Have you ever found yourself nodding along to someone sharing their beliefs, all the while thinking, "There's no way they actually believe that"? In a new paper, Neil Levy makes the case that people don’t always believe what they say they believe, at least not really. Sometimes we endorse beliefs to signal our moral purity, allegiances, and out-group rivalries. Other times, we play along with absurdities simply because they are fun to believe in. This is especially true with conspiracy theories, which is the topic of Levy’s paper.
How can we tell if people believe what they say they believe? This is a challenging question, but previous evidence has shown that people will readily jettison their beliefs once incentives are introduced. Other work has demonstrated that those who claim to be sincere in their beliefs lack the audacity to act on them. This suggests that we can sometimes overestimate the sincerity of our own beliefs.
With that said, some hold astoundingly incredible beliefs with absolute devotion. As Levy notes, these people pass both of the above tests of sincerity: they aren’t influenced by incentives, nor are they hesitant to act on their beliefs.
Take the case of the 2021 insurrectionists as an example. They dressed up in animal skins, horned hats, carnival masks, and face paint while storming the capitol to simulate fighting against an evil leviathan, namely the US government. I use the word, “simulate” because most of the protesters showed a cringe-worthy lack of direction, walking around the capitol building as if they were asking themselves, “What now?” None of the insurrectionists seemed to have the intention of actually overthrowing a supposedly corrupt government. Rather, they were engaged in a form of serious play, suspending disbelief in Trump’s election fraud claims to fully immerse themselves in an imaginative game.
Conspiracy theories are particularly suited to construct make-believe worlds, especially due to their potential for dramatization. They provide gripping plots because they pit the underdog against powerful forces, making the struggles and triumphs all the more rewarding. Moreover, conspiracy narratives can be intellectually stimulating. While weaving together seemingly unrelated facts, conspiracy theorists get to feel like they are Sherlock Holmes solving a complex puzzle.
The allure of conspiracy theories lies in the idea that underneath our superficial and mundane reality is an enchanting truth veiled by a carefully constructed facade, adding a touch of magic and mystery to ordinary experience.
QAnon is another prototypical example of conspiracy theories as a source of play. The gamemaster, Q, posts cryptic codes and ciphers on social media, which resemble props in a game. As the author points out, “There’s no reason why Q should not say what they mean plainly, except to provide followers with a puzzle to solve together.” Take an example used in the paper:
“…when a minor actor who had claimed that Hollywood stars were engaged in pedophilia was found dead, QAnon supporters maintained he’d been murdered by Tom Hanks, one of the actors he’d accused. The evidence: Hanks had tweeted about roadkill. And the clincher was that the tweet had been posted 42 days before the actor had died at the age of 42.”
Incredibility isn’t a bug for conspiracy beliefs, but a feature. It can be satisfying to find ingenious ways to continue supporting conspiracy narratives, or even to invent new ones. The truth is often less stimulating, so serious play favors sensational, dramatic, improbable, and often false explanations.
Similarly, it takes work to understand the world accurately. We have to consider evidence, estimate probabilities, weigh outcomes, and so on. The truth often has little to offer as a means of entertainment, and falsehoods are often created to compensate for this. This is part of the reason that maintaining unfounded beliefs as a source of serious play imposes an ‘epistemic trap’: we often have no reason to go back to the truth once we’ve adopted the falsehood.
The integrity of unfounded beliefs is shielded from reality by their often built-in unfalsifiability. Why can’t we prove to flat-earthers that the earth is round? Because every bit of evidence we have to offer is dismissed as doctored and therefore part of the conspiracy. Even if we launched a flat-earther out into space to see for themselves, they could always simply claim that what they are experiencing is an elaborate simulation. Conspiracy theories cannot be extinguished because they cannot be proven false, and they are often crafted this way so that the players can keep playing.
Further, the reinforcement we receive from such beliefs can make epistemic traps inescapable. Most of us have the outside world to keep our beliefs in check. But the further we lean into fiction, and the more positive the feedback from our communities, the more likely we are to blur the lines between play with reality.
As should now be evident, serious play can pose costly risks. But it doesn’t always. Intellectual playfulness can even be beneficial, which is likely one of the reasons it has stuck around. Just as aggressive play allows individuals across the animal kingdom to simulate the act of fighting, intellectual play allows us to try new ideas for size. For ideas that seem preposterous on their face, it pays to temporarily accept them as true and consider their implications, or whether accurate predictions can be made from them.
While playful engagement has its merits, it can also be a slippery slope, trapping us in an imaginative game. The world of conspiracy theories and intellectual playfulness can be captivating and enjoyable, but it's essential to be mindful of the potential dangers and pitfalls that lie beneath the surface. As Levy aptly stated in the paper, “Play, but mind the quicksand!”
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Interesting set of references. I did not know the Neil Levy one. Another explanation for conspiracy theories that I found credible in Mercier's last book is the signalling of allegiance to the ingroup from the reputational costs with outgroup members.