We don’t need to invest in fact-checking. We need to invest in mental health.
The more we try to fight cults with logic, the more they thrive. People fall for conspiracy theories because they’re emotionally insecure, not lacking in information.
Or in other words: don’t forget there are two sides to the human brain, and contrary to popular opinion, one isn’t more important than the other.
Yes, you’ve read the title correctly. I want you, “reasonable person on the internet” who trusts science, to cut irrational people some slack. I want you to stop unironically sharing memes like the one above. That’s not charitable — that’s a smug and arrogant attitude. You aren’t helping anyone but yourself when you wield your so-called “superior intellect” like a weapon against the more emotionally-inclined parcel of the population. You see yourself as a hero, when in fact you have the same energy of a bully. Hard to swallow pill, huh?
Look, I’m a psychic medium, spirit worker, and witch. I’m well-versed in the occultist arts and have naturally amassed a following of believers in “that which can’t be explained by logic”. I can assure you this crowd includes scientists, engineers, doctors and other people with STEM degrees. A lot of them also have a science or other STEM bread-earning job, which means they didn’t just cheat through Uni. What I’m saying here, to make it crystal clear, is that a lot of people in occultist communities have a pretty high IQ. They aren’t in want of a better education — they feel attracted to the “unexplained” and “speculative” side of things in search of meaning and emotional solace. No amount of formal education can immunise people against that need — I mean, if it did, every scientist would automatically become a nihilist, and that’s clearly not the case. The moment you start validating the natural human need for emotional security (and stop judging it as “some dumb people’s fragility”), you’ll see it is completely unrelated to [the presence or absence of] logic and reason.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not accusing any of my friends of delusion. I choose them very carefully and have very high standards for friendship, rest assured. What I mean here is that empirically speaking, there’s no much difference between believing in god(s) VS believing conspiracy theories. The only difference is pragmatic: the former is mostly harmless (with rare exceptions), whereas the latter is usually (if not always) harmful to yourself and others. But why is that? Well, let’s take a look at a possible explanation…
Although originally made as a study in Mathematics and Anatomy, Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (above) is largely considered one of the symbols of a new ideology that rose to prominence during the Renaissance: Humanism.
One can define Humanism as “the human being in the centre of the universe”, or the belief that we (not gods, not spirits, not anything external to us) are responsible for our own morals and happiness. Humanist ideology rejects the notion that we should rely on a higher power external to us for guidance, and in hindsight, it has been very empowering. I mean, it’s understandable the Renaissance would be a counter-culture to what came directly before (the Dark Ages). The problem is: we’re no longer rebelling against Theocracy here in the West. Come on, the Renaissance ended 500 years ago. But for some reason, to this day, Humanist ideas keep being glorified as if this movement had been the best and most flawless invention to ever grace humankind. Smells like propaganda to me. Nobody ever cares to examine it a bit more closely to try and see its dark side. Is Humanism really so good and flawless? Can it really stay unchecked and limitless? I’m sceptical.
I’m in charge. I’m the hero. I’m god. I know it all. I can solve it all. What could possibly go wrong?
I could repeat a cliché about how great power brings great responsibility, but let’s elaborate a wee bit further.
I’m not sure if you have noticed what has been happening in western people’s minds since the Renaissance, so let me help you recap:
- During the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church basically ruled over Europe and micromanaged people’s lives. People were naturally traumatised by that, and internalised the message that they were sinners for the slightest mishaps (because they’d be punished under religious law otherwise).
- The Renaissance was unusual as a revolution because it started at the higher levels of society: the nobility (first in Florence, then elsewhere until it spread all over Europe) gained access to classical Greek texts and started rejecting Theocracy. They imposed this new system on everyone else, and no bloodshed was needed in order to take power away from the Church.
- Since the common people weren’t the ones to “fight” against oppressive Christian leaders, we can assume they just passively followed the elite in this shift from “God’s rule” to “human reason”. But here is the problem: we, the people, didn’t necessarily understand why. It was once again an internalised adaptation to the new status quo — not so different from what happened in Medieval times after all.
If point #3 feels a bit confusing, let me rephrase it: we all understand the meaning of freedom, equality and fraternity, don’t we? I bet you any money: even if you ask the poorest of the poor, the “dumbest” and uneducated, the lowest social classes, what these 3 tenets mean, literally anywhere in the world, they’ll be able to answer your question. Here’s why: liberté, egalité, fraternité was literally the slogan of the French Revolution. A movement of the people, for the people. Their values became common knowledge because the entire movement has always been for the people, without any elitism — pun delightfully intended. Rumours of the revolution spread all over Europe and even further to the colonies, who soon enough adopted the same ideals and became independent. The US is a notorious example.
If you think I’m going on a tangent from the original topic, no I’m not. Bear with me.
Ask any commoner what “Humanism” means. Wait for the answer. There’ll be none, or perhaps a failed attempt at a guess (the most popular fallacy is that it means “neither feminism or chauvinism”, which is hilarious, but I don’t judge people’s ignorance — in fact I empathise). Nobody today, other than rich people who have the time and money to waste on a Philosophy major, or researchers with too much time in their hands (like myself) will have any idea what Humanism actually is. No offense intended to Philosophy majors, but realistically, you can’t get a job in that area very easily. Working class people are forced to have other priorities. Just saying.
I’ll repeat it again: Humanism was the main tenet of the Renaissance — a movement as revolutionary as the French Revolution, perhaps even more — but was is from the people, for the people? No. It has always been elitistic from the very beginning, and will remain so. It was originally designed for the elites to enjoy, and for the peasants to follow like sheep without truly understanding the ideology behind it. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s just History. You’ll find it in any decent school book.
Okay, back to conspiracy theories vs religions: why does the Renaissance’s legacy matter so much?
“Religion” and “cult” aren’t necessarily related. Sure, some religions have cults (like Islam has the Taliban, Catholicism had the Inquisition, etc) — but the religions themselves are not the cults. Cults just exist within them, like a cancerous tumor. The world is also full of non-religious cults: corporate cults, personality cults, and yes, conspiracy theory cults. This implies that even Humanists — or internalised Humanists, to be more accurate — can and will join cults if they’re feeling desperate enough. They just won’t be religious cults. And dare I say, when you subconsciously believe that “religion is for the backwards, uneducated, uncivilised peasants”, you become more vulnerable to cults than religious people. Ironically.
I mean, what choice does the average person have today, really? It takes some serious balls to admit you believe in goblins or faeries or angels and demons today, because a Humanistic elite decided that we should take every burden of existence and place them on our own shoulders. Those who embrace religious beliefs in order to have a chance at escapism and solace are “backwards”. We’re forced to behave like heartless robots who aren’t allowed to speculate about the unexplained because some smug Humanistic morality told us we must maintain the rational façade. It’s the same train of thought that leads us to devalue the arts and overestimate STEM as if we were just made to produce nonstop and couldn’t enjoy some irrational “girly” “emotional” music at the end of a shift.
I truly don’t blame some of these average workers for amusing themselves with crazy stories where they can be the hero for once. I’ll repeat: they have no choice. Trust in a higher power is no longer a thing we can be proud of — so let’s be the heroes ourselves, even if just inside our own heads, they say.
The problem is most of these conspiracy theories are cults in disguise with very wicked leaders who would make Charles Manson look like a saint.
The difference between “having a belief” and “being in a cult” is that the former respects the person’s free-will to stop believing or practising what is preached; the latter engulfs the person with scaremongering and other manipulative tactics so they’ll stay. People in cults eventually feel too guilty or threatened to think of leaving, but at the same time ashamed for staying. You can’t guilt and shame them out of it, duh. Those same feelings are keeping them in. You must think of a more empathetic strategy — and it certainly doesn’t involve constantly reminding them of how the “logic” is flawed in their conspiracy theory. Yes, mr. sceptic, very good, here’s a cookie. Thanks for nothing. Go to Afghanistan and “teach” women how “irrational” it is to wear the burka, too, while you’re at it. I’m sure it will magically work. Oh, the irony.
No, I am not a census worker and can’t give you the stats — but I’m sure we all know a conspiracy theorist who feels sceptical of vaccines, or thinks the government is out to get them, or believes vitamin D cures everything, or whatever other popular theory. You know or used to know one of them, these people are common as muck today, and opportunistic cowards make money out of their cry for help. More than delusional, they’re often desperate to regain some control because they have overwhelming trauma, or live in uncertain times, or had a period of bad luck in life. And you know what? That doesn’t make them weak, dumb, or any other cheap insult you can think of. It makes them human.
In a way, yes, objectively, the powers-that-be have failed them. They have failed us all for 500 effing years, since the Renaissance.
I can’t offer you a cookie-cutter solution to the problem, but what I can say is we should look beyond the surface. On a surface level, what we see is “lack of logic”. Perhaps deeper waters conceal an even bigger iceberg: the fact there’s more to human health than its physical materialistic component, and the more we ignore this truth, the deeper we will sink in despair.
