Q-Anon, Conspiracies, Beliefs and the Perpetually Circular Nature of Self-Validating Arguments

About a month back — between the US Presidential Election and the formal swearing in of Joe Biden — I found myself temporarily poking around in the very strange and surreal rabbit hole known as Q-Anon, and ended up feeling not particularly wiser as a result of doing so.

What does this black bird on the deck MEAN?

After shelving the entire idea for a couple of weeks to get over a sudden rash of "dead people" in our immediate life, I returned to a place of feeling more inclined to examine the question of what makes human beings "rational," (or not) and whether or not "rationality" is necessarily a helpful attribute to strive for.

What's the Psychology?

Whenever things mystify me, I tend to go digging around for the psychological impetus that gives rise to them. The human mind is an amazing and complex place!

We humans believe all sorts of things, sometimes to our benefit, and sometimes to our detriment.

If you believe that God will protect you from getting Covid-19 and thus you don't need to wear a mask or limit your exposure to others, it probably won't keep you from dying so that's not so good, but if you choose to not commit suicide or murder people because you believe there is a God, that is potentially good.

Not the greatest example, perhaps, but hopefully you get the general drift.

I don't know if I am actually a "rational" human being... but I have always struggled with accepting assertions that "Because A, therefore B" when there's no tangible connective tissue between A and B.

Apophenia

Back when I was taking psychology courses in college (even though I was not a psychology major, I was a business major) one of the more fascinating concepts I still remember is that of Apophenia.

Short explanation: It's refers to the human tendency to seek out patterns in our environment and ascribe meaning to them, even when there is none.

Nobody's exempt!

Does the red door mean a devil worshipper lives here?

For much of my life — from my teens to well into my 40's — I believed I was "cursed" because pretty much every job, opportunity and investment I got involved in would come crashing down within weeks to months of my getting involved, always for reasons that had nothing to do with me.

In truth, just like some people always seem to be in the RIGHT place, at the RIGHT time, some people fall at the opposite end of that scale and I had a history of being in the WRONG place, at the WRONG time. No curse. No magic. No conspiracy. Just statistical probability, like rolling double-sixes eight times in a row.

But we tend to personalize things in ways that support our beliefs in how existence works.

When I was a kid, I'd see "Green Men" in the woods and fully believe that these strange plays of leaves and light to form faces and figures were real beings.

Self-Validating Evidence

Anyway, the "circular arguments" the title of this post alludes to the condition that arises when supporters of a particular perspective, viewpoint or belief argue that the fact that they have no evidence for their claims actually IS the "evidence" that the condition they support exists. Which amounts to your basic "Fastest Gun in the West" approach that makes a position both "unprovable" AND "indisputable" at the same time.

"But there's no EVIDENCE for that!"

That's because "they" have removed the evidence, thereby proving we are right and "they" are out to get us.

It's one of those things that get deliberately AND irrationally used all the time to "prove" points that "aren't actually points, at all."

Most often, we see these misappropriations of reality mistranslated into "tangible facts" following changes of political figureheads. For example a new President is elected, and positive/negative economic news is attributed to him even though he has only been in office for a month and none of his policies have effectively had any impact on the situation yet. And yet, a horde of people show up and INSIST that "unemployment is at a new 10 year low" because of the new statesman.

Opinions are not Facts

Along the way, one of the things I have noticed is that many "strongly held OPINIONS" get to be what they are not necessarily because they represent facts, but because they are the result of lazy thinking and and a lack of rigorous inquiry, along with an unwillingness to consider and come to terms with a reality that causes a great deal of cognitive dissonance and inner discomfort.

But above and beyond that, these things — from God to Q-Anon — offer people a "life raft" of purpose and meaning when it feels like everything around us is descending into chaos.

If there's one thing I have learned in my 60-odd years of walking around on this ball of rock, it is that 99% (possibly more?) of the human population is massively uncomfortable with the idea of simply not knowing. We hate and sometimes fear uncertainty. So we often reach for ways to attribute "certainty" to things uncertain, as a means to being able to sleep better at night.

In the course of my little trip down the Q-Anon rabbit hole, perhaps the most compelling piece of information was offered in an essay by game designer Reed Berkowitz who posited that Q-Anon exists as a sort of "Guided LARP" that leaves followers trails of "clues" that allow them to make apophenic conclusions as the primary means of perpetuation. It's a very long piece, but worth a read.

Both my wife and I know and occasionally work with therapists who specialize in cult-deprogramming, and it's both sad and remarkable just how many cult-ish organizations exist on this planet... and it's also sad how many people willingly reach for them, as a pathway to finding some kind of meaning in their lives.

As someone once remarked:

"CULT-ure is merely the CULT of majority opinion."

"The Truth is Out There," is the popular line from the show "The X-Files." There's a lot of truth out there, but it may not be the truth we're looking for, nor the truth we want to be the truth. What does seem to be fairly evident is that there are a lot of greedy, corrupt and twisted people on this planet... Meanwhile, does the fact that some of them are in Hollywood and eat baby's brains affect your 401-K? Probably not. But they are still awful people...

Meanwhile, as a representation of where I stand, I don't necessarily believe in God, but I'm perfectly content to believe in the possibility that God exists. Mostly, I'm OK with not knowing!

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

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