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Politics, Deception, and Being Self-Deceived, Matthew R. X. Dentith

SERRC — April 25, 2019 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Matthew R. X. Dentith, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, m.dentith@episto.org.

Dentith, Matthew R. X. “Politics, Deception, and Being Self-Deceived.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 8, no. 4 (2019): 38-43.

The pdf of the article gives specific page references. Shortlink: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-48t

Did Dick Cheney really deceive himself about the reasons and justification of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq? Or was he deceiving us?
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons

Sometimes you read a blurb and think “That dovetails with my work; I must read that!” Then, when you finally manage to get hold of a copy of the text, you either devour it in as few sittings as possible… Or you sit on it for months because whatever excitement you had dissipated by the end of the introduction.

This book is, unfortunately, an example of the latter. It is a book with a very interesting central thesis—the development of a theory about political self-deception—which suffers both from overreach and a poorly structured argument. Let me start with the former issue, since the latter is only really a problem of presentation rather than the nuance of the argument.

To Deceive Oneself…

Anna Elisabeth Galeotti argues that not only can agents self-deceive, but there is a special species of self-deception which is political in nature. So, what is self-deception, let alone political self-deception? According to Galeotti—although it is a contested concept—self-deception is “the distortion of reality against the available evidence and according to one’s wishes (p. 1)” and “a form of motivated irrationality, displayed by usually rational subjects, as a rule capable of responding to evidence adequately and forming and holding beliefs appropriately (p. 19).” That is, when self-deception occurs, it really is the case that the agent wants to and thus comes to believe p despite the evidence.

Why is self-deception a contested concept? Well, because both in Philosophy and Psychology people have questioned whether someone can really self-deceive. After all, to deceive someone else is one thing (and, it seems, unfortunately quite common), but to deceive yourself is another thing entirely.

Some justify this scepticism that self-deception is possible by preferring accounts that, say, characterise seeming self-deception as just post facto rationalisations (an agent acted as if p were true despite knowing it wasn’t, and then justified their actions after the fact by saying they believed p to be true at the time). Others explain away such apparent self-deception by saying agents are simply subject to biases (there is no motivation behind the irrational belief that p, just unconscious bias).

Galeotti argues that to ignore the possibility of self-deception, however, means “giving up a whole body of phenomena, amply described and reported in literary works and novels, and deeply entrenched in our common experience (p. 25).” Yet tropes of fiction are not evidence of the existence of actual mental phenomena; at best such tropes suggest that in our folk-psychologies we think it is possible to self-deceive.

Better is her argument that we seem to personally experience self-deception, although even then that is questionable: not only might we retroactively perceive biased thinking as a case of self-deception (since it moves our fallacious reasoning from the cold to hot domain of cognitive activity) but there is a huge literature—particularly in the Philosophy of Mind—which questions whether our self-descriptions of mental activity reflects at all how we actually think.

Galeotti also argues that there is evidence elsewhere for self-deception, although this evidence is hard to parse. In the first half of the book many such examples of this evidence are introduced, but then never explained properly. An experiment by C. Michel and A. Newen is mentioned in passing, the results of which are said to support the self-deception thesis (p. 39).

But there isn’t enough detail in the description of the experiment to show this. Similarly, when discussing voice recognition experiments by R. Gur and H. Sackein, Galeotti claims they support the ascription of self-deception as a mechanism for avoiding embarrassment (p. 24). Yet, once again, we are told this, rather than had it explained to us. There are also times that we are told things like “Yet philosophers regard this solution as less than desirable (p. 73)” without ever being told who these philosophers are.

Add to this the problem that if self-deception occurs, it occurs and operates selectively. As Galeotti writes self-deception:

[I]s not a general causal mechanism countering any unwelcome data, but it activates only under specified circumstances, namely, in case the negative evidence threatens an important belief for S’s well-being which S cannot (or believes he cannot, or discounts he can) counteract or finds too costly to counteract (p. 45).

That is, we have to ascertain when something is self-deception rather than merely deceptive. As to why people might engage in such self-deception—aside from being motivated to irrationally believe p over ~p—in part it is because, in the short term, self-deception can be good for reducing anxiety. After all, the self-deceiver really wants p over _p to be true.

However, the problem with being self-deceived is that, in the long term, such self-deception leads to bad consequences. P, after all, turns out not to be true and your subsequent decisions based upon p being true will reflect badly on you and—as we will see in the political case—your mates.

Galeotti argues not only is it not a contradiction-in-terms to deceive oneself, but there is a species of political self-deception which explains away not just bad policy decisions but also the failure of policy-makers to see the consequences of such decisions.

Now, Galeotti is quick to point out that her conception of self-deception does not absolve self-deceivers of the responsibility for their subsequent actions. Once an agent realises they have been self-deceived, then they should correct their future behaviour.

Not just that, but Galeotti even suggests it might even be possible to design political institutions to ensure against self-deception in the first place. Yet, despite this her case studies—the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and the Invasion of Iraq—end up reading as apologetics rather than excoriations.

Case Studies of Deception or Deceptive Case Studies?

The second half of the book concerns the application of her theory to the aforementioned three cases, all of which have been put forward as examples of political deception. As such, the problem with Galeotti’s characterisation of these events is the primary issue for self-deception itself: does it occur?

Because if we deny the existence of self-deception, then we still have explanations based on deception for these three cases. Not just that, but even if we grant there can be cases of self-deception, why think these are notable cases of such deception? Once again, there are rival and well-accepted explanations for the same phenomena.

In part my scepticism is based upon Galeotti’s dismissal of conspiracy theories for some of these cases. I mostly work on the epistemology of conspiracy theory, and I am somewhat used to people outside the small community of philosophers who bother to treat conspiracy theory seriously talking about said theories as if Karl Popper was the last word on the topic.

So Galeotti’s dismissive take on conspiracy theories when it comes to accounts of what went wrong in particular with the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964, or the “case” for the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 was no surprise. She casts the conspiratorial explanations to these events to one side because of their supposed implausibility, and this is awkward because—just as I defend conspiracy theorising in a range of cases—she is seeking to show self-deception rather than deception best explains these curious sets of events. However, unlike self-deception—which is contested—we know conspiracies occur. What we probably do not need are rival explanations which seek to explain away deceptive political practices as something else.

Part of the problem is a certain naive reading by Galeotti of the minutes, diaries and other official records around these events, which she takes to show that the agents involved self-deceived rather than sought to deceive. Galeotti assumes that the extant records are honest testaments of the intentions and thoughts of the political actors involved.

Yet I can’t help but be reminded of Julius Caesar’s Commentāriī dē Bellō Gallicō (Commentaries on the Gallic Wars). These were ostensibly accurate recollections of the events of Caesar’s campaigns in Transalpine Gaul. Yet most Classicists and Ancient Historians now think these were written primarily to garner support and sympathy for Caesar back in Rome: Caesar characterised the Gauls as an almost existential threat to the Roman Republic which only a general like Caesar could counter. Yet, from what we now know about the Gauls and their civilisation, Caesar was hamming it up for his Roman readers.

My point here is that whilst it is possible the recollections of the people involved in Galeotti’s case studies are sincere, it is also possible that these recollections were written to excuse mistakes, or hide intentions. This is sometimes done intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally (and not necessarily in a self-deceptive fashion).

The Benefit of the Doubt?

Indeed, reading this book I was constantly asking myself why should we give these politicians the benefit of the doubt and say they deceived themselves?

Take for example, the Gulf of Tonkin affair—discussed in chapter 5—where the USS Maddox was alleged to have been attacked by Vietnamese forces on August 4th, 1964. Galeotti thinks that as there is evidence that, initially, senior naval personnel and members of the U.S. Government thought the attack was genuine, the resulting deception—after it was discovered to be otherwise—means a conspiratorial explanation is untenable.

Yet even if the president and his advisors thought the attack on the USS Maddox was genuine in the first instance, their subsequent actions—once it became clear the “attack” had been misreported and then misrepresented to Congress—does not take conspiracy out of the equation. Sometimes conspiracies emerge when events you had no control over end up being used to serve a political purpose, especially if you think you can control the narrative. You do not have to fake an event to conspire after the fact.

Not just that, but she then claims the resulting twenty-year cover-up of what really happened also does not support the existence of a conspiracy. Yet that is precisely what a cover-up is: a kind of conspiracy.

This is all very reminiscent of the Popperian success notion of conspiracy: in The Open Society and Its Enemies Popper argues that a conspiracy is only successful if it ultimately achieves all its ends. Thus the Holocaust, according to Popper, was not a successful example of a conspiracy because the Nazis did not ultimately achieve their goal.

Using the same kind of reasoning, Galeotti claims that as the story of what really happened to the USS Maddox eventually came out—some twenty years later, mind—this means the cover-up fails to be suitably conspiratorial. Indeed, Galeotti makes a similar argument for the dodgy dossier that “justified” the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, claiming the conspiracy theories:

[C]annot explain why a group of so skilled liars and cynics, so good at manipulating people and masterminding the attack, failed so miserably in managing the aftermath of the invasion and did not serve their own vested interests as well (p. 202).

Yet, as Charles Pigden argued in Popper Revisited, or What Is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?, people do not believe conspiracies are only ultimately successful if the conspirators get what they want. Despite Popper’s claim, the Holocaust was, unfortunately, a success, even though the Nazis desired more.

Meanwhile, just because Blair, Bush and company might not have been able to ultimately control the narrative around the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, they still got what they wanted at the time (at least according to the conspiracy theorists) and—notably—do not seem to have suffered much for it either (which raises the question of whether they really were ultimately unsuccessful in the first place).

Now, it may seem that this review is more a rumination on conspiracy theories than it is a discussion of Galeotti’s theory of political self-deception. This is a fair criticism, but I’ve focussed on these conspiratorial explanations precisely because she is putting forward alternative explanations which strip away deception and replace them with a story that the political actors in question were mistaken. Galeotti claims she is not absolving the culprits of responsibility for their actions, but it’s hard not to take her case studies as tailor-made to say that mistakes were made, rather than attributing them to disturbing political maneuvers.

And Another Thing…

Which brings me to the second part of my complaint, which relates to the poor structure and presentation of Galeotti’s argument.

Political Self-Deception is a long book, and its chief fault is that it takes far too long to get to the examples—the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and the Invasion of Iraq—which motivate the use of political self-deception as a potential explanation for certain kinds of political activity. Before we get to these cases studies—which would justify the analysis—we have to go through the process of distinguishing the author’s view of self-deception from that of her contemporaries or forebears.

Whilst this is all well-and-good, spending half a book on a literature review before getting to the meat of the discussion makes the text lopsided, particularly since it is dry and unmotivated. Galeotti might have thought the examples had to wait until after the theory was expounded. But without meaty examples which suggest political self-deception might explain away certain events, the first half of the book is a long slog through theory which lacks any sense of motivation.

The text also has a number of other problems than its structure. It is badly edited (and its lop-sided structure could also be seen as evidence of that): “WDM” in place of “WMD” (p. 109); “Turn” rather than “turns” (p. 117); a missing “they” (p. 129); “real fact” (p. 171); “thepresident” (p. 179); a reference back to a section which has yet to occur (p. 217); and the author of the Chilcot Report is named “Sir John Chilcots” (p. 243). The book is littered with such mistakes, big and small, which is all a little off for a CUP publication.

This review might come across as harsh. But I want to stress that nothing I have said means self-deception does not occur: I somewhat think it is a likely contender in a range of cases. I was even struck by how closely Galeotti’s work on self-deception dovetails into a thesis I have been developing elsewhere (the notion of the “polite society”).

Rather, my point is that almost any explanation of a complex political event involving multiple actors is going to be amenable to a range of different explanations, some of which will turn out to be complementary. As such, this book is for people who already think there is something to the thesis of self-deception, and thus want to know how it applies in political cases; it is not likely to convince people who are skeptical of the notion agents can self-deceive.

The case studies used to show self-deception should be at least considered as potential explanations never quite show that self-deception is the only viable explanation on offer. Thus, unless you think political self-deception is common, this book is just not that compelling.

Contact details: m.dentith@episto.org

References

Galeotti, Anna Elisabeth. Political Self-Deception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Pigden, Charles. “Popper Revisited: Or, What Is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 25, no. 1 (1995), 3-34.

Popper, Karl. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.

Why ‘Healthy Conspiracy Theories’ Are (Oxy)morons, Part Two, Pascal Wagner et al

SERRC — March 19, 2019 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Pascal Wagner-Egger, University of Fribourg, pascal.wagner@unifr.ch.

Gérald Bronner, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Énergies de Demain

Sylvain Delouvée, University of Rennes

Sebastien Dieguez, University of Fribourg

Nicolas Gauvrit, École Pratique des Hautes Études

Wagner-Egger, Pascal; Gérald Bronner, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Nicolas Gauvrit. “Why ‘Healthy Conspiracy Theories’ Are (Oxy)morons: Statistical, Epistemological, and Psychological Reasons in Favor of the (Ir)Rational View.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 8, no. 3 (2019): 50-67.

The pdf of the article gives specific page references, and consists of the full text of the article. Shortlinks: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-47v (part one), https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-47z (part two)

One must never forget the ideological aspects of conspiracy thinking. Image by Adam Riggio

The Psychological Arguments: The Conspiracy Mentality

Next, a psychological characteristic of conspiracy theorists worsens the epistemological judgement of their “theories”: Many surveys on conspiracy theories found that the beliefs in various conspiracies are correlated. It means that the adherence to one theory is associated with the adherence to another (even invented) one, and conversely that a refusal of one conspiracy theory is associated with the refusal of another conspiracy theory[1].

This has been called “monological belief system [38]” or “conspiracy mentality [39]”[2]. This is not only a phenomenon based on statistical results on wide samples of students and general population: you will find many “qualitative” examples on the internet (see also [94]). As an academic working at University on conspiracy theories, one is very likely to be approached by members of Reopen 9/11 or similar associations, as some of us have been in the past years.

After some lengthy discussions about the 9/11 case, the leader of the French Swiss association told the first author that global warming was denied by some scientists (which is true, but what is also true is that 95-98% of the climate scientists do not [42]).

Another Facebook friend of friends with whom one of us discussed at length the 9/11 case was posting conspiracy suspicions to nearly every sociopolitical event (all terrorist attacks were false flags, the willingness of Catalonia to be independent was a conspiracy of the European Union against Spain, etc.).

The conspiracy mentality, a psychological tendency to explain a lot of complex socio-historical events in terms of conspiracies, is readily explained by a “logical” consequence of believing with no high enough level of proof in one conspiracy theory: If the CIA organized and covered the assassination of its own president, why would they not organize a huge false-flag attack against their own population, and then why all other Western countries (France, UK, Spain, Suede, Germany, etc.) would not do the same? The belief in one conspiracy theory renders lots of others — if not all — conspiracy theories more plausible [19]. Conspiracy-proneness is thus almost doomed to lead to bias (given the statistical argument proposed above), driven by a general distrust in institutions (political, scientific, and media) [5], [25]-[28], [38].

At the epistemological level, the propensity to suspect conspiracies in every significant event with no serious inquiry is very similar to the numerous predictions of astrologists. According to the law of large numbers, some very rare predictions will be “hits”, whereas a huge majority will be false alarms (still due to the statistical argument). This is the reason why one of us recently equated conspiracist ideation as “bullshit” and wrote that “conspiracy theories do not exist” [43].

There are no theories in what we call conspiracy theories, but only conspiracy suspicions (i.e. multiple suspicions of conspiracies, supported by only errant data, or even not supported by any data, such as in the Catalonia example above). This is also what one of us told 9/11 conspiracy defenders some years ago: If a serious journalistic inquiry manages to bring proofs of the conspiracy (confessions, official documents proving the conspiracy, etc.), you could be retrospectively “right” about the 9/11 conspiracy, but by pure chance.

You would be “right” for the wrong reasons (the law of large numbers, pseudo-inquiry based on errant data, disrespect of Occam’s razor and burden of proof principles), and this is equivalent to be wrong, as we would say to the astrologist[3].

The Psychological Arguments: The Irrationality

Finally, the last argument against the healthy view on conspiracy theories is indirect and psychological. Numerous researches show that believers in conspiracy theories are, on average, less rational than non-believers. People who adhere to conspiracy theories will tend to embrace a wide range of irrational ideas, such as belief in paranormal phenomena, magical ideation and superstition [24]–[29], [34], [44]–[47] , anthropomorphism or animism [5], [24], [48], [49], [58], “bullshit” receptivity [50], [51], and creationism [24].

Moreover, conspiracy believers are more prone than nonbelievers to various cognitive biases: conjunction fallacy[4] [20], proportion bias [53]–[55], hypersensitive agency detection [58], and teleological reasoning [24]. Other studies directly showed that conspiracy believers display more intuitive (i.e. often incorrect) and less analytic (i.e., often correct) thinking than non-believers [24], [57]. These results are consistent with the observation that nonbelievers score higher on intelligence scales [25], [30], [31], [57]. Moreover, most studies found a negative correlation between conspiracy beliefs and educational level [7], [38], [58]–[67]. In addition, adherence to conspiracy theories is often related to psychological disturbance (i.e., schizotypy and paranoia) [26]–[28], [46], [51], [65], [69]–[73].

Two last elements have not been yet empirically demonstrated, but are easily illustrated in conspiracists’ discourses and methods on their websites and in online discussions with them: (1) extreme conspiracists are very skeptical about the official version (and sometimes even paranoidally, in an excessive distrust of all official sources), but on the other side believe in a quasi-religious manner — without apparently considering that they could be wrong — to the existence of the conspiracy theories. Often, they do not detail the conspiracy “theory”, but only express a conspiracy suspicion, which is so restrained from falsification. This striking differential cognitive treatment of official versions and conspiracy theories has been called “cognitive asymmetry” by one of us (as reported in [74]).

As we mentioned above, Chomsky sarcastically enjoined 9/11 conspiracists not only to study nano-thermite and extremely complicated details of the official version, but also to fully consider the extraordinary complexity that such a large-scale conspiracy would require to be successful. Moreover (2), conspiracists exhibit the “primacy of conclusion” fallacy, a common characteristic of socially shared knowledge, such as rumors (e.g. [75], [76]).

The Psychological Arguments: Reason Running in Reverse

Whereas science follows the hypothetico-deductive method (testing hypotheses to reach a conclusion) [77], conspiracists start from the conclusion, select and interpret the facts that fit with the conclusion. When an errant data is explained by an official account, they simply move to the other dozens of errant data in order to keep their faith in the conspiracy. One of us defined the “argumentative mille-feuille” used by conspiracy believers — and producers —, an accumulation of a very high number of errant data apparently in favor of a conspiracy theory, as in the 9/11 case [93]. Whatever the plausibility of each element in isolation (explained versus unexplained errant data), this accumulation produces a feeling of global truthiness, like “everything may not be false”, or “no smoke without fire”. It also sometimes creates some kind of intellectual intimidation, for those who would challenge all the numerous technical arguments.

At the final stage of conversion, conspiracists will also take every explanation of errant data coming from experts as additional proofs of the conspiracy, the experts being part of the conspiracy (as some paranoid conspiracists accused one of us in online discussions about the 9/11 affair) [19] [78]. Besides, the fact that the conspiracy may not be proved is taken as a proof of the powerfulness of the conspirators, who managed to delete any traces. The conspiracy theory becomes then irrefutable [90] or unfalsifiable [19], because of what some of us called the “ultimate confirmation bias”, also present in extreme religious faith [91]. For example, creationists may say that dinosaur fossils were put by the Devil in order to deceive humans (or even by God himself, in order to show that scientific research cannot reach the truth).

To Sum Up

All these arguments — statistical, epistemological, and psychological — very strongly advocate for us in favor of the “unhealthy” or “pathologizing” view on conspiracy theories, and against the “healthy” view. We propose here to rename this “unhealthy” or “pathologizing” view as (ir)rational view on conspiracy theories — a rational analysis of conspiracy theories concluding at their irrationality —, which states that:

(1) At the statistical level, proved conspiracy theories are so rare compared to unverified and delusional conspiracy theories, that considering all conspiracy theories as false is true at a very high level of certainty (probably more than 99%, which is a quasi-certainty, notably higher than the 95% used in statistical inference).

Next, the remaining 1% of the conspiracy theories that could potentially turn out to be right are currently defended for the wrong reasons (errant data), unlike conspiracy inquiries, which do not affirm the existence of conspiracies without strong evidence. As we would do for “correct” predictions of astrologists, which will appear for statistical reasons (the law of large numbers), we will consider all conspiracy theories, as all astrological predictions (even the ones that turned out to be true), as false. A simple suspicion based on previous cases of real conspiracies, errant data, or even the purported benefit to some categories of people (“who benefits from the crime”) will be dismissed as a (false) conspiracy theory.

(2) At the epistemological level, advocates of conspiracies will have to pass Occam’s and Hanlon’s razors, and follow the burden of proof principle. As conspiracies are less parsimonious than official versions, they should be only supported with a high level of proofs (once again, confessions, and declassified documents) and not only errant data about the official version (burden of proof on the shoulders of challengers of the official version, not on its defenders).

At the individual level of believers (3), believing in one conspiracy theory may engage to believe in another one, and to many others. Large number of unverified hypotheses constitute an irrational way to get at a time one hypothesis seemingly corroborated: this would be for wrong reasons (law of large numbers instead of a serious inquiry). Finally, believers in conspiracy theory have lower cognitive abilities, suffer more than nonbelievers from several cognitive biases, embrace many irrational ideas, and this does not, indirectly, advocate in favor of the rationality of their beliefs.

Some defenders of the “healthy” view have gone so far to argue that scholars who adopt the “pathologizing” view, as we do, are themselves pathological, as they would suffer from a “conspiracy theory phobia” [86]. Given the statistical, epistemological and psychological evidence summarized here, we let the reader conclude about the rationality of each side of the debate.

To Broaden the Debate

This controversy is not only of interest for scholars who study conspiracy theories, but also for sociology, as critical or Marxist sociologists were accused by Karl Popper of conspiracist tendencies, by excessively attributing intentions to dominant groups, sometimes coupled with historicism (teleological view of history, as in the Marxist framework) [77]. As our analysis of conspiracy theories suggest, critical sociologists and journalists also have to be prudent in their claims about the intentionality and the internal organization of the “dominant classes” (e.g., the existence of a “worldwide oligarchy”), thus to prove with proper investigations the collusions of leaders in society, and not only exhibit suspicions of collusions [87]. Alliances, and even more secret alliances are less parsimonious explanations than side-effects of social structures (that could be of benefit to some high-status groups, without having been created by them), and in turn less parsimonious than some unintended “perverse effects” of the aggregated wills of individuals [89].

The present (ir)rational view on conspiracy theories is not surprising for psychologists who study beliefs in general, because it is highly consistent with other domains of beliefs (religious, paranormal, rumors, etc.) [79], [88]. The function of beliefs is not truth-seeking. They may of course also fulfill epistemic functions, but distinct from scientific knowledge acquisition: to simplify complexity by (1) giving simple explanations, (2) rendering concrete abstract concepts, (3) assimilating new knowledge to existing social representations, (4) justify behaviors (e.g., stereotypes) [84]. Beliefs and ideologies also serve psychological or existential functions, for example restoring a sense of control in an uncontrollable world [80]–[82] or coping with death anxiety [83]. Social functions have also been identified, such as reinforcing ingroup cohesion and social identity of believers. Finally, beliefs also pursue pragmatic aims, such as the proposition of action modalities (strikes, boycott, etc.), mobilization of individuals and groups for a cause [84] [85].

A Proposition of Convergence

To conclude, in order to solve the controversy between the seemingly untenable “healthy” view and the far more reasoned (ir)rational view, we would like to encourage defenders of the former to abandon the Sisyphean idea to epistemologically rehabilitate conspiracy theories, and rather to distinguish them from, and encourage healthy conspiracy inquiries (e.g., with journalistic safeguards, such as the triangulation of data sources, confessions, official documents, possibility of disconfirmation, etc.), which should bring proofs instead of errant data[5]. As Stoke [68] and Dentith [45] acknowledge, the potentially dangerous accusation of conspiracy — in addition to be less parsimonious — should be the a posteriori consequence of an inquiry, and not the a priori product of irrational suspicion.

This suggestion could solve a true problem evoked by the supporters of the “unhealthy” view on conspiracy theories, the political use of accusation of conspiracy theory: any government or powerful group would not anymore be able to dismiss opponents’ arguments as conspiracy theories, because opponents would not defend conspiracy theories any more. They would support only the results (and not the announcement) of serious journalistic or judicial inquiries bringing positive proofs of the conspiracy[6].

Hence, our proposition could be an epistemic solution to the longlasting problem of defining warranted versus unwarranted [19], real versus bogus [90], or healthy versus unhealthy conspiracy theories, what we may call the “conspiracy demarcation problem”: The formers do simply not exist, because conspiracy theories may in our view be defined as irrational suspicions of conspiracy based on errant data about the official version (“negative” clues). They are opposed to (conspiracy) inquiries, which possibly prove the existence of a particular conspiracy (with once again sound journalistic or judicial investigations, and positive proofs of the conspiracy such as confessions, official documents, leaks, whistleblowers, etc.; note that these proofs could be also in principle brought by non professionals, but perhaps with less likelihood).

We are glad at the end of this paper to read in a recent article by Dentith that he also seems to abandon the concepts of conspiracy theory (and theorizing) in favor of “communities of inquiry”, which is close to what we called here conspiracy inquiry [32]. The proper term should however simply be “inquiry”, or “ongoing case” [43], as the conclusion of the inquiry will be “strong proofs” or “no strong proofs” for the conspiracy.

We would only add, as we mentioned above, that such communities have to — at least publicly, in order not to manipulate public opinion — consider their own unparsimonious hypothesis of conspiracy as false, until they are able to provide strong and unequivocal evidence (and not errant data) to prove them as true. This is exactly what happened to the inquirers of the Watergate affair: Byford reports that there was at that time a concern even in the team of investigators of the Washington Post to cross the boundary between journalism and “fantasy”. And when they first reported the illegal tapping at the Watergate hotel, the White House tried to discredit the Washington Post by accusation of… conspiracy theory [90].

We can see with this edifying example that the positive proofs brought by the inquiry eliminated both the epistemic weakness of the irrational accusation from the conspiracy theories, and the possibility for authorities to rule out any opponents’ accusations as conspiracy theories. Dentith also admits that communities of inquiry could or should do it secretly, at least in the beginning of the process [32].

This is for example what members of Reopen 9/11 associations are not doing, who only try to widely publicize their doubts on the official version. This recommendation may seem weird, but it could be similar for the announcement of the discovery of a wonder drug or vaccine, which should be made only after a long and hard validation procedure. So ironically, we probably need some conspiracies in order to reveal real conspiracies.

Contact details: pascal.wagner@unifr.ch

References

[1] G. Bronner et al., ‘Luttons efficacement contre les théories du complot’, Le Monde, vol. 29, 2016.

[2] S. Dieguez et al., ‘“They’Respond: Comments on Basham et Al.”s “Social Science’s Conspiracy-Theory Panic: Now They Want to Cure Everyone”’, Soc. Epist. Rev. and Reply Coll., vol. 5, pp. 20–39, 2016.

[3] R. Imhoff, P. Lamberty, and O. Klein, ‘Using Power as a Negative Cue: How Conspiracy Mentality Affects Epistemic Trust in Sources of Historical Knowledge’, Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull., vol. 44, no. 9, pp. 1364–1379, Sep. 2018.

[4] P. Lamberty and R. Imhoff, ‘Powerful pharma and its marginalized alternatives? Effects of individual differences in conspiracy mentality on attitudes toward medical approaches.’, Soc. Psychol., 2018.

[5] R. Imhoff and M. Bruder, ‘Speaking (Un-)Truth to Power: Conspiracy Mentality as a Generalised Political Attitude’, Eur. J. Personal., vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 25–43, 2014.

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[1] See for example [24]–[37].

[2] The idea that the conspiracy mentality could be strong enough to lead to agree with two contradictory conspiracy theories has indeed not been proved by Wood, Douglas and Sutton [40], contrary to what they claim in their paper (i.e., that some people believe for example that Oussama Ben Laden was dead before the intervention of the US Army in 2011 in Pakistan, AND is still living somewhere). First, as Basham correctly notes, to agree partially with two contradictory claims could mean that people envisage that the two possibilities are not jointly possible (as the belief that my lost keys are probably in my car or in my bag). Moreover, reanalysis of the data showed that the correlations are due to the refusal of the two contradictory conspiracy theories, and not their acceptance. See [41] and future research for the update.

[3] This consequence of the law of large numbers is commonly illustrated by the cases of a random generator of words producing a sensible sentence, or when an infinite number of monkeys during an infinite time will randomly generate Shakespeare’s complete work on writing machines.

[4] It is certainly possible, as Basham does about this study [52], to criticize some methodological points of some studies, but certainly not all. And we would add — following the scientific epistemology described above — that Basham has the burden of empirically proving the effectiveness of his criticisms (by showing a disappearance of the effect by some changes in the method, for example), and not only sharing his conceptual or methodological disagreements.

[5] It seems to us worthless to try to distinguish healthy from unhealthy conspiracy theories, or conspiracy theorizing from conspiracy narratives, as Dentith proposes, because the term conspiracy theory is now very negatively connotated, for all the good reasons we listed in this paper.

[6] We may indeed think that the confessions about the US/UK WMD were not obtained because of the existence of conspiracy theories, but more certainly due to the reasoning from the US army that it was impossible to cover up the “error” they made.

Why ‘Healthy Conspiracy Theories’ Are (Oxy)morons, Part One, Pascal Wagner et al

SERRC — March 14, 2019 — Leave a comment

Author Information: Pascal Wagner-Egger, University of Fribourg, pascal.wagner@unifr.ch.

Gérald Bronner, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Énergies de Demain

Sylvain Delouvée, University of Rennes

Sebastien Dieguez, University of Fribourg

Nicolas Gauvrit, École Pratique des Hautes Études

Wagner-Egger, Pascal; Gérald Bronner, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Nicolas Gauvrit. “Why ‘Healthy Conspiracy Theories’ Are (Oxy)morons: Statistical, Epistemological, and Psychological Reasons in Favor of the (Ir)Rational View.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 8, no. 3 (2019): 50-67.

The pdf of the article gives specific page references, and consists of the full text of the article. Shortlinks: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-47v (part one), https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-47z (part two)

One must never forget the ideological aspects of conspiracy thinking. Image by PJ Nelson via Flickr / Creative Commons

Since 2016, Basham, Dentith and colleagues have, on several occasions, reacted in the Journal Social Epistemology to our call “Let’s fight conspiracy theories effectively”, published in a French daily. There, we worried about French governmental and local initiatives aimed at fighting the proliferation of conspiracy theories (CT) among youths, in a context of terrorist attacks, and subsequent ethnic and religious tensions [1]. We once responded to their critics [2], and we would like here to add some additional arguments, in order to evaluate the relevance of the concept of “healthy conspiracy theories”.[1]

From this discussion, and other debates about the nature and definition of conspiracy theories, it seems that the disagreement may be very simply put: It opposes the “healthy” view on conspiracy theories held by Basham and Dentith (and others; Basham cites Peter Knight, Gina Husting, Martin Orr, Kurtis Hagen, David Coady, Jack Bratich and Charles Pigden, plus some European social psychologists[2]), and the “unhealthy” or “pathologizing” view held by the majority of psychologists (Viren Swami, Robert Brotherton, Jan-Willem, Van Prooijen, Karen Douglas, our team in France and Switzerland, etc.) and some sociologists (Jovan Byford, Joseph Uscinski, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Gérald Bronner, Pierre-André Taguieff, etc.) working in the field[3].

Healthy and Unhealthy Views on Conspiracy Theories

According to the “healthy” view, we should consider each conspiracy theory on its own merits (particularism), and not discard all of them as non-rational beliefs (generalism), given that some conspiracies have been uncovered in history (Watergate, MK-Ultra, Tuskegee experiments, etc.). Its main argument is that the conspiracy theory about US/UK Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has finally been proven true. This conspiracy theory accused US and UK armies to have invaded Iraq in 2003, not as they claim because of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction — which were finally not found, and led the US and UK governments to recognize their “error” — but in reality, to gain control on a strategic region for oil industry.

For the “unhealthy” view, conspiracy theories are mainly false, often delusional, having negative social consequences[4], and favored by faulty reasoning (cognitive biases).

In this paper, we will evaluate these two positions at a (1) statistical, (2) epistemological, and (3) empirical (psychological) level. We will see how the three levels unambiguously advocate in favor of the “unhealthy” view.

The Statistical Argument

First, at the statistical level, most conspiracy theories are false[5]. If we did not miss any other, Basham and Dentith cite only one (!) conspiracy theory that turned out to be true: the US/UK Weapons of Massive Destructions. Conspiracists and defenders of the healthy view also add some dozens of proved conspiracies (Basham & Dentith enumerate for example the beginnings of holocaust, Stalin, US army in Vietnam, the Watergate, or Litvinenko case [14]; We may add the MK-Ultra project, Tuskegee experiments, the Tobacco conspiracy, etc.). As Popper underlined, successful conspiracies are rare in history [16]. Moreover, and this is a crucial point, all these proved conspiracies did not rely on preceding public conspiracy theories. They were discovered by genuine journalistic, police or judicial investigations. Thus, at best, we know very few conspiracy theories that became true.

By contrast, thousands of conspiracy theories flood books, and nowadays the internet. It would be impossible to build an exhaustive list, but let us only mention some categories: (a) from secret groups (the illuminati, the templars, the freemasons, the Jews, the communists, etc.), (b) about the death of celebrities (JFK, MLK, Lady Diana, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, etc.), and living celebrities (Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Miley Cyrus, etc.), (c) after natural catastrophes (Tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.), (d) about plane crashes or disappearances, (e) after terrorist attacks, (f) about political organizations or meetings (UNO, WTO, IMF, Bilderberg group, etc.), (g) following disease outbreaks, (h) about vaccines, (i) about science and technology (moon landings, chemtrails, CERN, climate change, satellites, etc.), (j) following accidents (bridge collapse at Genoa, fires, etc.), (k) in sports, (l) about alien “visitations”, etc., etc.

Concerning for example the sole Barack Obama, Mother Jones, an independent magazine, identified more than 40 conspiracy theories organized in 5 clusters (about him being Muslim, pervert, dictator, radical leftist or Kenyan) [15]. As another edifying example, Peter Knight’s Encyclopedia of “Conspiracy Theories in American History” is nearly two 1000 pages volumes long.

To be still more precise about the statistical argument, let us think about the numerous JFK’s assassination conspiracy theories. According to former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, no less than 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused in the various conspiracy theories [16]. For the sake of the argument, let us say that there are 50 different conspiracy theories, which is below reality. There are only two epistemic possibilities. Either the official version is true, and the fifty conspiracy theories are false, or one conspiracy is true, and the forty-nine others and the official version are false. In any case, the huge majority of conspiracy theories are false. In view of this statistical argument (one CT that turned to be true against thousands of false or at best unverified CTs), when considering all conspiracy theories to be false, we will be correct at a very close rate of 100%.

Second, at the epistemological level, the official version and the conspiracy theories are not equivalent hypotheses to consider, contrary to what conspiracist often claim. We will rely here on scientific reasoning. Such reasoning can be used to evaluate any kind of hypotheses and beliefs (paranormal beliefs, pseudo-scientific theories, etc.), including socio-historic hypotheses (such as Marxism, and thus, conspiracy theories) [17].

The Epistemological Arguments: Occam’s and Hanlon’s Razors, and the Burden of Proof

First, by virtue of the scientific principle of Occam’s razor, simpler hypotheses have always to be preferred to more complicated ones in order to explain any phenomenon. Considering that every conspiracy theory implies an interpretative extra step compared to their corresponding official versions, every conspiracy theory will be epistemologically more demanding than its official version counterpart. For example, to explain Diana’s death by an accident due to alcohol consumption is, whether true or false, far simpler than the explanation by a plot organized by the secret services. The assassination of a celebrity by a lone and mad person is a more parsimonious explanation than the same assassination by an alleged lone and mad person, in reality being part of a vast and covert plot including many other powerful people.

Even terrorist assaults, that Basham and Dentith describe as “official conspiracy theories”, are simpler than the “alternative conspiracy theories”: the 9/11 conspiracy theory involves an “extra” conspiracy, the (false) terrorist plot and the extra plot in order to conceal the “real” conspiracy (by Al Qaeda). It would engage far more people, and would entail far more organization than the action of a small terrorist cell. Then, the official versions are always simpler (i.e., more parsimonious) than conspiracy theories to explain any event [6].

Second, by virtue of the burden of proof principle, advocates of conspiracy theories must give strong reasons in order to abandon the official version. As conspiracy theories are epistemologically demanding hypotheses, they necessitate high levels of proof to be accepted (such as declassified documents, documents leaks, confessions of leaders, whistleblowers, etc.). This principle is summarized by skeptics as “extraordinary claims require extraordinary levels of proof”, a principle widely used for judging paranormal hypotheses. As they contradict the current view of science, they would be accepted only with a wide and compelling array of evidence[6].

Apparent incongruities in zoomed pictures, slow motion looped videos may not be taken as good reasons, or evidence, to abandon even a seemingly unsatisfying official version. These pseudo-proofs are overused by conspiracy theorists to dismiss official versions (as their only “empirical arguments”) but can often be explained by simpler causes than a conspiracy. They have been called errant data [19].

During the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 for example, conspiracists pointed at the flak jackets worn by the people who were filming the assault from the rooftop of the building. For every spectators of the video, the presence of these flak jackets became very strange. The fact that those people wear these flak jackets was taken as a proof that the attack was planned by the authorities, and not a sudden attack from terrorists. It is well known in cognitive and social psychology that the presence of incongruities and coincidences trigger an appeal for explanations [20]. Conspiracy hypotheses will readily fulfill this need.

In reality, the bureau of an investigative journalists’ agency was in front of Charlie Hebdo’s office. The journalists wore flak jackets used in the war zones they regularly cover. Most if not all errant data have been similarly explained, for example by the NASA about Moon landing, or in the numerous debunking arguments about the 9/11 case. Reliance on errant data, sometimes on blurred pictures or videos, or isolated testimony, is reminiscent of paranormal videos and pictures of ghosts or other strange phenomena (such as the Loch Ness pictures of the “monster”) and is of course far from a rational mode of reasoning.

Errant data must be first kept unexplained, and corroborated by other sources, in order to become a clue (but still not a proof) against the official version. A second razor has to be passed through: Hanlon’s razor, which states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”. This may be seen as a kind of “psychosocial” version of Occam’s razor.

Potential inconsistencies (i.e., clues, that are errant data kept unexplained) in the official version must be first explained by stupidity (error), which is more parsimonious than malice (plan). In the case of conspiracy theories, stupidity would refer to incompetence, expediency (and some add defense secrets[7]). But even when incompetence, expediency and defense secrets may be ruled out, the presence of unexplained errant data is still insufficient to refute the official version. Let us see why.

Where Burdens of Proof Must Achieve

In science indeed, even recognized elements of disconfirming evidence (what errant data are often not, as we mentioned above) have never been sufficient to disprove a theory. As philosophers of science such as Irme Lakatos [21] and Thomas Kuhn [22] argued, contrary to a strict Popperian view, any theory or hypothesis will not be refuted by a conflicting result. The latter may be explained by ad hoc hypotheses (measurement errors, etc.), unexplained results (“anomalies”), or even ignored.

In Lakatos’ terms, every theory is always surrounded by an “ocean of anomalies”. Purely epistemic refutation of a theory by contradicting elements never happens. Contradicting results must increase and be replicated by independent researchers, but even in that case, no refutation occurs. In Thomas Kuhn’s terms, the scientific field enters in a “revolutionary” state, where original ideas are requested (scientists will turn to philosophical ideas, old theories, etc.). Revolution (i.e., refutation of the old theory) will only occur when a new paradigm is proposed, in replacement of the ancient.

In Kuhn’s relativistic account, the new paradigm is incommensurable with the ancient, and thus there is no scientific growth. But in Lakatos’ model, the new research program must explain what explains the ancient, and bring some new hypotheses, some of which having been corroborated in Popper’s sense (i.e., not having been refuted through some experimental tests). In simple terms, to be considered as false, or being disconfirmed, an old theory or hypothesis must be replaced by a new and better one.

Then, in order to refute the official version, a conspiracy theory cannot only raise (even legitimate) doubts on the official version; it must specify how and why and when the conspiracy occurred. Conspiracy theorists should not only try to find negative clues or “proofs” against the official version, but positive clues or “proofs” in favor of the conspiracy hypothesis.

In order to ascertain the less parsimonious claim of a conspiracy, conspiracists must give strong arguments (confessions, papers leaks, etc.) proving the conspiracy, and not only apparent incongruities in the official version (errant data), because once again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary level of proof. Concerning the 9/11 case, Chomsky noted that a fully covered plot had to include thousands of people in the head of various domains of administration (aviation, army, secret services, etc.), and thus was simply nearly impossible[8]. In a nutshell, conspiracy theories, which are more exactly suspicions about the official version, must be replaced by conspiracy inquiries, as was done for example in the Watergate affair.

Note that until the day that the inquiry has reported its results, the conspiracy hypothesis has to be considered as false, and not potentially true, because everything may be considered as potentially true. In science, what is not currently proved has to be considered as false, until strong evidence leads to consider it as (temporarily) true.

The same epistemological argument has been raised by Michael Shermer against creationism and revisionism [23]. Both creationists and revisionists repeatedly point at seemingly inconsistent or unexplained facts or details, in order to dismiss the whole theory/official history. Even if these highlighted errant data were real inconsistencies (which as for conspiracies are very often not), this would not prove that the “official version” is false (and it should first be explained by error before malice).

The opponents would have to build a new theory that explains all the known facts AND the purported inconsistencies, thus bring positive clues or proofs of their claims, what would necessitate a massive level of proof. Instead, creationists and revisionists gesticulate about (often only apparent) errant data. They have nothing more to offer, as conspiracy theorists.

The Inversion of the Burden of Proof

Note that conspiracy theorists, just as revisionists and creationists, regularly use the fallacy of the inversion of the burden of proof. Creationists and revisionists sometimes ask scientists and historians to give “proofs” of evolution and the Holocaust, whereas such “proofs” cannot exist (so refutation is always possible). In Shermer’s terms, there are a huge number of converging evidences — positive clues, and not errant data about a rival hypothesis — in favor of evolution and Holocaust, such as experimental tests, predictions with respect to evolution, and numerous official documents, confessions, testimonies with respect to the Holocaust.

Similarly, members of Reopen 9/11 associations ask defenders of the official version to prove this version, which they consider as extraordinary, with extraordinary proofs. But this is not how science works: the official version already explains a lot of (if not all) events, is supported by a considerable amount of converging evidence, but as any theory, it can never be considered as definitively true.

It may be considered as temporarily and plausibly “true”, until a more parsimonious theory explains the same data, or until a new theory is consensually viewed as explaining the same amount of data, plus some new data (thus being supported by new converging evidence) [21]. No defender of any theory can be asked to prove that his/her theory is definitely true [19] [77]. The burden of proof is obviously on the shoulders of the defenders of the new, less parsimonious, potentially revolutionary theory, and the higher the novelty — or non-parsimony —, the higher the level of proof needed.

Moreover, defenders of the official version cannot prove the absence of a given conspiracy, contrary to the defenders of the conspiracy who can — and have to — prove its presence. This is what posits the ad ignorantiam fallacy, according to which we can never prove the absence of something (such as a unicorn or extraterrestrials), contrary to its presence. For example, it is impossible to definitively prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone (as nearly every known event in his life could be related to a conspiracy), but it is in principle possible under investigation to prove that he was related to a conspiracy, with recordings or documents. Thus, the burden of proof becomes still heavier for the conspiracy theory, as it is less parsimonious and more “provable” than the official version.