Study conspiracy theories with compassion
I&#x27;ve come to be disgusted by the term &quot;conspiracy theory&quot; in ways I used to not be. It&#x27;s overused now and seems now to serve mainly as a sort of rhetorical power or status assertion. Someone&#x27;s fears or beliefs are labeled &quot;conspiracy&quot; if they contradict some normative belief held by a dominant group with which the speaker identifies. I&#x27;ve noticed this on the conservative as well as liberal spectrum.<p>What&#x27;s changed my mind is realizing how often things that might be labeled as conspiracy theory actually happen. Even if something didn&#x27;t happen, many of the fears are actually well grounded and labeling them as such in my opinion reflects a certain amount of lack of empathy on the part of the labeler.<p>I&#x27;m not saying certain beliefs aren&#x27;t absurd or physically implausible etc. But if they are plausible they&#x27;re often coming from somewhere reasonable. Widespread conspiracy theories tell you that a large segment of the population doesn&#x27;t trust something, and the appropriate response is to figure out why that thing might be untrustworthy.<p>I agree with the linked article, and understand that they are writing to a specific audience. But it has a patronizing tone that I think just reinforces the problems involved. If there&#x27;s a widespread conspiracy belief, it&#x27;s not enough to say to have &quot;empathy&quot; for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that.