The helpless and their power-ups
Why do people believe what they do? Why are conspiracy theories so attractive?
Slate’s John Ehrenreich examines the persistence of the Wuhan lab leak theory behind the emergence of COVID-19. Yes, “Running Man” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)* is one of the first to suggest it. But in the end, why did the story take off on the right when most scientists find the disease’s animal origin more plausible?
For one, Ehrenreich suggests, the lab leak theory plays into the right-wing distrust of “experts” and elites. Plus:
People also generally prefer simple, straightforward stories that give them a sense of control over complex ones filled with ambiguity and complexity that foster a sense of helplessness. The lab-leak story is simple. Short version: Someone in a lab in China doing research on deadly viruses screwed up. The actions to take are clear: Blame China. Demand reparations. Tighten up regulation of laboratories doing research on disease-causing microbes. Bar gain-of-function research that alters viruses to make them more deadly.
The animal-origin story is much more complex: What animals are natural reservoirs for the virus? Why didn’t those animals die before passing the disease on to us? What other kinds of animals did they transmit it to? How did the animal disease evolve to become deadly to humans? How did people come into contact with sick animals? Why are diseases that start in animals occurring more often and spreading more rapidly than in the past? If the disease were already in animals, why didn’t people catch it sooner? Why are there reports of people who may have been ill with what was later called COVID-19, several months before the pandemic emerged? Why haven’t we found animals in the Wuhan wet market with the virus? And so forth.
The answers to these questions are not simple. They lie in the complex interactions among climate change, deforestation, the growing trade in wildlife and wildlife products, factory farming, urbanization and the expansion of slums worldwide, and globalization. At best, the actions needed to address these are complex, prolonged, expensive, and disruptive to existing social and economic institutions and processes. At worst, we are left feeling helpless.
Finally, we seek explanations of events that are consistent with what we already believe about other things and with what our family, friends, and neighbors believe. Political convictions and allegiances can also bias information processing and what we believe. Conservatives are likely to agree with Republican politicians who have strongly argued for the lab-leak hypothesis and for hostility to “experts,” while liberals are likely to agree with Democratic politicians, who are more likely to be concerned with issues such as global warming, loss of biodiversity, and the ethics of factory farming.
People who feel helpless and beaten down by life seek a power-up. Conspiracy theories fill the bill:
Posessing secret “truths” gives conspiracy theorists a false sense of power in a world beyond their control. When life feels as if you have awakened locked in the trunk of a car careening down a rutted mountain road, you want to believe – you need to believe – that someone, anyone, is sitting behind the wheel. Even a diabolical someone is better than no one at all.
Because identifying the baddies provides a sense that they can be taken down and the world set right by the righteous. Often, however, the baddies are innocents, scapegoats.
Many conspiracy theories are relatively hamless. The moon landings were faked, etc. The Satanic panic of the 1980s was not; people’s lives were ruined. The QAnon cult fed the paranoia undergirding the Jan. 6 insurrection. The proliferation of conspiracy theories over time, however, erodes reality in a political system designed to be maintained and run by an educated populace.
Ehrenreich concludes:
Whatever the conscious intentions of the proponents of a lab leak as the source of COVID-19, their arguments and their insistence on playing and replaying the debate have become dangerous. They shift responsibility for the U.S.’ disastrous handling of the pandemic away from the failures of our political system, our politicians, and our health and public health systems and to a geopolitical rival. They are a partisan political cudgel, diverting attention from the real sources of danger of future pandemics and delaying action on what could be an existential threat to humans.
The problem these days is that humans are an existential threat to humans.
* Whoops. The running man is Josh Hawley. I get the two confused. (h/t CC)