Believers in conspiracies, whether that be systemic racism ("do the work!"), avoiding vaccinations ("do the research!"), or discerning the Jews behind everything ("It's obvious when you look at it, sheeple!") seem to be inordinately proud of their independence of thought. Lots of people believe X. I believe negative X. Therefore I am an independent thinker.
No, it's just a different flock, usually in a smaller field.
Being schooled in the CS Lewis academy of hyperawareness to self-deception, I get most nervous when I think I am being independent, as that is my most likely place to avoid mirrors.
An expanded, exhaustive reason and a contracted common sense, like Chesterton said about many forms of psychosis.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it was in The Everlasting Man that he wrote of "arguments that you do not so much want to give refutation as to give them air."
ReplyDeleteI know that was in Orthodoxy.
ReplyDeleteOf course, sometimes there are matters where one has neither the standing nor the ability to give air to minds that desperately need it. It's frustrating and frightening, and all one can do is pray.