Speculative synthesis

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, popular culture, history, conspiracies, paranoia

Paranoia begins in the cradle. It is our natural, honed-by-evolution response to the unknown and particularly the unexplained. What's the message of numerous fairy tales? That they really are out to get you. But who is "they"?

• "Jack and the Beanstalk" among many others: giants.
• "Little Orphant Annie" (by James Whitcomb Riley): goblins ("…the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out!"), one of the first poems I learned.
• "Lord of the Rings": Sauron, orcs, balrogs, etc.
• "Snow White": the Queen.
• Many "Knights of the Round Table" stories: dragons, black knights, wicked kings, etc.

Then there's "stranger danger", which is nothing new; 60+ years ago we were told not to accept candy, or anything else, from a stranger, particularly a grownup.

In the Bible: Satan (= the Devil), demons, fallen angels, Nephilim (and several other names for "giants").

A more nuanced view is found in the lyrics of "Somebody's knockin'", sung by Terri Gibbs:

Somebody's knockin',
Should I let him in?
Lord, it's the devil,
Would you look at him!
I've heard about him
But I never dreamed
He'd have blue eyes and blue jeans.

Akin to this is the semi-joke: "Who wins in a lawsuit? The lawyers."

And this from Ronald Reagan: "The ten most frightening words are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.'" <emphasis supplied>

Which brings us to a wonderful book, Stuff They Don't Want You to Know by Ben Bowlin, Matt Frederick and Noel Brown, who produce a podcast by that name. The subject is conspiracies and conspiracy theories.

I have long since learned that, in nearly all cases, the words "…don't want you to know" is a preface to a scam. And these days, the most common goblins out there are scammers. In the case of this book, the authors want to equip us to discern fact from fantasy…at least a little.

It is a sad fact that genuine conspiracies abound, and sadder still that the views so frequently denigrated as "conspiracy theories" are so frequently based on facts. The trouble comes when people connect the dots and get it wrong. Dot-connecting is what we do, for example, when a spaced series of odd noises gets our attention; the cave dweller deep in our brain goes on the alert, "Is it a tiger?" Even when it turns out to be two birds and a squirrel, it takes a while for our adrenaline to subside. The cave dweller of 100 generations ago did well to be prepared for a tiger, because sometimes it really was a tiger! People who didn't go on guard became tiger lunch and have left no descendants. We're all descended from those who outwitted the tigers.

What do we do when confronted with a purported conspiracy? In each of the nine chapters the authors dig into at least one genuine conspiracy. The perpetrators are very often in government; others are big businesses; and some are genuine cabals in the shadows. In the latter case, the authors conclude that there really isn't a deeply conspiratorial group "pulling all the strings", but that there are plenty of shadowy groups out there who would do so if they could. They proclaim this book as "an important tool, a way to further our argument that the world is both understandable and worth understanding." It's just work to do so, and most folks are too lazy. Thus so many take the easy way of believing the next paranoiac to come up with a new "theory".

The authors are dissatisfied with the term Conspiracy Theory. In science a theory is the synthesis of a set of tested and verified hypotheses, backed by observations and experiments, and it explains some collection of phenomena in a way that one may make predictions about the behavior of a system. Conspiracy theorists connect dots—and there are plenty of dots to connect—but find gaps; they get into trouble when they "invent" a few dots to fill those gaps. Thus I prefer the term Speculative Synthesis.

It is very hard for a scientist who has formulated a few hypotheses into a germ of a theory to set it aside if new information, the results of new experiments or observations, contradict the formulation (synthesis). Much of scientific training is aimed at developing habits of mind that help a scientist divorce feelings from facts. In my experience, it works part of the time, but less than half the time. Thus scientific journals are full of royal battles over conflicting views of how certain "findings" are to be understood. Without the benefit of a scientific education, or the blessing of a wise mind at the outset, most folks simply cannot back away from a comforting, if scary, "theory". They get an emotional attachment, which seldom is broken.

So, to pick one example, does the US government engineer "regime change"? It has apparently made more than 50 attempts since 1945! Some have succeeded; a detailed case of the overthrow of the government of Guatemala in 1954 illustrates just what it entailed. That was a business-led operation in which the government willingly cooperated "for the good of the country" (and for the banana company).

From another chapter: has it occurred to you to wonder where the word Propaganda came from? Of course, the word is Latin, and sure enough, it traces back to the Medieval Catholic Church, which in 1622 set up Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, or Sacred Congregation to Propagate the Faith. Propaganda is for propagation of an ideology: gain people's minds and one can affect their actions. But, wait a minute! What about salesmanship? What about persuasion in general? Formally speaking, propaganda is salesmanship, it is persuasion, with a political rather than mercantile goal. Under the banner, "All is fair in love and war," propaganda is recognized as a kind of lie, at least by omission. Otherwise known as "shading the truth" by leaving lots out. "Blatant propaganda" may contain no truth whatever.

In the ultra-polarized America of today most of us are on one side or the other, looking with intense suspicion at "them", the other side. The fact is, on both sides of the divide, small numbers of the most committed people really are carrying out, or attempting to carry out, some kind of conspiracy to ensure that "their" side wins the next election, or takes over this or that school board or county council, or gets a certain law enacted, or gets an otherwise forgettable product a larger market share. I feel sorry for the always-offended snowflakes out there. We all need to grow a thick skin, and develop near-infinite sales resistance. For most of us, the worst we'll have to contend with are the phone calls about solar energy "for free" (don't make me laugh), or extended warranties for car or house, or multitudes of "charities" you've never heard of.

But if you get involved in the "truth" business, learn to resist going down some infinite rabbit hole. Reading this book is a good start.