The "Conspiracy Theory" Conspiracy Theory

I have already written about how the habit of calling all ideas counter to the mainstream narrative "conspiracy theories", or especially "right wing conspiracy theories", is a form of gaslighting. It is a well established tactic that works quite easily to immediately, magically, and fully discredit your target and make them appear crazy with the least possible amount of work. Once a theory has been established as a conspiracy theory, it's a simple matter to discredit anyone who says anything even remotely similar by the power of association. This post further explores the tactic of calling everything a conspiracy theory, as well as why it works. It also explains the rational behind various conspiracy theories and psychological concepts that are at work within belief and disbelief of conspiracy theories - and why everyone is at risk of them.

The "conspiracy theory" discourse

I have looked into the origins and definition of the term "conspiracy theory". Apparently, there is a "conspiracy theory" that the term "conspiracy theory" was invented in 1967 by the CIA to discredit people who didn't believe the government's statement on JFK's assassination. This theory and the resulting discussion around it illustrates an important factor in the way the conspiracy theory label is used to attack every concept adjacent to "the official conspiracy" of any given theory.

 

The people seeking to discredit ideas outside of the mainstream narrative will define the theory in question with the most extreme possible attributes. They will find the craziest adherent with the most easily debunkable concepts and call that, for example, "the JFK conspiracy theory". This may occur naturally if someone is pushing a truly unbelievable idea, like flat earth. Any theory with possible validity behind it, unfortunately, will be defined by its craziest supporters. They will explain the conspiracy theory with very definitive terms and say that people who believe the US government assassinated JFK unilaterally agree on any given number of terms and concepts. They then move on to disprove any number of certain aspects of the defined and outlined theory. Once the "definitive JFK assassination theory" is debunked due to flaws in the official theory, they will declare that anyone who believes any adjacent concept of the official theory to be just as crazy as anyone who believes wholesale in the official theory. Thus, if you even mildly doubt that the US government is being honest about the events surrounding JFK's death, you are automatically considered as someone who believes "the official" JFK conspiracy theory (the crazy one). The person who seeks to discredit you will point to the debunked "official theory" and consequently discredit you as someone who is wacky enough to believe clearly disproven things. Any objections will be met with the same brick wall mindset, since you are now simply a crazy conspiracy theorist and are therefore unreliable, maybe even suffering from psychosis. 

 

Another current example of this issue is seen where, if anyone believes even a single politician may have been involved in child sexual abuse, they are thoroughly and undeniably "Q-Anon" and accused of believing the full and complete manifesto of Q-Anon supporters (even if you say otherwise, you're obviously just lying because you know Q-Anon is looked down upon and want to avoid the social alienation). Some people will even attack you as Q-Anon for acknowledging that child sex trafficking is real - it should be very obvious why this is a problem. It's worth mentioning that I do not believe the people doing this are actively attempting to cover up sex trafficking - but rather, they are so far radicalized in the complete other direction due to their intense aversion to Q-Anon that they believe all analogous concepts are related to it.

This is an applicable example of "false dichotomy" wherein, what is actually happening is that the most far-gone, fact and evidence ignoring concepts are touted as the theory, and thus anyone who says they think anything even resembling xyz theory is, obviously, a devout adherent to the official theory. This practice creates two perceived groups of people, wherein you for example either believe the outlined JFK conspiracy theory (which has been debunked, and therefore you are crazy), or you believe the official US government story. The idea that there is no possible alternative is heavily implied through the manner in which these things are addressed, the conspiracy theory discourse.

 

The train of thought you are manipulated into is "if the official JFK assassination conspiracy theory is wrong, then it's impossible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination". This is actually not a logically sound conclusion, since it is actually still possible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination, but simply in a way that is different from the "official" conspiracy theory. Whether there is weight to such a conclusion may vary - admittedly, I've been using this as an example, and yet I don't really care about the JFK assassination. I do believe, however, that it's entirely reasonable to believe it is possible that the government was involved in JFK's assassination because they have been caught being involved in illegal affairs before and have lied about all sorts of absolutely nefarious things. However, the crux of the matter is that believing unquestioningly in the official government explanation for JFK's assassination explicitly requires that you think it's simply impossible that the government would be directly involved in the assassination of a US president and then not admit it. As if they would be involved in assassinating JFK and then turn around and go, "yes, our bad, our sincerest apologies, we promise not to conspire against the duly elected president of the United States ever again, pwease don't execute us for committing treason." The people who would have been involved in this are still alive today and I'm sure they do not want to be executed for treason. At the end of the matter, though, it's mostly inconsequential, as there is not enough evidence to charge anyone.

 

This subconsciously accepted false dichotomy conclusion applies just as easily to most conspiracy theories. Moving back to the "the CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" theory, if the CIA did not invent the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 to intentionally discredit people who don't believe the official JFK assassination story, then you should doubt whether "conspiracy theory" is being intentionally used to discredit possibly valid ideas. You see the "conspiracy theory" that the CIA invented the term, and see it debunked, and you are led to a conclusion wherein, if I say something like "the term conspiracy theory is being intentionally used to discredit certain ideas simply because the mainstream/government/organization in question wants to wholly discredit such idea" you think I'm an adherent of the "the CIA invented the term in 1967" group, which, seeing that theory has been debunked, discredits me as a wacky conspiracy theorist, despite the fact that I don't believe the CIA invented the term in 1967. It's close enough to the conspiracy theory in question to, not simply doubt, but fully and entirely dismiss my claim, despite being entirely reasonable. 

 

The unspoken possibilities between the extremes

 

My entire point here then is that, regardless of whether the CIA "invented" the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 for use against alternative theories for JFK's assassination, it was utilized in this way. Is it truly crazy to believe that someone seeking to hide the fact that they did something illegal and punishable by death would go to great lengths to disguise and discredit people if the truth is at risk of being exposed? The utilization of the existent term of "conspiracy theory" is very reasonable to use if you wish to discredit a theory that's gaining popularity. If given to honest contemplation, the claim that it's reasonable to believe that certain ideas with reasonable cause for concern are being discredited through application of the term "conspiracy theory" is not even slightly crazy, but more akin to a simple observation. The point here is that it's important not to dismiss ideas out of hand because another group of people has designated it a conspiracy theory. This is a tactic being used on purpose to cause this exact reaction - but there is nothing crazy about being skeptical.

 

This is how the labeling and subsequent debunking of the most far-gone concepts is used to discredit similar, but conceptually different ideas. Unfortunately, you are being manipulated this way and likely do not even realize it - not by a shadowy cabal, but by simple psychology. The idea that the term conspiracy theory is intentionally used to discredit ideas that organizations do not want people to believe is not crazy in the least - people who believe in the "general goodness" of large, powerful organizations are naive, probably crazier than most "conspiracy theorists". In fact, they can simultaneously believe things like "the United States as an institution has intentionally exploited black people and other minorities throughout their history and gotten away with it due to institutionalized power," and then think it's simply absolutely wacky that they would be involved in other nefarious acts that would cause great harm to large groups of people. Why believe they would only ever do this one particular bad thing, insofar as believing they are still doing it, but then not see other questionable behavior by the government as suspicious?

The government is actually, definitely, lying - but about what specifically?

 

What happens is because "the government is lying" is tied to things that really are pretty crazy (flat earth is a good example), any person who says "the government is lying" is more likely to be viewed as a nutcase rather than someone who is noticing suspicious things and questioning them. We can even point to things that we know for a fact the government lied about, and say "given the evidence that the government has lied before, why do you believe unwaveringly that they simply could not possibly be lying about this?" but still have people dismiss it out of hand as "crazy". It is self-evidently much more crazy to believe governments are simply behaving themselves nowadays despite multiple proven situations where they did suspicious and malicious things quite recently, like how Obama's administration decided to consider all military aged men killed by drones in the Middle East as combatants, thus underreporting their "civilian" kill count. This is, by all accounts, not actually a very "crazy" lie - but the fact of the matter is that the government lies. It is not unreasonable to distrust someone who has a habit of lying - it is, in fact, quite smart to distrust someone who has a habit of lying, especially when they are in such powerful positions. People seem to have no issues with this conclusion, since it's not very hard to find someone who believes it's reasonable not to trust Trump since they believe he has a habit of lying. It should not be hard to attribute the same concept to all government organizations and politicians at large, and yet it is somehow "conspiratorial thinking" to believe any politician aside from Trump has lied, and likely could again, for their own gain.

 

In fact, they may believe that Trump has been conspiring with Russia and getting away with it for nearly four years without prosecution despite evidence, (which would imply a network of individuals within the government that were working to ensure Trump could get away with this and not be prosecuted - almost like there was a "deep state" working outside the confines of our constitution) but the very idea that any number of analogous situations may have happened or are happening is, why, simply absolutely crazy. If any given politician could manipulate such a situation, why doubt that anyone else could, or would? Throughout all of history, the elite ruling classes have lied to and abused their subjects and citizens for their own gain without regard to their humanity, with mass murder evidenced within the lifetimes of people alive today, but now, magically, governments just don't do that stuff anymore, obviously, because they said they don't. They would also benefit tremendously from getting you to believe that they are looking out for your best interests, but we just ignore that, because to be skeptical of the government is something crazy people who believe in a flat earth do. We, being generally good (or at least believing we are), assume everyone else is, too. This is called the false consensus effect and is an accepted psychological concept. The fact of the matter is that the rich and powerful are not like us. Narcissistic people who seek to manipulate and use others for their own gain of wealth and power have had thousands of years to figure out the best way to do it, but you simply believe they suddenly stopped, because, like, we just, progressed, as a society, or something. Us normal people generally lack the power, resources, motivation, and opportunity to perform egregious crimes against humanity - and so we assume everyone else does, too. "If I were president, I would simply not commit genocide", you say, without any perspective on how a person with unimaginable power views themselves and the world around them.

How people who believe they don't believe anything crazy view "conspiracy theory"

The inspiration for this post, of course, is the newest "conspiracy pyramid" graphic/video circulating around the internet, wherein this person commits the exact "guilty (of being absolutely insane) by association" concept that I have stated here, that I would have said any other day of the week before this graphic was released. That this person did indeed lump "flat earth" theory along with what they considered to be the absolute most "dangerous and deranged" theories was not surprising to me in the least. The aversion to being associated with flat earthers is strong, and people who may not have any issue believing that the government is lying to them or cooperating with other governments to push through policies and ideas that the general populace may dislike, would see the association pushed that "my belief that the government is not trustworthy is adjacent to believing the earth is flat," and then move away from their reasonable distrust in the rich and powerful elite that routinely exploit their position for their own gain to avoid social alienation.

 

Ironically, the argument is made that "if you believe some of these (the ones the author considers the most dangerous) conspiracies, you usually believe most" implying that once someone believes something like "George Soros is funding operations that push a radical left-wing agenda" which is actually easily believable (why would a rich and powerful man who believes himself to be a philanthropist not put money into funding operations that support what he believes to be a path to a better world?), you magically believe the earth is flat - when in reality, you never go in that direction. If you start from believing the earth is flat, then you would likely have little issue believing most of the other conspiracies - but believing rich and powerful people abuse their power and influence has little to do with denying observable realities about our universe, like the roundness of planets. This is explicitly done to make people adverse to these theories - social pressure is very real, as we will go into shortly.

 

It's an obnoxiously obvious tactic and, unfortunately, very successful. Through this method, they more or less make "contemplating the trustworthiness of the elite" conspiratorial in itself, on par with ignoring readily available, self-evident aspects of reality - for example, we can see the round moon in the sky and assume other planetary bodies are similarly round. Flat earth theory assumes something is wildly wrong with reality itself and we are being successfully lied to about it despite having the ability to discern otherwise through methods available to the everyday person. The level of coverup necessary to hide that the earth is flat is unimaginable, while theories surrounding the "deep state" assume malicious intent and cooperation by rich and powerful people. We are implicitly led to believe these two concepts are somehow similar. "How could you believe people with unimaginable power and influence would ever lie for their own personal gain? Why, the amount of effort to cover that up is unimaginable!" is the implied messaging - we understand exactly why a flat earth doesn't hold up to scrutiny, then unintentionally apply the same levels of disbelief to the concept of the "deep state" - yet they are not similar in composition in any measurable way. It implies that discovering malicious cooperation between the ruling elite class would somehow be "easy" to discern, as easy as looking upon the moon and seeing that it is round. Politicians have been caught doing nefarious things in the past, and yet we are to believe we have simply caught them every single time? Or, sillier yet, they have simply stopped trying to do those things? The implication here is "if the government were conspiring in a bad way, we'd have simply found it out by now". It took 40 years for the Tuskgee Syphilis experiment to be exposed, but for some reason people just have incredible faith in people today to be super good at discovering corruption, somehow, for reasons.

 

Most results are due to psychological aspects

 

The important thing to remember about all this is that there is no nefarious cooperation behind the useage of "they" or language that implies intentional, malicious action being taken. It is not a shadowy cabal of people manipulating on every level the narrative and ideas that are allowed to see the light of day. The vast majority of these people are independent actors who, for the most part, are unaware that they are actually providing a valuable service to the very small number of people who desire these outcomes. 

 

Culture and ingroup preferences drive most of the behavior of the majority of people. There is plenty of evidence that people often behave in ways that benefit themselves the most, as well as the documented concept that people often adopt extreme versions (going in either direction) of their beliefs when they are openly discussed within their ingroup. Who we associate with and what we associate ourselves with directly influence what we say and think. We also have the concept of "ingroup favortism" wherein anyone perceived to be in the ingroup is given the benefit of the doubt and people in outgroups are judged more harshly. We recognize these biases and would understandably then be adverse to being classified as part of the outgroup, knowing how poorly your friends in your ingroup perceive them. You are not poor of character, of course, as no one sees themselves as the antagonist of their story, so being part of the outgroup and thus being perceived to be poor of character, is something we instinctually would seek to avoid. Last but not least for our psychological concepts, we have general "group behavior" psychology that demonstrates things like "groupthink" (not to be confused with Orwell's "doublethink"), wherein people conform their beliefs to the those of their perceived ingroup. That's right - if you feel a strong connection to a particular group, you are more likely to begin to hold the same beliefs as them regardless of the defenses and explanations you've given yourself for your previous beliefs. This is not some wild pseudo-psychology, all of these things are documented phenomena that explain the ways in which we are manipulated every day by the environment around us.

 

These phenomena are exemplified in the realm of conspiracy theory discourse. It is not so grand a global plot as people think is meant when these things are discussed, but merely the psychology of the human mind viewed on a large scale. The people in power do not orchestrate these things with the help of ritualistically indoctrinated cultist initiates that they place in office buildings around the world, they merely utilize already present psychological phenomena to their advantage. Self-interest and ingroup preference are intensely powerful psychological concepts and to believe that they could not be manipulated for the advantage of another is, again, naive. Everything is downstream of culture, you do not actually need to control very much of society at large to get control of a considerable portion of the populace - and they will not even know they have been manipulated. It is simply normal day to day psychological reactions to our environment.

It sounds crazy because we have been conditioned to believe this is not possible because of various things we've attributed to society at large. We like to believe people are naturally good, that the people have the power because we can vote, and we ignore evidence of things if they are happening too far away from us or too long ago. We recognize the nefariousness of monopolies but don't stop to question how it might be dangerous that 10 food companies control almost every other food company in the world. Even more unbelievable, this writer at Forbes shows that the totality of market power can be consolidated down to just four total companies, in control of literally everything else. To make matters worse, here is Business Insider again letting us know that just six companies control all of the mainstream media we consume. This seems very suspicious considering my earlier points about how culture has a lot of control over the everyday person. Also, if you're "conspiratorial" enough to dare think it, it appears to give credence to the idea that the news media by and large is one big "ingroup" that may, perhaps, agree on a large number of ideas.

This very concept itself (it is bad that so few companies control so much) is seen as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory", yet there is not a single mention of Jews is in these publicly available, very normal "Business Insider" articles. The front page here as I'm seeing today has no fewer than three anti-Trump articles, including a very bluntly named Op-Ed "Donald Trump Doesn't Care About You". But, I suppose Business Insider is pushing a dangerous far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory by reporting these easily researchable facts. This is actually a beautiful example of my entire point - the people who don't want you to notice these things are trying very hard to make you adverse to seeing them. The antisemitism angle comes from the very same people fighting against the general public noticing this very suspicious behavior, as a method of causing aversion toward accepting this easily verifiable fact. Because, you see, it would be antisemitic to acknowledge it. The secret, here, is that it is not antisemitic to notice these monopolies and this label is simply being used to attempt to manipulate you into not believing that this is true, or at least not believing that it could be a large problem. Because you're not an antisemite, are you?

 

Going back to the new conspiracy chart linked above, we make some interesting observations. Indeed, the author of this chart is exhibiting some grade-A ingroup preference, as at least one of the "deranged crazy" theories is easily and without a doubt verifiably true and openly admitted - the "moisturizing with foreskin". It does sound crazy if you have never heard of it before, and taking this chart at face value will undoubtedly lead you to believe it's a crazy conspiracy theory, because you were told it was (by someone maybe you believed at face value due to your own ingroup preference?). Honestly, just look up "foreskin facial". I actually can't even find anything implying an underlying conspiracy when I search "foreskin facial conspiracy". This appears to be wildly irresponsible by the maker of this chart. Another commenter has brought up that "deep state" is actually closely tied to "COINTELPRO" (something in the "proven true" list), and yet "deep state" is in the "too far gone" category. This pyramid indeed tells us more about the ingroup biases of the person who made it than it does about true conspiracy theorists who believe these particular ideas. It appears, actually, to be an example of someone whose ideas became more extreme (all things called conspiracy theories are dangerous and antisemitic) due to ingroup discussion, evidenced by the person who was brave enough to point out that "deep state" is far more reasonable than it is shown here. Anyone within the ingroup and subject to the groupthink of the group would be under heavy pressure to dismiss "deep state" as a wildly inaccurate, dangerous theory, even when maybe they see evidence for it, as the "deep state" theory is mostly owned by the "outgroup" of Trump supporters.

 

Indeed, the association of reasonable theories with wilder theories like flat earth is done on purpose to cause people in various ingroups to avoid association with what they perceive as outgroup thinking. If believing rich and powerful people cooperate under the table or that a rich person who controls 20% of everything created on earth wouldn't utilize their position for their own interests is as crazy as "science denial" like flat earth, then they must avoid association with such ideas due to social pressure and ingroup identity.  We can see the expressed disgust of the commenters when they see particularly "science denial" theories - it's demonstrably a very strong tool to create aversion within an ingroup.

People with too much power do not behave like we do

Shame and manipulation is used to get people to do, say, and believe things all the time. The disbelief comes from the idea that it could be done on such a large scale, and yet the fact of the matter is that a very small number of companies - and, thus, a very small number of people - control unimaginably vast amounts of all of the kinds of things we see and consume every day. It is much crazier to assume these incomprehensibly powerful people who control levels of wealth and influence genuinely inconceivable to poor, average schmucks like us are behaving benevolently, and not in their own self-interests. We magically, for no reason, give the benefit of the doubt to these people who are - and I cannot stress this enough - incomprehensibly powerful, because the alternative is, admittedly, kind of scary. We simply do not want to accept that it is possible that rich and powerful people could, dare I say, be mean, because if they were mean, the levels of devastation they could bring upon us are chilling.

I'm not saying definitively that these people with unimaginable wealth and influence are doing any particular sort of nefarious thing. I'm trying to make you understand that it is entirely reasonable to believe that people with such power to do literally anything they desired, could, in fact, do anything they desired. If the thing they desired to do was detrimental to the vast majority of people, well, that would be quite unfortunate for us. Is it so farfetched to believe that a single person, so powerful and capable of anything they desired, could seek a manipulated vision of a world they personally perceive as "better", despite, perhaps, many people disagreeing? Could such disgusting levels of power and influence cause certain people to maybe see the world differently than we do? The failure to grasp the implications of the absolutely vast levels of power and influence these people has comes from our complete inability to apprehend the sheer levels of influence and power they have. This, in itself, becomes "conspiratorial" simply because the vast overwhelming majority of people do not understand that people with this level of power are absolutely nothing like us. Trying to convince the average person otherwise seems "crazy", with no small part played by the earlier mentioned false consensus effect (we simply believe most people think like we do, for no reason, our brains just do that).

 

Conspiracy theories are not unique to the right-wing

 

It's important to remember that there are things that are truly "conspiracy theories", which flat earth falls into. Indeed, certain left-wing originating concepts like the Trump-Russia connection are by their own merits conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked by readily available public information. The people who believe it, however, simply ignore this evidence and continue to believe there is a nefarious connection between Trump and Putin. It's possible, surely, because Trump is a politician and the government does shady stuff all the time. It's even fully understandable that they would continue to believe in it due to the exact same reasons that people continue to believe in a flat earth - you can't trust the evidence because the people providing the evidence are lying. It's interesting to point out, in fact, that the "official" Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is as debunked as the "official" JFK assassination conspiracy theory. But that does not mean nothing nefarious is happening - however, there is little to be done about it, and what remains is only speculation. 

 

Just as I believe it's possible the government was involved in JFK's assassination, but we can't really know, it's also definitely possible that Trump colluded with a foreign power, maybe Russia. But if the overwhelming evidence that's claimed to exist really did exist, he would have long been prosecuted. Everyone on every level of the government hates him. That's the difference - one side claims the evidence is there, and yet no one has been held accountable. The remaining evidence for the government's involvement in JFK's assassination is only speculative. It's actually wild to see that people who believe the Russian collusion story don't believe unilaterally in the "deep state", since such concepts would go hand in hand. What else explains why Trump hasn't been prosecuted despite these alleged mountains of evidence? Just, y'know, because reasons. Or, just maybe, it's an ingroup preference for the Russian collusion theory and prejudice against the outgroup theory of the "deep state".

 

This is what's happening on a psychological level. The people who believe in all of the debunked Trump-Russia connections are showing ingroup preference. They believe in the theory because their ingroup does, and specifically because the outgroup - Trump and by association his supporters - are of course against the theory. Seeing as they are the lying, malicious outgroup, they cannot be trusted, and may even be in on it. Conservative outlets and right-wing pundits have no issue labeling this as a conspiracy theory, but the term simply does not catch on in the mainstream because the mainstream media who published these stories for so long are also suffering from the ingroup preference, along with the same problems any other conspiracy theorist suffers when they find their beliefs debunked. Aversion to admitting you were wrong is yet another psychological issue wherein we see ourselves as the protagonists and thus, often justified and in the right. Wholesale belief in a debunked conspiracy theory, then, isn't "being embarrassingly wrong" but, rather, an understandable mistake, due to all of these such and such reasons, and thus you will likely never see news outlets that pushed this theory admit outright that they were wrong.

 

The mainstream media outlets pushing these articles are run and operated by mere humans like any one of us and thus are subject to the same psychological issues that we all fight against. There is no magical attribute that journalists possess that make them immune to the same ingroup favortism and self-benefiting preferences as any other human being. They published the stories in the first place, so the Trump-Russia connection is okay in their ingroup. We do not hesitate to point out the outgroup's failures and label them derisively, but when our ingroup fails and makes a terrible error, it's "simply a misunderstanding" and all efforts are made to explain how it's very reasonable and understandable that they would make such a mistake, downplaying any harm it's caused. It's not because there is an invisible cabal of Satanists controlling the op-eds of every single NYT journalist through threats and blackmail - it is normal, every day psychology that every one of us experiences. If they feel they are part of an ingroup, they will adhere more strongly to the perceived beliefs of that ingroup. It is why we are so easily able to pinpoint and classify which news organizations we believe have left or right leaning biases - because they do. It's absurd to believe that they do not, because they are human like any one of us and subject to the same psychological phenomena. 

What this shows is less the idea that right-leaning people are subject to believing in conspiracy theories, and more that we are all susceptible to believing things that don't have very good evidence. A recent article came out actually wherein someone said they found out their hairdresser believed in Q-Anon - and they proceeded to be no less than shocked that they weren't also a raging racist who thinks Trump is a demigod. The failure for this outgroup person (the hairdresser) to not adhere unilaterally to all of the things that the author's ingroup told her the outgroup believes should have been an eyeopener to the author that "conspiracy theorists" are regular people like anyone else and aren't living in an alternative reality. They see the same evidence, or wild speculation perhaps, that everyone else sees, but interprets it differently due to their ingroup preferences and personal biases. This quote is at the very bottom so I will copy it here to share, the author says, "The hairdresser’s take on race, and anti-Black racism specifically, did not spiral into conspiratorial territory, nor did they hail Trump as the best thing to happen to Black people. I was actually shocked to find their ideas were similar to my own." Unfortunately, most people get here and think "this wacky conspiracy theorist is saveable", and not the more correct, "every normal person is subject to influence by particular ideas (and this means even myself)".

 

Theories around conspiracy theories and why people believe them ignore that every person is capable of being swindled by a theory or ideology that plays on their own personal biases. They attempt to paint "conspiracy theorists" with a broad brush as being irreconcilably crazy - something is mentally wrong with them (per wikipedia "Research suggests that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological and that it is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia and Machiavellianism."), but they are simply being manipulated by the same psychological influences that every person is suffering under, but in different ways. 

 

Who people identify with plays an enormous part in how they perceive themselves. The content we view will slowly alter our own perceptions, even if we think we are "above" such things. It takes an intentional effort to avoid indoctrination - but indoctrination occurs constantly without our express permission. It is subtle and works mostly in the background - and is not due to the intentional, malicious and cooperative actions by a shadowy cabal of elites, but simply due to what is more or less a "trickle down" effect in the culture pushed by them. I personally have been pulled back and forth by close calls with radicalization toward certain ideas. My personal foundation that keeps me from from straying too far into dangerous territories is my Christian faith. Many people without a foundation - that is to say, any foundation, regardless of whether it is Christian or otherwise - will fall victim more easily. With secularism on the rise, it appears people are more subject than ever to the subtle manipulation tactics that occur every day through psychological phenomena. It is not intentionally done by a malicious actor, and sometimes we even place ourselves there.

 

It's a little overwhelming to realize that we are nearly helpless to control where narratives and biases will lead us, and many people tend to believe they are simply too clever to fall for such ruses. It would be to your extreme benefit to recognize that you are susceptible to these forces, and act accordingly when you feel like your ingroup preferences may be leading you somewhere bad.