The thing about conspiracy theories is that they’re not about the details, they’re not about the story.
As soon as you ask them a question, that’s the end. It doesn’t go anywhere. You can’t actually have a conversation about conspiracy theories. I don’t even think that conspiracy theorists can have a conversation with each other about it, because it’s fundamentally not discursive; it’s not something you can have a discussion about.
It is just an attempt to make the core story about yourself match up with the world. And every conspiracy theory has the same core story, and that’s why it’s so powerful. It’s the story that the theorist holds onto, and then sort of tries to match up with the world in a messy way.
And the story is, basically, once upon a time, we were happy and everything was good and we were in charge and we were safe.
And then the monsters took hold. But no one knew that they had. And these monsters are not this sort of vaguely threatening variety; they have to be absolutely gigantic, demonic, sort of the most hyperbolic thing you can think of, go another step.
So it’s always children, Satan, mutilation and torture, pedophilia. And the story goes that everything seemed fine because the monsters made sure this was all kept secret. So the monsters control what you know.
And only the heroes of the story knew the truth and they arrive to save the world.
And that’s the benefit that you get from it. You get that world view about yourself, that you are a continuously horrifically embattled hero of the story. And you can’t really give up on this self image of embattled hero; it’s very difficult to give up on.
It’s not just the high of thinking of yourself as a hero, it’s also that you convince yourself that you are in this battle of absolute good and absolute evil. And so then you get to issues of, if you ask about democracy or fair play, what are you, nuts? This is about the end of the world. So it makes it impossible to dial back to issues of fairness or accuracy. It’s actually not about that, and I feel like you hear that when you’re talking to these Q Anon followers. When they try to answer your questions, they aren’t actually trying to say – so you say “So what did actually happen on January 6?” They’ll say FBI – CIA – Clinton, just a grab bag. But what they’re trying to tell you is this story, that the monsters are out to get us. And I’m trying to save us.
There’s kind of no other point to it. That’s the whole ball game.
…And the resistance is kind of baked into the story, because the story is that the monsters came and took over, and they covered it up. They kept everyone from knowing. So any information that you get from the outside is suspect. Even information that you might get from sympathetic sources. So the only thing then you’re left with is going with your gut and what feels true. It feels true that I am a victim and it feels true that I’m the hero of the story. And so let’s just go with that.
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