On Saturday the thirteen of this month, Pat and I were out along the lakeshore for beautiful evening at Ox-Bow School of the Arts. There is not cell phone service there, so we missed hearing the news of the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump. It wasn’t until later, when we were back in the car, we heard about it. It was very much a straight forward “just the facts” reporting, straight out of Dragnet. Later that evening the first of the conspiracy theories began circulating on the news. It has continued ever since.
I think there are two reasons for all of this chatter. For one thing, ‘dead air’ on radio or television where someone doesn’t know what to say, is just about the worst thing that can happen. In turn, it means the commentator needs to provide content, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Some announcers succeed at it.
The second reason is that when something unexpected or dreadful happens, we slip-slide straight into uncertainty. In the 1960s, a theorist labeled it the Chaos Effect. He explained that we look for answers that make sense to us or explain what has happened. It works only when it is something that fits into our own frame of reference. In turn, we sometimes embrace the most ridiculous ones offered to us. It can lead us to do or say things that under more normal circumstances we would avoid.
I had an aunt whose mind was “off with the fairies,” as my English friends would say. One day, at the height of the debate over fluoride in drinking water, which did not make sense to the old girl, she began wearing plastic bread wrappers tied around her shoes. It was her way of coping with chaos.
Her logic was amazing. If fluoride was in the drinking water, then maybe someone was seeding the clouds and putting in our rainwater. She wanted to protect her feet from absorbing it into her system. That did not make good sense to the rest of us, but it was perfectly logical to her.
Over dinner, we talked about the non-existent fluoride in rainwater, and she went on to explain that she knew it was true because of all the rockets launched into space. They were poking holes in the atmosphere and filling it with chemicals. The strange thing is that to this day people are utterly convinced that the contrails, or vapor trails, from jet airlines are putting dangerous chemicals into the air. It is erroneous, but it explains why we can sometimes see them.
Growing up on these conspiratorial theories from a bunch of The Olds has made me wary of not believing everything I read or hear:
I do not believe that cutting out a large blue dot from one of the tabloid newspapers found in the supermarket checkout line, then putting on my forehead will bring vast wealth. Nor do I believe that sleeping under a homemade pyramid, suspending from the bedroom ceiling, will give me immortality like the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
I really do not believe that Harry Potter is a satanic conspiracy. Nor do I embrace the idea that there are satanic symbols in Disney movies. I doubt that the Pope is really conspiring to take over the world, or that a secret cabal of Masons really run this country. A friend quickly said it was not that Masons – that was a cover up – from the real conspirators: the Illuminati.
Of course, I cannot resist a bit of creative anarchy. Pat’s oldest son put me on to a website that gave the predicted times and locations of Iridium satellites. I went outside to see one just before sunset one evening, and some people wondered what I was seeing up in the sky. The filter between brain and mouth was on pause, and I said, “I keep seeing this spaceship every night about this time, and then suddenly it disappears. I wonder what’s up.” We watched, and it happened right on time. We saw the reflection, and then when it slipped out of the angle of the sun, it vanished. The tourists gasped and were suddenly afraid that Martians might interrupt their pension plan. I told them not to worry unless they saw it happening again. The next evening they saw it again.
When a group of out-of-towners were staying at an Airbnb nearby, on the same night that Musk launched his latest 30+ Starlink satellites. They went across the northern sky, something like a celestial train. “Oh my gosh! Look at that!” I shouted, pointing to the sky. They did and were convinced we were being attacked by Space Invaders. Of course, I think their anxiety was enhanced by some adult beverages.
Things other than spaceships concern me. The other day a fellow and I were talking about climate change or global warming. He’s convinced that it’s all be caused by bad boys such as Putin and his ilk, including the pudgy boy in North Korea who likes playing with missiles. I listened for a while before telling him he was nuts.
“It’s the declining number of Monarch butterflies,” I said. “Millions of them have died and aren’t flying down to a winter home in Mexico, and then coming back up here the next year.” Then, I found out he had not heard about the Butterfly Effect. Even the barest movement of air by a single butterfly somewhere in the world could eventually change the weather.
He thought about it for a while and agreed. That was just the opening I needed to take things straight to the edge of the lunatic bin. I was ready to set the proverbial hook…
I told him that the new problem, the big concern no one was daring to talk about, was no longer the butterflies but the round-abouts in Allegan, Saugatuck, and elsewhere. “You know it’s one of those European ideas that got imported here,” I whispered in my best conspiratorial voice. He nodded in agreement. “Like invasive species,” he agreed, and I knew the time had come to reel him in.
“Well, you get a couple of round-abouts or more in just one county, and then counties all around the country, and then you get a few hundred cars going in a tight circle every day. That can create a swirling vortex, and you can imagine where that is going to lead. Maybe more tornados and bigger hurricanes. It already happened in Chicago. The weather will get worse and worse.”
He was alarmed. Those two round-abouts in Allegan County just might bring about the end of civilization as we know it. I am sure he has passed on this fake news to others.
That is the real problem with conspiracy theories. It usually begins with something that is completely reasonable and verifiable. For my aunt, it was the reality of fluoride being added to our water and the reaction by the John Birch Society. It was, pardon the pun, one step from wearing plastic bags on her feet to prevent poisoning her toenails.
For the satellite mis-adventures – there were all those little dots of light from Musk’s communication devices racing across the sky in a row, or the Iridium satellites that were more predictable than an airplane time-table. Add a bit of uncertainty and fear, done best with a potential dose of mass hysteria, and the story is off and running.
The butterfly effect: Makes perfectly good sense after a lifetime of hearing how a small change in our life can improve or worsen things. From butterflies, it is a soft squeal of the wheels to the round-abouts.
Go take a walk around the block and run with this concept for a while and you might see how this could have some impact and influence on this year’s election. Goofier things have happened.
That is why you and I need to question everything we see and hear. Period.
