{"id":20388,"date":"2020-12-17T09:01:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T17:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20388"},"modified":"2020-12-18T09:23:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T17:23:20","slug":"the-examined-life-conspiracies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/12\/17\/the-examined-life-conspiracies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Examined Life<\/em>: Conspiracies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Klaus Conrad, a psychiatrist, coined the term \u201capophenia\u201d in 1958. It means to perceive pattern or meaning where there is none. He theorized that it was a natural human tendency to make these connections. Usually this term refers to patterns in everyday things like images or numbers. But I also think it plays a role in how conspiracy theories get started.<\/p>\n

Conspiracy theories often arise when the truth of the matter is harder to accept than a lie. Take 9\/11, for example\u2014it was easier for some people to believe that the attack was an inside job than it was to believe terrorists could have penetrated US security.<\/p>\n

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The Examined Life<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (photo by Ethan Badr\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Or look at the growing conspiracies around COVID-19. There are people who think China invented the virus.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, a seed of truth in both fabrications. President Bush certainly didn\u2019t \u201cdo 9\/11,\u201d but it has been well documented that he did take full advantage of the tragedy to further his political agenda and move US forces into Iraq. Likewise, China has gained an economic advantage on the global stage by bouncing back from the pandemic so quickly. But that doesn\u2019t mean that these crises were planned. It just means that both the US and China subscribe to Winston Churchill\u2019s philosophy of \u201cNever let a good crisis go to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even those of us who can recognize this fallacious thinking and nip it in the bud can understand the appeal. They are the kind of stories people just want to believe. Perhaps because they follow the natural pattern our brains want to take. Like water taking the path of least resistance. Anyone who has watched and enjoyed The X-Files understands the appeal of a good conspiracy theory. Something about it makes you want to believe.<\/p>\n

The problem, of course, is that it obscures the truth. This is especially dangerous in our current situation, while the virus is still affecting our lives in a very real way. A vaccine is on its way, but how many will be willing to take it? There are real concerns about the safety of new vaccines, but if the anti-vax movement is spreading misinformation, that truth will only fan their flame.<\/p>\n

We need to be very careful about how we proceed now. We must cut past wishful thinking, avoid fear-mongering, and aim for the truth, while still allowing everyone to have a voice and speak freely. It\u2019s an extremely difficult line to walk, and yet walk it we must.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Klaus Conrad, a psychiatrist, coined the term \u201capophenia\u201d in 1958. It means to perceive pattern or meaning where there is none. He theorized that it was a natural human tendency to make these connections. Usually this term refers to patterns in everyday things like images or numbers. But I also think it plays a role […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20389,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20388\/revisions\/20389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}