Abuse of the term "conspiracy theory" in popular culture

[Night FM]

My view is that the term "conspiracy theory" is often misused to refer to theories which are considered "patently absurd". As an example, I've heard the "flat earth theory" referred to as a "conspiracy theory", even though it's technically not one, just a fringe theory. (Though some flat earth believers do believe that there is a conspiracy to manufacture false evidence of a round earth).

A lot of conspiracy theories are absurd on the basis of common sense alone (e.x. the idea that alien lizardmen secretly rule the word), though others, even if false, are more plausible (e.x. that JFK's assassination was part of a political conspiracy), and some, like Watergate, have turned out to be true.

Basically, my perception is that when some people throw around the term "conspiracy theory" they're not using the technical definition of the word and are immediately implying an absurdity of sorts.

[iNow]

This isn’t a blog for your random brain turds. You should consider working on framing topics for meaningful discussion. Right now, this may as well be an entry in your diary. 

[Eise]

5 hours ago, Night FM said:

My view is that the term "conspiracy theory" is often misused to refer to theories which are considered "patently absurd".

As hiding the fact that the earth is really flat, it needs a massive conspiracy: astronomers with their pictures making satellites, correct predictions of events like moon- and sun eclipses), GPS, time zones, Foucault pendula, etc. It is impossible to uphold a believe in a flat earth, without also believing in a massive conspiracy. Chemtrails, which I also call a conspiracy theory, would need a much smaller conspiracy.

[exchemist]

3 hours ago, Eise said:

As hiding the fact that the earth is really flat, it needs a massive conspiracy: astronomers with their pictures making satellites, correct predictions of events like moon- and sun eclipses), GPS, time zones, Foucault pendula, etc. It is impossible to uphold a believe in a flat earth, without also believing in a massive conspiracy. Chemtrails, which I also call a conspiracy theory, would need a much smaller conspiracy.

Yes, I think that's the point: the more the idea conflicts with what everyone else considers obvious, the more it becomes  inescapable to allege a conspiracy, in order to account for why everyone else is supposedly wrong. This is true of flat earth, 911, Kennedy's assassination, Princess Diana's death (white Fiat Uno/Duke of Edinburgh etc), moon landings, Covid and 5G antennae............  

@Night FM, perhaps it would help if you could give an example of a contrarian belief that people call a conspiracy theory but which does not imply a conspiracy. Flat earth is a poor example, for the reasons outlined. 

[joigus]

Interesting topic IMO, got off to a bad start IMO for reasons adroitly pointed out.

Conspiracy theory = Contention that a question generally considered as settled, actually is not due to a relatively small clique of influential people keeping the gates to "the real truth" hermetically closed for years on end.

Doesn't work because of reasons pointed out that I like to call objective descriptions of "reality" being congruences of nearly limitless lines of both reasoning and evidence, the more unlikely to hide the longer alleged CT lasts.

[Ken Fabian]

20 hours ago, Night FM said:

Basically, my perception is that when some people throw around the term "conspiracy theory" they're not using the technical definition of the word and are immediately implying an absurdity of sorts.

Strict usage of technical definitions is the exception and outside of some specific circumstances, institutions and organisations - like legal documents, courts, governments, academia - there aren't any rules. Context is the decryption key.

[Markus Hanke]

22 hours ago, Eise said:

As hiding the fact that the earth is really flat, it needs a massive conspiracy

I would even go so far as to say that FE is nothing but a conspiracy theory - the dynamic at the heart of this concerns a “them” hiding things from “us”; it is wholly about control and power in politics, and has little if anything at all to do with the science of planets. It’s about mistrust in authority.

[CharonY]

Agreed. And I think it is true for most such theories. There is a mistrust in authorities and experts that drives these beliefs.

[iNow]

6 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

It’s about mistrust in authority.

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

There is a mistrust in authorities and experts that drives these beliefs.

There is also the psychological reward of simplistic scapegoats and "otherism." Complex issues are hard to comprehend and emotionally process so many instead comfort themselves with easy fictions.

It's about more than just distrust (which is a critical element), but also involves cartoonishly simple "just-so" explanations.

The MAGA cult and antisemite community exemplifies similar trends where blame for multi-faceted multi-variate global issues gets placed squarely and neatly at the feet of monolithic caricatures... "them" or similar "enemies" of the "outgroup" from other "tribes."

And while it's entirely possible the term "conspiracy theory" gets overused, it's entirely certain that conspiracy thinking is also overused. It's far easier and requires a far lower cognitive load.

[CharonY]

Mechanistically that rings true. I think there are multiple elements at play here. My suspicion is that social media exposure to consistent messages from divergent sources creates some sort of trust in the information (and folks might also trust their social network, though studies are a bit unclear about that). During COVID-19 we found consistent misinformation and conspiracy theories floated about and in many cases folks things are true, because the authorities are hiding "something". It certainly did not help that politicians weaponized expert opinion without much transparency or insight. 

We found that at least in quite a few cases, introducing transparency, showing goodwill and explaining the various factors did help to dismantle some of the conspiracy theories. There were of course hardliners, but to my surprise quite a few were more on the afraid side than true conspiracy believers.

But I do agree, conspiracy thinking is easier and I do think that there is something that facilitates these things at an unprecedented pace. I hate to say social media as this smacks of lazy thinking, but I do feel that this is something that has changed our ability to think in ways that were are not really coping well with.

 

[MSC]

At first I thought this was going to be about how there is no scientific evidence of a conspiracy in things like flat earth beliefs so they aren't theories but hypotheses. If the post had been about that, I'd have said "yeah, completely overused." But now I'm not really sure how OP is defining these terms. 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

I'm not really sure how OP is defining these terms. 

Don't worry. I feel confident they aren't either. 

[Night FM]

On 9/18/2024 at 2:48 PM, MSC said:

At first I thought this was going to be about how there is no scientific evidence of a conspiracy in things like flat earth beliefs so they aren't theories but hypotheses. If the post had been about that, I'd have said "yeah, completely overused." But now I'm not really sure how OP is defining these terms. 

I'd simply define it as a theory about a conspiracy regardless of the degree of absurdity (e.x. Watergate turned out to be true and a theory about a political conspiracy isn't as unplausible as a theory involving Satanic sacrifices or alien abductions).

I feel that it's overused to refer to anything viewed as "absurd".

[Eise]

3 hours ago, Night FM said:

I feel that it's overused to refer to anything viewed as "absurd".

Then give a better example of what you mean. Of course conspiracies exist. But in general they are on a much smaller scale: the more people are involved, the more difficult it becomes to keep it secret. 

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Night FM said:

I'd simply define it as a theory about a conspiracy regardless of the degree of absurdity (e.x. Watergate turned out to be true and a theory about a political conspiracy isn't as unplausible as a theory involving Satanic sacrifices or alien abductions).

I feel that it's overused to refer to anything viewed as "absurd".

Context matters. “Conspiracy theory” is often used when there is no actual evidence of a conspiracy, yet one must exist in order to account whatever coverup is allegedly happening. As opposed to actual conspiracies, where you hypothesize connections and then go out and find evidence of them, and don’t actually refer to them as conspiracy theories.

I concur - you need some examples of these absurdities being called conspiracy theories. I think it’s absurd to use made-up notation like “e.x.” but it’s not a conspiracy theory unless I e.g. (<— a legit abbreviation) say it’s a freemason plot to take over the world.

[Phi for All]

4 hours ago, Night FM said:

I'd simply define it as a theory about a conspiracy regardless of the degree of absurdity (e.x. Watergate turned out to be true and a theory about a political conspiracy isn't as unplausible as a theory involving Satanic sacrifices or alien abductions).

I feel that it's overused to refer to anything viewed as "absurd".

Watergate didn't "turn out to be true". Evidence of conspiracy was found, and that's the difference. 

This is another misuse of the word "theory", imo, conflating it with "it probably happened this way". Scientific theories have mountains of evidence.

[swansont]

44 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Watergate didn't "turn out to be true". Evidence of conspiracy was found, and that's the difference. 

Indeed. The idea that the president was behind all of the shenanigans (or that top WH officials were involved) was not offered up at the outset, it was a conclusion drawn after a bunch of evidence had been found.