Conspiracy, Truth, and the Emergence of a New Worldview
play podcast episode:
Building Bridges
There seems to be a trend in conspiracy thinking over the last several years. This has been particularly true in the context of COVID—theories about the pandemic being planned, or at least taken as a fortuitous occasion to tighten the grips of control. But the rise in conspiracies goes beyond COVID. There are conspiracies about our country’s horrific mass shootings, about the personal proclivities of our politicians and other infamous public figures (see: the baby eating scandal), and other actions of “the deep state.” Some “conspiracies” turned out to be true: several years ago, I largely dismissed my friend when he told me about some guy named Jeffrey Epstein (before anyone had heard of him) who abused young girls and affiliated with people like Bill Clinton. Some conspiracies may be outright realities. Yet others are fully hollow, or, worse, they contain seeds of truth. I say this latter piece is worse—that some conspiracies might contain seeds of truth—because if these narratives, and the theorists that hold them, do indeed contain elements of truth, it means that we might actually have to pay attention to them in some way; we might have to pay attention to the “wackos” on the other side—left or right—not so much as an exercise in believing them, blindly, but in the spirit of genuine inquiry and conversation and search for truth. This is the hard task—to find nuance with the other side, to collude in a mutual discovery. Our instinct is to reflexively push away whoever and whatever does not match out identity. This psychological immune response has furthered social and political divisions. But here’s the deal: the more we ignore and suppress “the other” side’s “crazy” beliefs, including what might appear as “conspiracies,” the larger the gap between us becomes. This then creates a larger vacuum to be filled by new conspiracies or, eventually, alternate realities. True, must create an alternate reality… but together. Both sides know that the stories and structures of the current system must be updated. But we must do this in collaboration, not in opposition. We must co-create new story that brings in wisdom from both sides. We must find truth together. And the only way to build truth in this environment is to build trust.
I think we’re entering into an alternate reality. I think the basic worldview we take for granted—one that is built on objectivism, reason, “fact,” science, and control—is beginning to crumble. And I’m not necessarily judging this as negative. In fact, I’ll come right out and say that I think that we need to shift into a worldview that is more holistic. We could use some intuition, not-knowing, and non-doing (divine feminine qualities) balanced with reason, knowing, and doing (divine masculine qualities). Without sounding too airy-fairy, I think our consciousness is on the precipice of shifting. The world will in turn reflect this in some way.
But first, before building new order, there must be dis-order. And that, I believe, is the function of conspiracies today: the conspiracies, whether right or wrong, whether they contain large or little merit, are functioning as a sort of bulldozer to the worldview that currently exists. They are trying to get us from “here” to “somewhere else.” They may not know where that “somewhere else” is or what it looks like; if conspiracies are being used as tools of destruction, the house we rebuild won’t be as ugly as the means used to get there. The question is what means we will use, and therefore how much destruction and suffering are necessary in the reconstruction of a new worldview.
We could perhaps eventually arrive at new order through complete chaos: a civil war of ideas, and beliefs, and values, and perceptions, creating so much dis-order that we are forced to build something new from scratch. Or, in a different scenario, we could work on narrowing the gap between opposing ideas, beliefs, values, and perceptions, skillfully stitching them together, keeping what works and discarding what doesn’t. This scenario would allow us to collaboratively build something new, as well, however with less destruction and suffering. As long as the gap between us continues to grow, so will the depth of conspiracies, and these conspiracies will function more as “bulldozers.” If we narrow those gap, we could reintegrate together. New order does not require complete destruction; a healthy path to growth and evolution involves death and re-birth, piece by piece, moment by moment, allowing something more beautiful to blossom at the speed of nature.
In this blog, I want to take a look at conspiracy theories and what I think is the emergence of a new worldview—one that goes beyond science but does not discard it (and in fact, one that uses science even more true to its form and intention. More on this later). My goal here is not to evaluate whether certain conspiracy theories are true or not—I’m not interested in letting myself go down the rabbit hole of trying to find out (either because I’m afraid of what I might find, or I’m afraid of losing touch with reality). Instead, my goal here is to understand why conspiracies are on the rise—what is the context that allows them to grow? What does this mean about the future of our worldview, and our world? How can we create a new reality that works better for everyone?
Conspiracies as Projections of the Collective Psyche
First, let me share some thoughts on conspiracy theories themselves as it pertains to the collective psyche. There are many conspiracy theories throughout history that have turned out to be objectively true. But even the ones throughout history, and today, that have no merit in objective reality, still contain echoes of something that is true in a sense—that is, true if we’re not looking at things from an outside perspective. Carl Jung, for example, entertained the perspective that UFOs were projections of the collective psyche—symbols that represented something important about the mythology of the time. He wrote that, “the psychological aspect is so impressive, that one almost must regret that the Ufos seem to be real after all.” This is how I tend to view conspiracies that seem to be miles away from reality: they are projections of some sort of collective story, or myth, onto the objective world.
Why would these projections occur? And why would there be an increase in projections of these types of stories right now? I would argue that when emotions and inner stories are not heard, they make their way into literal beliefs. So, is it possible that if we’re not seeing each other, and listening to each other, including the emotions and the mythological stories of what we’re experiencing on the inside, that these repressed contents of the psyche are being projected onto the stage that we call objective reality? We can now see the stories because now they exist in external form: they are being played out by the politicians, corporations, celebrities, and other characters on the world stage. When radical energies are repressed by the psyche and forced into physical form, they show up as radical stories.
Think about dreams, for example. I see dreams as stories that our mind tells us about the energies of the body. So, in this case, would be say that these “stories” of our mind not real? Do they not accurately represent the energies of the body? Dreams are poetic representations of what we cannot consciously comprehend. So, are they not real? Did they not happen? Did I not have that dream last night? If dreams are real, even though we can’t see them, are the energies and internal stories inhabiting the minds of conspiracy theories not also real? It depends how we define “real.” But here’s the important thing: if we don’t give these stories space to be witnessed and processed somewhere in individual or collective consciousness, they will be pushed out and projected onto objective reality. Somehow, we need to figure out how to give them space; we would allow benefit from being able to hear and see each other more.
When the Ends Meet
Conspiracy thinking and mistrust of authority is not just popping up on the Right. It is also popping up on the far Left, or what we would have previously considered the far Left (now, the political spectrum is being reshuffled). Many on the Left have developed a distrust of the government in the context of COVID. There is a particular crowd of people on the Left who are adamant about body autonomy, and in opposition to vaccines, and refer to COVID as the “plan-demic.” There is a growing mistrust of authority/government on the Left. A lot of these individuals are yoga teachers, reiki practitioners, and other healers—the Erewhon crowd (if you live in CA you know what I’m talking about. This is a grocery store that’s a step above Whole Foods). And in a way, I am one of these folks! I am all about alternative healing and expensive grocery stores. (I actually infiltrated one of these conspiracy-minded groups sort of on accident and was turned off by the level of loathing and distrust of people who were vaccine compliant, for example). This group of folks has been suitably (and quite hilariously : ) ) termed “Woo-Annon” (there has been some writing and reporting on this phenomenon, for example in the LA Times). Both Q and Woo are looking to puncture the dominant worldview. The edges of the Right and Left are beginning to resemble one another. The ends are joining hands. And when they do, the whole structure might snap.
Why are the fringes fraying from the structure of the middle? I think something new is trying to pop into mainstream consciousness. And one way to do this is to begin to unravel the existing narratives.
We have been dominated for the last few hundred years by scientism, objectivism, reason. The truth only exists “out there.” This seems to be hanging in question now. People on the Right, famously, have gravitated towards “alternative facts.” On the other hand, the Left is about facts. These are the facts! You don’t care about the facts? Why can’t you see the facts? The Right says, no… we don’t care about the facts. We know (although some don’t know) that the election wasn’t stolen… but in our minds it was stolen! It feels like it was stolen! Doesn’t that count?! What about that reality?!
Most people would take egregious offense to this. How could you not care about reality? How could you not care about facts? What do we have if we don’t have facts?
I agree—we have complete chaos if we cannot agree on what is real, what is true. We must continue to value and prize reason and science and objective reality. This isn’t argument for disposing of the objective.
The problem here is that we’re unable to create and co-habitate in a reality that takes into consideration multiple viewpoints. If there is no space to hear the “other side”—to acknowledge the emotions or grains of truth within their perspectives—what else is there for the “other side” to do but to throw a complete temper tantrum and wish to trash the whole system? It’s like a child whose emotions aren’t heard or validated by an authoritarian parent. That’s the way you want to do this?! Fine! I am going throw a fit and turn this house upside down! I’m going to rebel! Maybe you will listen to me when you have to clean this mess up!
On one side, we’re too attached to “reality” as the way we think it is. The reality is that the covid vaccines work. That’s the science, everyone. That’s reality. But the truth is that we can create different realities (and this often happens in science. We produce results that confirm our a priori beliefs). If we don’t hold space for other possibilities of reality to emerge as a collective, then some faction of the collective is going to break off in order to hold space for other possibilities to emerge. When these possibilities are repressed, then we see people upset and angry, wanting to tear down the structures of the existing realities. This happened with COVID: we claim to want to be “scientific” and “follow the science,” but what we are following is a certain worldview of “reality” is as we believe it to be. So, in service of “reality” and “truth,” we are actually neglecting the ability to see what is right in front of us—some deeper truth that we could discover, or re-discover, together (this process of re-discovery must happen over and over again, so that we don’t become too rigid in our thinking and actions).
Duality
The truth is a collaborative process. Neither side has a monopoly on the truth. That is why it’s so important to listen to the other side. We have to trust that they have some wisdom that we cannot see; we each hold mirrors to each other’s blind spots.
If we can’t do this—if we can’t negotiate and collaborate on truth—then one side, in their frustration and angst, will want to destroy “truth” as it appears today. They will want to bulldoze the existing worldview. This is in service of finding some deeper truth, I believe. Ultimately, it’s not about making “one side’s” worldview the new ultimate reality. Even in this bulldozer approach, it’s about tearing down so that we can co-create something new together.
But we have a choice. We have to decide how we’re going to get to something new. Are we going to continue widening separation and polarization, leading to a violent clashing of worldviews? This is surely one way to re-build, but would be the more chaotic path. Or, is it possible to thread the needle and restitch a new a reality together? This would require listening one another, making space for what we don’t like and understand.
We live in a dualistic world. There is always going to be opposing ideas—that’s the nature of our world. Our task is to continue to listen to them and collaboratively find truth. When we ignore dualism—when we attach to our ideas and identities and think that only my side is right—we see growing polarization. Polarization is a symptom. It is a symptom causing suffering. By causing suffering, the symptom is trying to get us to see our shared humanity—to see the dualism that we are all a part of. The symptom is trying to wake us up. When we don’t listen, the symptom must become more extreme. It challenges us even further to see the common humanity in the other. That’s what conspiracy theories are doing. They are pushing us to a point where we have to decide: are we going to completely break into chaos, or, because of the suffering this is creating, can we have the courage to trust one another, and therefore grow in our love for one another? The new worldview is perhaps about this. It is a story of love, trust, and recognition of our interconnectedness.