Corrected By Reality

Conspiracists often whine that they are compared or associated with Antisemitic elements within the movement. The problem is that this issue is inherent in the “us” and “them” attitude that conspiracists often espouse. By this, I mean any time a conspiracist claims that “the government is” such and such.

The method involves first categorizing any action by any government official as “the government”. “The government” is capable of lying, therefore everything “the government” says is a lie. This is the fallacy of division: the entity A contains a property of B, therefore all the parts of A contain the property of B. This is a very powerful and dangerous fallacy as I will explain below- first, let’s see it in practice.

A recent example of this comes from YouTube user blujesus, who has tried to claim that by admitting that “no one has ever said the government is incapable of lying” (a quote he mined from an earlier response I gave, which he then turned into a strawman) that I am now forced to admit that “the government” must be lying because it’s Commission Report was “supervised by an insider of one of the most dishonest administrations in history.” Here, we can see that’s he’s clearly trying to mix the parts with the whole: from “9/11 Commission” to “the government” to “an insider” and back to “the government” again without batting an eyelash. Logic obviously does not work this way- properties of entities are specific to those entities, not to the categories we may incorrectly put them in, unless those categories are of those properties. That’s tricky- but it’s why we need logic in the first place. A table (often) has 4 legs, a surface, and is typically used for resting things on, eating on, etc. A table is not an apple, because an apple does not have 4 legs, it does not have a large surface for putting things on and it is not used for eating on. A red table and a red apple are also not the same thing- just because they contain the property of red does not mean that an apple suddenly has legs and is used for eating on.

How is this bigotry? Conspiracists need to identify an enemy- it joins them in a common goal against someone else. Being against “bad things” isn’t much of a motivator for long periods of time, and having your enemy be only a couple of easily identifiable characters narrows the movement down to something that has limitations. Instead, conspiracists draw the irrational conclusion that “them” is any person place or thing that could be qualified as “government”. (In the end, however, this only hurts the credibility of the claims because it means that a gigantic entity would have to be “in on it”.)

This fallacy is one in the same with racism- a term I do not use lightly. Do not be confused- I am clearly not saying that conspiracists are necessarily racists- I am saying that the same error in thinking- if applied consistently- would allow an individual to draw conclusions which are racist (this blank person is a liar, he has a skin color/heritage/country of origin that is A, therefore all people of A are liars). This is why we do see a large part of the movement being Antisemitic: the fallacy necessary to draw that conclusion is the exact same one that allows someone to conclude that everyone who works for “the government” is a liar, murderer, crook, shill, paid off, etc. Thankfully- conspiracists are nothing if not inconsistent. This allows skeptics / debunkers / scientists to point out these errors and pull conspiracists out of the downward spiral that ends in Antisemitic claims, racist thoughts, or other conclusions of bigotry. This- however- does not work if the person started out as a racist, Antisemite, or a raging bigot- because they drew their conclusions out of hatred and convenience, not simple error.

This issue is more generally discussed in my video: Conspiracists Mantra

You can see blujesus making this error in the comments, here.