Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories

“The paradox of believing in conspiracy theories is that—despite the distrust and paranoia reflected in them—adherents often deeply desire a sense of order in the world.“

Introduction

The rise of Trumpism signifies the emergence of an age of “bullshit” to use Princeton University philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s infamous term. According to Frankfurt, bullsh-t needs to be philosophically distinguished with great care from mere dishonesty, which it resembles but isn’t reducible to. A dishonest liar is still cognizant of the distinction between truth and falsity—in some cases so much so that they go to great lengths to conceal their deceit. In the realm of politics, Machiavelli insists that the Prince must be willing to lie to others to advance their agenda. But the Prince must always be aware that he is misrepresenting the world; failing to do so risks falling victim to one’s own illusions. By contrast, a bullsh-tter is someone who has no interest in truth or falsity one way or another. The bullsh-tter sees little motivation to be concerned with how the world is, particularly where that contrasts with what he or she wishes it to be. As Frankfurt puts it:

“This is the crux of the distinction between [the bullsh-tter] and the liar. Both he and the liar represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor co conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.”

Since George Carlin’s seminal monologue on the topic, many commentators have expressed concern that American culture is becoming saturated with bullsh-t. Few have done more to perpetuate this process than Dinesh D’Souza, a far-right pundit who once took a stab at academic respectability before going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theorizing. Some of D’Souza’s more interesting claims in his latest film Death of a Nation include that Hitler was actually tolerant of LGBTQ people despite many gay Germans being imprisoned in concentration camps—and that despite coining the term alt-right, white nationalist Richard Spencer is, in fact, a “progressive Democrat.” More recently D’Souza made headlines for comparing 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg to subjects in Nazi propaganda images. This is particularly ironic given D’Souza’s calls earlier this year for Donald Trump to send in the National Guard to put a stop to Antifa on college campuses. When it comes to substantial analysis, D’Souza’s work is of little interest outside the cheese value of its brazen bullsh-t, but it is worth pointing to as representative of a broader cultural dynamic. In this article, I will briefly unpack the appeal of such conspiracy theorizing and manic partisanship in post-modern culture, before suggesting how it can be countered.