From 9/11 to the
Paris attacks, from Ebola to Isis, every major global accident attracts a
corresponding counter-narrative from the ‘truthers’, some so all-encompassing
that they take over people’s lives. Are our brains wired to believe, as a new
book argues? And could such thinking actually be beneficial?
There is not so
much of a difference between conspiracy theorists and the rest of us. We are
drawn to the idea of conspiracy because it resonates with us; we understand the
idea of people being self-interested and not having our best interests at
heart, and having hidden motives and getting together to do shady stuff. Conspiracy
theories extend upon that and tap into these assumptions and fears we have
about the world. But, we all have them, that’s why conspiracy theories make
sense to us all.
Why do so many
people believe in them?
Even the most
rational people buy into conspiracy theories as a way of reacting to
uncertainty and powerlessness in the modern world, there is a quote: "Believers
are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in
particular''
US psychologist
Rob Brotherton, the author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy
Theories, says many as 90 per cent of people acknowledge entertaining one
conspiracy theory or another. "Given a handful of dots, our
pattern-seeking brains can't resist trying to connect them," he says.
But Brotherton
also suggests we shouldn't be so quick to reject even the stranger notions.
"Dismissing all conspiracy theories (and theorists) as crazy is just as
intellectually lazy as credulously accepting every wild allegation," he
writes in the Los Angeles Times.
"If you had
claimed, in the early 1970s, that a hotel burglary was, in fact, a plot by
White House officials to illegally spy on political rivals and ensure President
Nixon's re-election, you might have been accused of conspiracy
theorising," he says.
We live inside
this kind of illusion that our brains concoct for us that we are seeing the
world objectively and that we are coming to our beliefs because they are just
the most sensible beliefs to have, but all the research shows we have a whole
host of biases built into our brains that shape and colour our perception and
beliefs about the world constantly without us being aware of it.
