden era.
Post WWII in Britain and Europe, there were a lot of people, hardened and well trained during the recent unpleasantness so the ruling classes were content to wait out any of the equity & social welfare nonsense which had crystalised in vicissitude.
Only had to wait 2, 3 generations, until memories faded and those who knew began to die off.
Welcome to Futures Past.
Along the same lines, the Black Death was responsible for the rise of the Artisan class who were in chronic short supply and hence could name their price.
That effect was far stronger in Britain (there was even an attempt to prevent that with laws & decrees) than the Continent.
It is generally regarded as the reason the ‘sturdy yeoman’ class became so large whilst feudalism lingered on in Europe until the 19thC, or later in some benighted regions.
Something to do with natural frontiers, which would repay further study given today’s difficulties.
Yay for Gert Bysea.
Such is the premises in The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 written by Eric Hobsbawm
That book follows on from his his trilogy about what he called the “long 19th century”
The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789-1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875, The Age of Empire: 1875–1914
Thanks, ill check them out.
He was factually sound but couldn’t write for beans.
Well well well what do we have here????. Welcome to the wonderful world of the ‘fool in the baseball cap aka Idiot Morrison and the glorious pursuit of a world based on ‘aspiration’. The proud sponsor of a less equitable ‘new’ tax structure favoring the wealthy is the way to go with special guest appearances by ‘what’s in it for me?’; ‘unlimited growth is good’, ‘enough is never enough’ and ‘whatever you have I can do better’.
Produced by looking out for number one and to hell with the rest. Directed by ‘individualism rules while sense of community sucks, competition and kicking butt is a buzz while cooperation is for losers.
Now that is a world to aspire to!!!!
When you think about it, the few thousand that embarrassed themselves and created a superspreading event are a tiny proportion of the 6 million in Sydney. Humans have always had a small proportion of lesser evolved intellectually and that was evidenced by the tiny but viciously mad turnout of a few thousand lesser crested bantams in Sydney.
@Allan.
Bro, you nailed it.
LOL
Have you read the article in The Guardian 3 months ago titled:
How many anti-vaxxers does it take to misinform the world? Just twelve… by Arwa Mahdawi
it takes only a dozen anti-vaxxers to spread dangerous misinformation to millions of people. According to a report from the NGO Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter can be traced back to just 12 people. Although Facebook has disputed the report’s methodology, the 12 have been nicknamed the “disinformation dozen”, and include Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of John F Kennedy. A few of the 12 have been removed from at least one social media platform, but are still free to post on others.
Finland, which was rated Europe’s most resistant nation to fake news last year, is one model of how you do this.
In 2014, after an increase in disinformation from Russia, the government embedded media literacy in the national curriculum. Starting in primary school, kids learn the critical thinking skills needed to parse the modern information ecosystem.
Students learn how easy it is to manipulate statistics in their maths lessons, for example.
They learn how to distinguish satire from conspiracy theories in their Finnish lessons.
They look at how images can be used for propaganda in art class. And this sort of education isn’t just given to children: Finnish civil servants, journalists and NGO workers are also trained in digital literacy skills.
Ever since the Conservative-led coalition government took power in 2010, funding for education has declined significantly, and we’ve seen the largest cuts to school spending since the 198-s.
It’s no better in the US; underfunding there is so bad that about 94% of public school teachers report having to spend their own money on school supplies. While underfunding disproportionately hurts disadvantaged kids it has a ripple effect on society.
There’s no problem in the world that can’t be improved by investing in education.
Banning a few anti-vaxxers from Facebook may have short-term benefits but if we want to build healthy societies in the long-term we have to prioritise education and develop nerd immunity.
It is precisely because “There’s no problem in the world that can’t be improved by investing in education.” that it is being gutted in the UK, US & OZ.
Why would rulers want people who can think cogently?
They would be difficult to co-opt and certainly far more likely to dissent and oppose a regime.
Rulers aren’t too keen on the people having money either, but it’s been shown to be a certain cure for poverty.
Yes, I’ve always enjoyed the opportunity to say, to those who claim that ‘redistribution’ – aka making both the rich & poor less so – doesn’t work, ‘”let’s at least give it a go”.
Would be a lot more useful than some of the fluffy ‘tick the box’ stuff in the curricula these days.
The flip side of honing our students critical thinking skills however is that some will start challenging the sacred cows of the left. The left will struggle to shout down that many people daring to think and speak different to them, as they habitually do.
Im not sure either side of politics really wants the masses to be too questioning of the dogma.
Lesser crested bantams. Too good.
It seems conspiracy theories are about belief – in fact faith. People arrive at (or are persuaded of) a conclusion about the world, and then only consider ‘evidence’ that fits that belief. Some of the analysis of the ‘Trump won the election’ Republicans in the US shows how it works. “I don’t know anyone who voted for Biden” as stated by some of the players in Arizona becomes proof of conspiracy rather than that they move in social circles that believe the same sort of things they do.
While I agree with Bernard’s view about the state of society and the economy driving people’s strange beliefs – I find it really odd in the sense that the world is actually full of quite obvious conspiracies. They get written about all the time – the influence of corporate money over governments. The lengths tobacco and oil companies are prepared to go to protect their profits. The operation of professional associations (really unions) in keeping income up (medical specialists for example). This has long been identified. The father of modern capitalism, Adam Smith, … “famously declared that ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices’. ”
The operation of the economy and society is in a way a conspircay against the public. Makes you wonder if there is some group out there busily diverting the masses into lunatic conspiracies to stop them looking at what is all around them. Now who might that be ….?
Well put and DeSmog has stated similar with influence of now Koch Networks (locally via AtlasNetwork IPA, CIS etc.) support the promotion of climate and covid science denial, to form GOP voter coalitions, hence, enabling ‘radical right libertarian policies’.
New Yorker investigative journalist Jane Mayer in ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right‘ (2017) placed Koch Networks in the centre and Mayer was also subjected to some harassment for her research.
Recently Irish journalist Peter Geoghegan of Open Democracy UK has done similar on the UK (and Brexit) in ‘Democracy For Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics‘ (2020) also seeing same trans Atlantic modus operandi, ideologues and players….
However, it is unlikely any such research and/or book could be done in Australia due to legal and political issues……
Aye, the precariat have received the rough end of the neoliberal pineapple. Thanks for “Contumely”.
I had to look that one up! nice word! 🙂
Excellent article, some of the material I shall investigate further.
A localized but interesting study of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia found that
“When the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic unfolded, denials, conspiracy theories, and false rumors were common, and disrupted public health interventions,” say the researchers. “Currently, a similar pattern is playing out with the spread of misinformation related to Covid-19.”
The researchers analyzed survey data collected between October 2015 and June 2016 on 2,265 Liberian adults. According to the data, approximately 30% of Liberians endorsed a misguided belief in the origin of the Ebola outbreak.
False beliefs tended to be of two forms:
(1) that the government was responsible for the outbreak or
(2) that God was responsible for the outbreak.
Google psychology today the-one-trait-conspiracy-theorists-have-in-common
I read another story about one of the Ebola outbreaks, that was being thwarted by distrust and conspiracy theories on the ground, was that it was essentially wrapped up and stopped within months of a change of government. The tone is set by those at the top.
So true