BK Notes: Andrew Kreig took particular exception to this OpEd piece by Lynn Stuart Paramore - who attacks RFK, Jr., Alec Baldwin and other celebrities for endorsing conspiracy theories. Paramore, like most conspiracy deniers - likes to study silly conspiracy theories and lumps them all together, even though, as John Judge used to say - "not all conspiracies are created equal." While I have debunked my share of conspiracy theories, I don't study them like deniers do - I am studying political assassinations. And like Paramore, I look for and find patterns and shared certain characteristics.
Andrew's Response:
Lynn
Stuart Parramore From Trump to Alec Baldwin, conspiracy theories,
narcissism and celebrity culture go hand in hand
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-alec-baldwin-conspiracy-theories-narcissism-celebrity-culture-go-hand-ncna1029941HOT TAKE
Whether spreading myths about
vaccines, the Moon landing or Barack Obama's birthplace, science suggests
conspiracy theorists tend to share certain characteristics.
By Lynn
Stuart Parramore
Ever
notice a certain paranoid strain in American celebrity culture? From moon-landing
deniers to 9/11 “inside job” promoters, there’s rarely a shortage of
famous folks endorsing conspiracy theories.
Just to
take one example, the list of celebrity vaccine skeptics gets longer by the
day, including Jenny McCarthy, Alicia Silverstone, Robert de Niro, Charlie
Sheen, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Jessica Biel. The conspiracy theorist in
chief, Donald Trump, also spent years citing the supposed link between
vaccines and autism — until he suddenly changed his tune amid
the rise in measles cases last April. The anti-vaxxers’ claims that
scientific consensus is wrong and the government is withholding the truth about
the safety of vaccinating children are helping to fuel measles outbreaks across
the country.
It turns
out that social scientists have found a link between conspiracy theories and
narcissistic personality traits.
Statistics
show that half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory, so
the famous are surely expressing trends in the larger culture. At a time when
paranoia reigns and many people have lost confidence in experts and even the
future itself, taking up conspiracy theories to explain distressing or poorly understood
phenomena can serve as a coping mechanism.
Studies
also suggest that when we don’t think we can overcome the difficulties in
the world, we start fantasizing about ways to merely survive. Celebrities have
platforms and audiences that can turn this strategy into a kind of crude
us-against-them survivalist mentality for the masses.
Costa:
'President himself has believed in conspiracy theories'
To be
fair, it’s not hard to find real evidence of groups working together to wreak
havoc on the public — like Big Pharma driving the opioid epidemic
through deceptive practices — often with the aid of public officials beholden
to their donations. Conspiracy theories breed partly because modern systems and
institutions can seem so opaque and unaccountable. Sometimes, people really do
collude to dupe and harm us — and sometimes they get away with it.
But
that’s a long way from the rapper B.o.B. claiming that the Earth is
flat.
Celebrities
who back conspiracy theories are often smart, charismatic and convincing.
Kennedy wields scientific-sounding data points and uses his gifts of persuasion
to convince listeners that he knows more than massive studies conducted
around the globe. He continues undeterred, despite the fact that
scientists reject his claims and members of his own family have publicly
denounced his position.
Maybe
you’ve encountered Kennedy’s magnetic, less-famous counterparts at backyard
barbecues and local pubs, watching in wonderment as they weave complex tales
about secret plots and shadowy groups hiding crucial information at our
expense. As the audience around them grows rapt, their eyes begin to glow and
their gestures become animated — and it’s not just the beer talking. They seem
to be hungrily feeding on something. Perhaps a special form of attention?
In 2015,
researchers seeking to understand psychological factors underlying
conspiracy beliefs found that people with high levels of individual narcissism
tended to gravitate toward them — particularly, and perhaps counterintuitively,
those with low self-esteem. The same year, another group of researchers
revealed a correlation between belief in conspiracy theories and the need to
feel unique.
While
narcissism may look like an extra heaping of self-regard, psychologists have
long observed that, unlike people with healthy self-esteem, those with
narcissistic tendencies are commonly oriented toward boosting themselves by
denigrating other people — a tendency easily observed in conspiracy theorists:
Those who disagree with me are duped by propaganda. They also tend to have
a negative view of humanity: Look at them, they are out to destroy us.
People
with narcissistic traits also spend a lot of time comparing themselves to
others, a tendency that suggests some underlying uncertainty about their
abilities.
Loving
yourself is healthy, but insisting that you possess the truth while everyone
else is wrong or lying may be a sign of something less salubrious.
Narcissists tend to express grandiosity, entitlement, exhibitionism
and argumentativeness. Deep down, they may even harbor deep feelings of rage or
shame. Narcissism is also linked to depression, substance abuse and
anti-social behavior.
Book that
pushes conspiracy Qanon climbs to top 20 on Amazon bestsellers. How?
Celebrities
like Alec Baldwin, famed for his penchant for conspiracy theories as
well as his angry outbursts, or Kennedy, known for addictions and epic
womanizing in addition to his promotion of various conspiracies, including
his belief in a cover-up of his father’s assassination,
seem to fit some of these patterns.
Often,
conspiracy theorists display paranoia and a belief that others are trying to
undermine them or challenge their uniqueness (hello, President Trump).
When he made birther claims about Barack Obama — a ploy his son, Donald
Trump, Jr. has picked up recently in trying to smear Sen. Kamala
Harris by suggesting she isn’t really black — Trump was deploying narcissistic
tactics to paint his opponent as a threat to the social order.
Josh
Hart, associate professor of psychology at Union College, has noted that
conspiracy theorists “tend to be more suspicious, untrusting, eccentric,
needing to feel special, with a tendency to regard the world as an inherently
dangerous place.” In an uncertain world, playing the guru with special
knowledge and abilities of discernment provides powerful psychological
incentives for spreading disinformation
Jessica
Biel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the deceptive rhetoric of anti-vaxxers
Of
course, not every narcissist is a celebrity and not every celebrity is a
narcissist. But celebrities are a self-selected group of people motivated to
seek attention and single themselves out as deserving of particular
recognition.
The
public fascination with celebrity culture only serves to amplify any
already-existing narcissistic traits. One of which appears to be the need to
occasionally don a tin hat.
Right
now, Americans should be on the look out for celebrities promoting the latest
secret plan to destroy the country. The more uncertain we become in our own
agency in the world and of the institutions that are supposed to be looking out
for us, the more narcissistic conspiracy theorists, with their cocksure
pronouncements and charismatic personas, appeal to our frustration. But they
will only distract us from dealing with bad things happening in reality — often
right out in the open — that demand our attention and energy.
If we
turn to them for solace, we become ever more likely to elevate them to
positions of power, where their paranoid style becomes normalized — right up to
the White House.
Now,
that’s really scary.
Lynn
Stuart Parramore
Lynn
Stuart Parramore is a cultural historian who studies the intersection between
culture, psychology and economics. Her work has appeared at Reuters, Lapham’s
Quarterly, Salon, Quartz, VICE, Huffington Post and others. She is the
author of “Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in 19th Century Literary Culture.”
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