All Embracing (But Underwhelming)

Whose Side Is It Anyway?

Last week Josh and I talked about the Dreyfus Affair on The Podcaster’s Guide to the Conspiracy, and we asked “Would we have been pro or anti Dreyfus at the time” A day earlier I had been talking with Martin Butler about the North Head tunnels conspiracy theory, and expressing some of my reasonable (I would like to think) concerns with Martin’s most recent evidence for the existence of a conspiracy.

All of which has got me thinking. It’s very easy – after the fact – to say “I would have believed there was nefarious goings on up in that there castle!” when you look back upon some adventure. Hindsight is wonderful, after all. “Of course,” we all like to think, “I would have been appropriately sceptical about the utterances of some government authority, and I surely would have seen the inconsistency of the case for what it was: a cover-up!” However, I don’t think it’s at all obvious that during the course of an adventure that would be the case. For example, I know plenty of people who thought the October Raids of 2007 were likely justified at the time despite their scepticism now, and there are still political commentators who – to this day – maintain that “Dirty Politics” was no big thing.

The North Head case is particularly vexing for me. I’ve modified my views on the idea something fishy might be going on up/under there over the years; whilst I don’t know that there is an overt cover-up going on, I think there might be something suspicious happening with regards to the powers-that-be not telling us the full story of North Head. ((I.e. It’s quite possible the Army and Navy are not telling the full story of what exactly they know about North Head, but that does not necessarily mean they are hiding Boeing Seaplanes or missing ammunition; they might just be keeping information back because they have decided it’s not that important.)) I like to think I’m changing my views according to the balance of probabilities, based upon new evidence or interpretations of that evidence as it comes to hand. But, it’s quite possible that my views are not tracking the new evidence but, rather, lagging behind it. Indeed, I might well be expressing less scepticism than I should be because I feel some attachment to the views I originally formed, or because changing my views requires me to change my opinions of some of the people involved in covering up or uncovering the real story of North Head and those pesky tunnels.

I guess the fact I’m aware of this possibility is good; it means I’m thinking about my views and testing them from all sides. I, for example, changed a lot of my views on the New Zealand Police in the wake of the October Raids, and I think my new views track the historical evidence much more accurately than my old ones. Then again, I also likely thought that “Dirty Politics” was a really big story simply because of my existing views of Cameron Slater and the National Party. My views on North Head are predicated on growing up in Devonport, and being aware of just how much scepticism was expressed by long term residents throughout the 80s and 90s to the claim that there were hidden tunnels under the mountain. Knowing not just my priors but also what informed them makes it easier to understand what evidence I would require to change their values. Yet I worry that even given that information, it’s possible I would explain it all away. After all, that is a symptom of being a philosopher: I have been trained to look at a problem from multiple angles, and playing Devil’s Advocate is second nature to me.

Which is to say that I am aware of a potential problem for my views, yet not aware whether it is an actual problem. Or maybe I am aware it’s an actual problem, but I do not want to admit to it. I keep thinking this is good, because it means I am testing my views. However, I just don’t know whether it is good enough, because the fact I am testing my views does not necessarily mean I still won’t regress back to views which are comforting rather than confronting.

Meanwhile, somewhere a conspiracy rumbles on.

12/07/2015

Episode 78 – The Richard Dreyfuss Affair

In which our heroes travel again to France and encounter an affair not about actor Richard Dreyfuss….

There is also some bonus content over at Podbean you might like to listen to.

12/06/2015

The Accepted Wisdoms

"The appeal to traditional wisdom is always fallacious", a friend of mine frequently remarks. She is right; if all your support for some view boils down to "Well, that's just what my predecessors believed", then you haven't got much of an argument. Traditions are all fine and good, as long as you can explain why keeping to them now is a good idea. Defending traditions just because they are traditional tells us nothing about their import to the now.

This is no introduction to some piece where I take to task a cultural practice, or claim that my family of views is better than some other family of views. Rather, this is a piece about how the appeal to the accepted wisdom – which is the same thing as "traditional wisdom", but is more likely to be taken to be respectable in academic circles – adversely effects the kind of work I do.

Because it does, and I'd like that to stop, please.

As long term readers of this blog should know by now, I write on and about conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists and – probably most importantly – conspiracy theory theories and conspiracy theory theorists. I've read enough on the subject to write a respectable academic book on the topic. I know the literature well (almost too well, really), and so I'm very much aware of just how weird it and all over the place it is. Despite sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers (among many others) all sharing a similar interest in the topic, very few specialists seem to read outside their discipline, and when they do, the results are mixed. I've seen, for example, psychologists give one line summaries of a philosopher's work which gets their contribution back-to-front. ((I've also seen philosophers summarise the work of others in a paragraph to disastrous ends, but that's another matter for another time.)) However, that is not the biggest problem. No, the elephant in the room us the surfeit of accepted wisdoms in the literature.

I am going to pick on the work of a multitude of nameless social psychologists, mostly because I've just co-written a paper on some recurrent issues in that literature. There have, of recent note, been a raft of papers by social psychologists, charging conspiracy theorists with a slate of psychological and epistemic vices. Belief in conspiracy theories is, variously, the result of magical thinking, is quasi-religious in nature, likely the product of the conjunction fallacy, et cetera et cetera. Some of these ideas are quite interesting, but many of them are have been hashed out before and found wanting. Yet they continue to see play in the literature, mostly because, I charge, some famous person posited them. They are accepted wisdoms, and many of them are unexamined.

Take, for example, the quasi-religious angle. Karl Popper suggested that belief in the conspiracy theory of society was analogous to theistic belief. It is an idea which crops up in the literature every decade or so, with each new proponent of the idea seemingly ignorant of their forebears' criticism. Yet critiques aplenty there have been, most of which show that the analogy falls apart at some crucial stage (for example, it is not clear that the way in which actual conspiracy theorists describe their beliefs really resembles religious belief at all, and even if some such theorists believe that way, this tells us little about belief in conspiracy theories generally). So, why does the idea persist in the face of such criticism? Are people just not reading widely enough to detect the various critiques, or is the problem more one of ancestry and hereditariness?

I'm going to downplay the former, even though I happen to know – from talking to people at the conference back in March – that there is more need for interdisciplinary work here, and hypothesise about the latter: I think there are certain old views which, despite being the target of sustained critiques, refuse to die because they are the accepted wisdom of the field.

Take Karl Popper. His work on the conspiracy theory of society is important because it a) is relatively early work in the field and b) it sets out an important critique of belief in conspiracy theories. Popper's work is interesting now, I would argue, precisely because it is wrong-headed; Popper associates belief in conspiracy theories generally with the faults of a few conspiracy theorists, and then declares "Case closed!" Other academics have taken Popper's work on conspiracy theories to task (again and again), yet Popper's general view continues to echo throughout the wider literature. Why? Well, because in part it's become part of the accepted wisdom; qua Popper we all start out thinking that belief in conspiracy theories is problematic, and thus is a problem in search of a cure. This is held as a central intuition to much of the subsequent work, despite critiques which show that said intuition is itself a problem.

"Ah," you might be thinking, "but if that's the intuition, then maybe the fact it persists despite arguments to the contrary, there is something to it the various critiques don't adequately refute." That's a perfectly good response; sometimes our intuitions are good guides as long as we can argue for them, and sometimes our intuitions are just lousy. One way in which they can be lousy is if the intuition is itself the product of an appeal to accepted wisdom. i.e. Is the widespread belief that conspiracy theories are bunk predicated on such theories being bunk (which causes the intuition) or is the belief that conspiracy theories are bunk the product of us being continually told by alleged experts that such theories are bunk (which would also lead to people thinking this is a commonly-held intuition)? I have an intuition (yes, really) that it's the latter; we are constantly told "But conspiracy theories are stupid!" and this leads to us thinking "Sure, I can buy that!" Given the critiques, it looks as if it's very plausible that it's appeals to the accepted wisdom all the way down.

This thesis of mine – that's there's a lot of appeals to accepted wisdom going on here – also makes sense of the fact that in cases where people do seem to have read widely, they do not appear to take on board critiques of the accepted wisdom. If we are constantly being told conspiracy theories are bad, dangerous and the like, then we are likely to read the literature with that in mind and pick out the few data points in articles that confirm that view, even if the articles themselves go against the common wisdom. Certainly, it makes sense of a lot of the literature I have immersed myself in

It also suggests that a major problem with talk of conspiracy theories is, in fact, the conspiracy theory theorists. They are (and as I'm not naming names here, I'm not attributing blame) – according to this argument – just as likely to believe conspiracy theories are bad due to the accepted wisdom as they are to believe they are bad because their arguments show that they are. You could say it's a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theory theorists, but it's more a Chomskian analysis; it's a product of the institutions that produce conspiracy theory theorists more than a desire on the part of such theorists to skew the debate. As to how we solve this problem; well, that I don't know. Better ask a social psychologist…

11/30/2015

Episode 77 – Bertrand Russell: JFK Conspiracy Theorist

In which D. B. Cooper wants to be called “Dan”, and Rustling Bertie questions old Mr. Warren…

11/29/2015

Flags flags flags!

It's flag referendum time (part one of two), and a number of conspiracy theories around the process are still making the rounds. I've already covered the quasi-legal unwarranted conspiracy theory that is DUE AUTHORITY, but a number of freshly minted constitutional scholars have arrived on the scene, with theories conspiratorial. Let's take a gander.

Note: If you want actual legal advice about the referendum, what you can and can't do, and what spoiling your cote means, read Graeme Edgler's post over at Public Address. He knows what he is talking about.

Couldn’t the government decide to change the flag anyway?

They sure could. They could decide to change the flag to a literal cocker spaniel called “Derrida”, and sent Derrida on trips overseas when the flag needs to be flown. Frankly, the government could do a lot of things, and changing the flag is probably the least of our worries (unless you’re concerned about Derrida).

The worry that the new flag design has been secretly finalised (some have even suggested the new flag is already being mass produced), and the vote is either a farce, or the Government will ignore the result and change the flag in a few years, suggests some conspiracy by the National Government to get its desired result (i.e. John Key's wish to have a new flag with a Silver Fern on it). Now, John Key's love of the Silver Fern and his constant push to get New Zealanders to recognise the symbol of the All Blacks (and other teams) is really our national symbol is certainly embarrassing. The Flag Consideration Panel really did not seem to do much of a job when it came to selecting flag options. It's all rather obvious there is an agenda in place to push a particular idea of a flag on the public. However, is this a conspiracy, or just a really obvious PR move by interested parties? It does not seem particularly covert or secretive.

So, might we get a new flag hoist upon us no matter the referendum result? We might; governments govern and thus can do that kind of thing. Will the government (or whoever happens to be pulling the strings) pervert the vote? That's a more interesting question. If they are, they'll need to be careful and ensure the results of the referendum match the various public polls which have been taken, which at the moment do not show any real push to change flags next March. Then again, any powerful government worth their salt could surely influence the polls. The question is, do you think we have that kind of government? Recent history seems to indicate they are more a slipshod set of operators merely reacting to recent polling than they are master manipulators.

Why is the referendum in two parts? Isn’t that suspicious? Aren’t they forcing us to make the decision they want?

No. The reason why the referendum is split in two parts is to allow us to decide on a new flag design independently of the vote as to whether we want to change flags.

Okay, but surely we should ask whether we want a new flag first?

No. Indeed, a thousand times “No!” Asking “Do you want a new flag?” before deciding on a new flag design would be both pointless and probably would generate good grounds for a conspiracy theory.

Imagine if the public were overwhelmingly in favour of a new flag, and the first referendum asked “Do you to replace the current flag?” The public votes “Yes”, because that’s what they want. The government reveals the four or five options, of which two are variants of the swastika, one a picture of a penis, another of John Key’s head, and the last option version of the U.S. flag with one extra star. How would you feel then? The country has said it wants to replace the old flag, but all of the new flags are offensive in some way, shape or form. ((The head of John Key wins by a landslide, and thus it becomes the new flag of the nation. True fact.)) People would start coming up with conspiracy theories galore, suggesting that the rigged process was all a plot by the National Party to, say, make John Key perpetual dictator of the country. Frankly, if I lived in that world, I'd certainly suggest that.

This is the reason why the referendum is playing out as “Which flag?”, followed by “This one for sure?”. It means that people know what they are voting for or against when it comes to deciding on a new flag to somehow represent this nation.

Okay, but what about them barcodes?

Some people have noted that the tearaway slip/actual ballot paper has a barcode on it which is the same as that associated with their address on the voting instructions paper. This, they claim, show that the referendum is not anonymous, and thus the government is likely tracking their data/harvesting their information/working out who voted for what/et cetera. It all suggests something very shady.

Except it doesn't. The two barcodes, which are unique per paper (I believe) are part of the complex system in place to ensure voter fraud does not occur. I.e. One person; one vote! You can't just generate a whole bunch of ballot papers to skew the vote, because each paper is linked to an enrolled voter. This is the same system that we use in the General Election, and its part of the design of our rather secure democratic process. Yes; if someone gets hold of your ballot slip and the piece of paper with your address on it, they would be able to see which flag you voted for. And yes, the Electoral Commission could find out what flag you voted for in the case of a recount or a spot check. However, this is unlikely to occur, and the ballot papers themselves, once counted, will be locked away for six months and then destroyed (I believe).

This is all perfectly normal; the people counting the votes/feeding the results into a computer will not see your address. The results will not be presented as "X voted for Y". The only time the barcodes will likely be checked against voter registration records will be if fraud is suspected. Just like in a General Election.

Isn’t the referendum just a waste of money?

Everything in a capitalist democracy costs money. Postal referenda in particular are expensive.

Yeah, but couldn’t this money have been used elsewhere? Like for [Insert cause]?

Yep. However, changing the flag was always going to cost money. But imagine how expensive the process of becoming a republic could be? Do we give up on causes just because they might cost a bit of money?

The obvious conspiratorial claim here is that the referendum is a distraction from some other issue, with the money spent on the referendum a convenient way to point out the hypocrisy of the current government. After all, they could be looking after X instead.

They could. Then again, the everyday process of democracy under capitalism is a tension between spending money on X or Y. Every Budget we get, we analyse the government's spending priorities and say "But why fund X over Y?" But typically that's not the result of an explicit conspiracy; it's rather a difference in priorities between different groups of people. People like the Prime Minister really want a new flag (but are a bit cold on the idea of becoming a Republic), and so – in their reckoning – an important national conversation should take into account the national symbol of the country, the flag. Maybe we could subscribe that prioritisation to the PM being under the thumb of Big Flag or business interests who will benefit from costly rebranding exercises. Then again, we could just admit that the PM has some very weird priorities, and his position in Cabinet gives him the leverage to pursue those priorities.

Seriously, though, what about [Insert cause]?

Look, if we’re going to play “But what about x?”, then it’s never going to be the right time to have any kind of talk about our national identity, because any public consultation will cost time and money. Sure, said money would have benefitted a number of worthy causes, but Aotearoa/New Zealand is very gradually making moves towards full independence, and the time and effort spent on those moves can always be countered by “But what about x?” Just think: when we have a national discussion about the future Republic of Aotearoa/New Zealand, some people (let’s imagine they are on the Right) will complain about the money being used to consult Māori on how to establish a bicultural republic based upon the principles derived from the Treaty of Waitangi. These people will likely say “But what about x?” to justify claiming the money could have been spent elsewhere/on nobler things.

Bottom line: we live in a capitalist society, and democracy is expensive. That's not a conspiracy; that's just how it is.