Conspiracy Theorists’ World and Genealogy

ABSTRACT

Conspiracy theories pose a serious threat to our society these days. People often dismiss conspiracy theory believers as at best gullible or, more often, unintelligent. However, there are cases in which individuals end up believing conspiracy theories out of no epistemic fault of their own. In this paper, I want to offer a diagnosis of the problem by focusing on the genealogy of the conspiracy theory beliefs. Drawing on a novel interpretation of Nietzsche’s use of genealogies, I argue that the problem of belief in conspiracy theories is best understood as a broadly political one regarding the oppressive, dominating and exploitative world in which conspiracy theory believers find themselves in. I then draw on the work of Maria Lugones, the feminist philosopher, to offer an approach to addressing the problem of belief in conspiracy theories, which recommends radical humility and playfulness.

KEYWORDS:

• Conspiracy theories
• echo chambers
• genealogy
• feminist philosophy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the audience at the following events: Gonzaga Department Colloquium, Institutional Epistemology Conference at the University of Helsinki and the 74th Northwest Conference at Lewis and Clark College. Special thanks to the anonymous referees of this journal for multiple rounds of comments that helped to develop and strengthen the paper. In addition, I’d like to thank my colleagues Mark Alfino and Alejandro Arango for conversation and comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See, for instance McBrayer (2020).

2. See Clary, Allman and Bohn (2016).

3. See Swami et al. (2011), cited in Cassam (2019). Although, also see Enders et al. (2021).

4. Stamatiadis-Bréhier (2023) has recently advocated for a similar approach, arguing that genealogical consideration can have an undermining effect on a special class of conspiracy theories, namely, conspiracies that aim to create conspiracy theories. As we shall see, my approach is different in that it examines the significance of genealogies for conspiracy theories in general. My argument in Section 3, in particular, shows that a universal genealogical argument against the spread of conspiracy theories does not hold much sway. Koper (2024) is another noteworthy example of a sympathetic view, which I discuss further in fn. 19. Finally, Butter and Knight (2020) includes a collection of papers in Section 4, with a focus on the history of conspiracy theories in different regions of the world. These works, and in particular that of Mathew Gary, which focuses on the Middle East, constitute an invaluable part of the genealogical approach I’m advocating. However, my interest here is in the philosophical underpinnings of such an approach, which, as far as I know, remains largely unaddressed.

5. See Kirk et al. (2020).

6. In his 2019 deposition, Jones claimed: ‘and I, myself, have almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I’ve now learned a lot of times things aren’t staged’ (Joseph and Maxouris 2019).

7. Harambam (2020) make a similar distinction between creators and consumers of conspiracy theories.

8. See Frankfurt (2005).

9. I borrow this notation from Cassam (2019), though my usage is different from his.

10. For an overview of the definitional debate, including the distinction between generalism and particularism, see Dentith (2023b).

11. For other examples of the generalist camp, see, among others Cassam (2016) and Harris (2023).

12. Dentith (2023b) presents particularism as the consensus view. See Dentith (2023a) for a brief history of this consensus. Some notable particularists are Coady (2003); Dentith (2016); Keeley (1999) and Pigden (1995).

13. Ichino and Räikkä (2020) have recently argued that some consumers hold their CTs non-doxastically. In this paper, my focus will specifically be on beliefs of the CT-consumers and the function of genealogies for such cognitive attitudes. However, it seems to me that many of the positive claims about the political function of genealogies may apply mutatis mutandis to other (non-doxastic) attitudes. I won’t argue for this point here.

14. Pigden (1995) and Keeley (1999), among others, have disputed this claim. As we shall see, I ultimately agree with this result. However, it is important to note that my focus here is specifically on whether there is an argument from genealogical considerations for this claim. That’s why I only engage with the safety considerations below and not other broadly epistemological considerations.

15. There is a growing literature on the ‘undermining’ effect of genealogies in epistemology. Street (2011) for instance argues that, in light of the evolutionary development of our moral concepts, we should reject a mind-independent understanding of morality. Similar arguments have been made about religion. For a list of references, see Srinivasan (2019) and Vavova (2018). In this paper, I am only concerned with the specific genealogies that apply to CTs, that, for instance, they are the result of a manipulative plot. Thus, I sidestep the issue at the heart of that literature, namely, the danger of a global skeptical argument.

16. An example of which would be what Vavova (2018) calls ‘irrelevant influences’.

17. I borrow this point from Srinivasan (2015), which notes the so-called ‘generality problem’ for reliabilism regarding the formulation of the processes involved in belief formation. See Conee and Feldman (1998).

18. It is worth mentioning that this line of thought is in broad agreement with Levy (2007), who argues that because of the radically social nature of knowledge, we cannot but put our trust in appropriately constituted experts in our epistemic environment. Levy uses this thought to criticize the CT-believer for ‘cutting herself off from this environment’. However, it remains open for CTs to create more local information networks in which the CT-believer is fully embedded despite being isolated from the larger environment. In other words, Levy’s point about the radical sociality of knowledge is consistent with CT-believers being victims of what Nguyen (2020) has labeled ‘echo chambers’. I will return to this thought in Section 5.

19. In fn. 4 I mentioned a number of sympathetic sources. Koper (2024) is another that has similarly drawn attention to the social and political aspects of conspiracy theories. Koper argues that ‘rather than just taking the term as referring to a particular type of truth claim – one that posits the existence of a conspiracy – we should also see politics and rhetoric as necessary parts of the concept of conspiracy theory’ (2). While Koper takes inspiration from the tradition of critical theory going back to Adorno and others, my focus here is different in that I am specifically interested in the genealogy of conspiracy theories, the social and political context in which they are generated and spread. In addition, my hope is to say something positive about the fruits of sustained attention to the genealogy of CTs in the next section, which goes beyond Koper’s more modest ambitions.

20. See Napolitano (2021), who, drawing on an early suggestion by Keeley (1999), argues that for this reason, believing CTs is irrational. It should be obvious by now that I disagree with the latter claim. However, I will not have the space to argue for that claim here. See my (Shoaibi 2022) for further discussion on this issue.

21. See Nguyen (2018). Tippett (2023) offers an accessible version of Nguyen (2020), which also discusses the example in some detail.

22. See MacGillis (2018).

23. One might worry that since examples of this kind involve the creation of novel CTs by individuals that end up believing them, they pose a problem for my working definition of CTs provided in Section 3. For, recall that according to my working definition, CTs are theories about a conspiracy whose creators do not believe them. However, as I suggested in Section 2, while it’s true that the Uncle ends up believing his CT about a British plot to eliminate him, we are not forced to admit that the idea starts life as a belief. It seems most plausible to me to say that the original idea is a mere musing with a certain indifference to the truth, à la Frankfurt. However, the Uncle and his circle end up believing it through their echo chambered dynamic, which provides a robust justification for it.

24. See Burch and Walker (2021).

25. Harris (2023) has recently argued that a primary attraction of CTs is due to their ability to give the CT-believers a sense of epistemic autonomy. Harris’ idea is that many CT believers find themselves in situations in which they are alienated from different forms of knowledge production and thus find a recourse in trusting CT generators and their own experience and intuition. As I go on to explain, I do not deny that this kind of dynamic is often caused by certain epistemic shortcomings. However, the driving idea behind my discussion here is that this need not be so – that, in the case of Safe CTs, one may seek one’s epistemic autonomy exactly because one is, in fact, alienated from the sources of knowledge through mechanisms such as racism, colonialism, etc.

26. The idea that the epistemic environment of CT believers is of importance is emphasized by Levy (2007), who holds that knowledge is radically social in the sense that it is partly constituted by an agent’s social interactions with other in their environment. While Levy argues that the radical sociality of knowledge is a reason to defer to experts (in our largely healthy environment), Blake-Turner (2020) is an example of someone for whom the sociality of knowledge implies an increasing difficulty in acquiring knowledge and other epistemic goods, given our degraded epistemic environment due to the spread of fake news (and conspiracy theories).

27. On the morally unacceptable implications of CTs, see Cassam (2019, ch.4). See also Stokes (2018).

28. This kind of claim has been defended by, among others, Callard (2019).

29. Hirji (2022) labels this kind of anger ‘outrage anger’.

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Nader Shoaibi

Nader Shoaibi is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Gonzaga Univeristy. His research interests are in the foundations of epistemic normativity. You can find out more about his research and teaching at https://shoaibi.notion.site