Denial

There has been a lot of speculation recently about the increasing prevalence of conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, and the outright denial of demonstrable truths, as exemplified by the Stop the Steal movement surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In fact, there is quite a lot of historical precedent for such phenomena. The propaganda machinery which plunged Nazi Germany into World War II is one notable example, as is the ongoing Holocaust denial movement, which sprang up and has continued to grow from the moment the Nazis were finally defeated in 1945. How is it possible to convince a statistically significant portion — even a majority — of a large population to embrace patent falsehoods? How is it possible to instill deep-rooted belief in outright lies? How was it possible to convince so many ordinary citizens that Jews are the masterminds behind a sinister global cabal? Or that the systematic, scrupulously-documented murder of 6 million Jews is a hoax and never actually occurred? Or that the leaders of the United States government are entrenched in a conspiracy fueled by Satanism, pedophilia, and cannibalism? Or that a massive, nationwide, coordinated act of voter fraud, involving hundreds of thousands of complicit individuals was responsible for denying Donald Trump a second term in office and illegally installing Joe Biden as the 46th President? Perhaps an example will help to clarify the dynamics involved.

Suppose that you wanted to convince a large number of people that one plus one equals three. How would you go about doing it? Since your proposition is clearly false, instead of trying to prove its truth, a different approach would be to cast doubt on the fact that one plus one equals two. This would have nothing to do with truth or falsehood, and everything to do with perception. If you can convince the average person that there is any reason at all to doubt that one plus one equals two, you will have broken a seal, so to speak, and can begin contaminating the general perception of the truth. (For the sake of convenience, we’ll refer to the two camps involved in this hypothetical scenario as the 2 People and the 3 People.)

You would have a variety of tools at your disposal. You might simply assert, without presenting any evidence, that your position is correct, and then berate and deride anyone who disagrees, essentially resorting to ad hominem and other grossly fallacious attacks to defend your assertion. This, of course, would be unlikely to convince many, if any. Similarly, you could claim to have gained knowledge of the issue due to some mystical experience, a revelation from God or gods, or that some sort of secret knowledge has been passed along to you by an anonymous third party. Once again, none but the most gullible would be likely to fall prey to such an approach.

What if, however, you were to frame your argument as one side of a legitimate debate? What if you acknowledged the ostensible sincerity, integrity, and good character of the 2 People while, at the same time, presenting the position of the 3 People as just a different point of view which should be examined with an open mind? In other words, suppose you presented your position as simply a quest for truth? In that case you would have different tools at your disposal.

For example, you might cherry-pick existing literature on the subject. You might take scholarly passages out of context in order to support your position. Or you might paraphrase such sources in such a way as to subtly distort their meanings in your favor. If you were bold enough, you might even allude to unverified sources, which is to say, you might simply make supposedly legitimate academic evidence up out of thin air, presenting unverified statements without the benefit of references in the hopes that your readers would not bother to check your sources. Better still, you might quote an intermediary source, another 3 People writer who had invented false “evidence.” By doing so, you could supply a reference, but place the onus on the reader to research that reference in order to assess its validity. And if that reference relied upon the same technique, you could end up with a chain of false references which are difficult to trace back to their sources. It goes without saying that all such references would be clothed in the language of academia.

The zenith of such a disinformation campaign would be persuading legitimate, respected 2 People authorities to openly debate the issue in a public forum. By doing so, they would tacitly imply that a legitimate debate exists, that there is sufficient evidence on the 3 People side of the debate to warrant their defending the 2 People position. Such an act builds confidence in the 3 People to the same extent that it erodes confidence in the 2 People. Simply by agreeing to debate the issue, the 2 People create a general perception that there is a something to debate, and this plays directly into the hand of the 3 People. From there it’s simply a matter of continuing to cherry-pick, quote out of context, and so on. But the 3 People now have an additional weapon they can wield: if any of the 2 People, in the course of debate, happen to misspeak, accidentally present anything inaccurate, or assert anything which can, in truth, be demonstrated to be false (which is part and parcel of all legitimate academic debate), it will further weaken their credibility and enhance the credibility of the 3 People. It is essential to note that the 3 People are not simply trying to assert the truth of their position, but denying the truth defended by the 2 People. If they can convince people to deny the truth that one plus one equals two, or at least question its truth, supplying a falsehood to take its place becomes a relatively trivial matter, especially if their “alternate facts” resonate with the prejudices and preconceptions of their audience.

This illustrates the futility of arguing, with the hope of persuading, against Nazis, Holocaust deniers, QAnon members, or those who deny that Joe Biden was elected in a fair and legally-binding process. Those who believe the truth will exhaust themselves trying to persuade those who believe lies. And this is particularly true since a belief system steeped in lies has an ever-moveable goalpost. Even as I write this, there are conspiracy theorists who are suggesting that Joe Biden’s swearing in is proof that he’s actually a double-agent who will now work from the inside to advance the agenda embraced by far-right conspiracy theorists. And when evidence turns up which disproves that proposition, they’ll simply wrap it into a larger, wilder, more all-encompassing truthiness.

So what’s the best way to deal with deniers? Deny them. Deny them your time. Deny them a platform. Deny them an audience. Above all, deny them your investment of energy. Don’t allow them to exhaust you or to gaslight you. By all means, keep a close eye on them, but, as one of my dearest friends is fond of saying: “Do not engage.”