Conspiracies are an alluring topic for most people. We love any new Hollywood heist film, where lovable criminals construct elaborate plans to infiltrate strongholds and steal away their treasures. We love debating the points of the latest congressional backroom deal we are certain took place. We love arguing over whether or not the military and government are covering up aliens and cancer cures. We find them intriguing and fascinating, and the more complex the better.
But this infatuation has led us to think some things about the nature of conspiracies that aren’t necessarily true. Some of these expectations and conclusions we draw about conspiracies actually damage our ability to reason through things happening around us that actually have conspiratorial elements. Whether we reject them because the conspiracy is too complex or too simple, the fact remains we willfully blind ourselves to things because they defy our expectations.
The reason I want to address this is because of Joseph Smith. To those who believe Joseph Smith was a secret polygamist, the notion that perhaps he was not is frequently discarded immediately because it would require “too much conspiracy.” It would require all this coordinated fabrication of all these different people’s stories, and constant management of the narrative at too large of a scope for it to be humanly possible. I hope to dismantle that notion, so that if you decide to continue believing Joseph Smith was a polygamist, it is not based on the belief that conspiring to make a monogamist out to be a secret polygamist is too monumental to accomplish.
THREE DEGREES OF INGLORIOUS CONSPIRACY
To set the stage, I would offer a very basic breakdown of three different levels of conspiracy. They each have distinctly different requirements, abilities, methods and scopes.
First, is the VIP conspiracy. This is the type of conspiracy that we try to make every conspiracy out to be. A conclave of super secret people get together and hash out intricately micro-managed plots and fallbacks and escapes and hijinks. Everyone in the club knows and coordinates all the tiny details together, and nobody outside the club gets to know that a conspiracy exists, they only get to endure the fallout in confusion as it befalls them. This is Hollywood. This is what we see (true or not) in congress.
Second is the regulated public conspiracy. This is the conspiracy where a VIP group gets together and formulates a conspiracy, but requires involvement by a larger group to facilitate it. This includes things like governmental overthrows, cover-ups or misinformation campaigns, where a few people agree on a plot or narrative, then use a larger group of less-informed acolytes to help them spread or manifest simple, calculated ideas across a greater base.
Finally is the wildfire conspiracy. All this requires is a single, unifying idea. That idea can begin with just one or two people, but it spreads like wildfire on its own as those who hear it agree with and perpetuate it. It’s so deviously simple and requires almost no effort to make it grow and gain acceptance as truth. This where you find things like character assassination.
One of our biggest problems is that we want all our conspiracies to be as squished up into the first degree as possible, regardless of whether it’s to validate or invalidate them. We will accept the second degree if we can’t confine it to the first, assuming we can declare we weren’t among the patsy group used to accomplish the VIP group’s aims. But we don’t give much thought or attention to the existence and danger of wildfire conspiracies. Perhaps they aren’t intriguing enough, or we think we neuter them by calling them “gossip,” or perhaps they are acknowledged as too uncontrollable and so we just want to avoid considering their existence at all.
Whatever the case, the wildfire conspiracy is highly potent, highly malleable, and incredibly easy to pull off. It is dangerous and worthy of attention.
NONE ARE IMMUNE TO CONTAGIOUS IDEAS
We understand the power of a good idea. We repeat the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, long after civilizations which followed them have since fallen to dust. A potent, simple idea seems to have a life of its own, perhaps even aspiring to immortality.
A wildfire conspiratorial idea will fall on all sorts of minds. Few people will be able to prevent it from spreading outward from themselves, even if they have radically different views on it.
There are those who are already at a point of full agreement when they first hear the idea, whose confirmation bias accepts it without question. Now infected, they will actively see to its spread.
There are those who are intrigued by the idea, who will spread it through discussion before they choose whether to accept it. They may reject the idea in the end, but not before perpetuating its life.
There are those who disagree, but fear they may be wrong. As they speak against it they inadvertently spread it. But as a bonus, while engaging the internal battle with their fear that the idea is right, their minds puts together pieces on its own which both support and conflict with the idea, sometimes bringing them to switch their stance.
Only when the idea reaches those who disagree based on knowledge or sound understanding do those conspiratorial tendrils hit a dead end. The idea still invades the people’s minds, but it is promptly stripped of its power and confined in a dormant state. These people can help others become resilient against the conspiracy, but at the risk of spreading the idea rather than neutering it, depending on the individuals they are trying to vaccinate.
WHAT MAKES AN IDEA INFECTIOUS?
There are all sorts of things that increase the value or appeal of an idea. Some ideas are contagious because they are clever. Some because they are poignant. Some because they speak to our fears, or our desires. Some speak to our higher selves, and some to our baser selves. When it comes to ideas which are infectious because they appeal to our natural man, one of the most effective and self-perpetuating forms is “scandal.”
Our prideful natural man wants to believe that all those around us are beneath us, and anytime we can see someone else as doing something we think we are above, we savor it. We relish it. “Oh, that celebrity cheated on his wife? Of course he did, what a dick. I would never do something so pathetic…” Scandal slakes our pride, and damn does that feel good.
One of the most astounding things about a scandalous idea though, is that once it has taken hold, even if it is later proven to be slander, the antidotal truth can’t always cure it. “Oh she wasn’t actually sleeping with the neighbor? Well, I bet she would if she could. He probably just didn’t want her…” Our natural man wants so desperately for insidious scandals to be true, that even when we come to know they aren’t, we can still try to find ways to rationalize letting the scandal live on within ourselves, feeding our pride for ages to come.
SO LONG AS YOU AGREE ON ONE THING…
For a wildfire conspiracy, there is no need for elaborate planning meetings. There is no need to establish a VIP group. If one person can convince one other person to join with them in a single idea, that is enough. But what if you establish your conspiracy on that core idea, then can’t agree on anything else? What about conflicting stories and evidences surrounding your shared idea? Well, it turns out that basically doesn’t matter.
For one, there are always others who are willing to fill in the holes for you. Those who come in contact with your idea and agree with it will immediately start putting together pieces themselves, finding the necessary explanations to smooth out the discrepancies. They will “resolve” some of these for you, without any work on your part.
Another factor is that disagreement on facets of the idea—the more direct the disagreement the better—seems to suggest that the fabricated idea has credibility as a true idea, rather than a phony one. When two people are seen arguing about the semantics of an idea, it is automatically assumed that the idea itself has merit, and the finer points just haven’t been hashed out or uncovered. So long as the core idea itself remains intact, its credibility can be greatly strengthened by disharmony surrounding it.
TIME IS A FACTOR
In fact, as time goes on and discrepancies multiply along with conspirators, the amazing reality is that all maintenance of the conspiracy can be performed after the fact. You don’t have to establish any preventative measures or plans. You can literally just make up resolving explanations as you go.
True, every time the conspiracy incurs discrepancy damage, there will be questions about the validity of the conspiracy. But every time there are questions, you can pull an answer out of your ass, and if it sounds half-reasonable, at least half the questioners will buy it. And again, the next time there is an issue. And again. Because those who already buy it don’t want to let it go. Shifting one’s position takes too much work and can cause too much heartache from recognizing they’d been duped. So they will do the heavy lifting of rationalizing your half-ass answer in their own minds, finding further supports to uphold it as truth. The fact that you have to make 100 rationalizing excuses for the inconsistency in your conspiracy’s unfolding life should be a red flag to a critical thinker, but so long as you make those excuses each and every time, there will be a large portion of the hearers who will buy them.
Then, when you are far enough downstream in the river of the conspiracy, you can begin to take advantage of a new dynamic. That is that people always tend to view the past through the lens of their understood present. All the bumpy road of the wildfire conspiracy was handled in its earlier years, and when you get far enough along, things get rather smooth. The kinks have been worked out, and the 11th edition of the conspiracy is glossy and clean in its presentation. Sure, there were issues in the past, things got really rocky with the conspiracy, but hey, those matters were all resolved. And now with the 11th edition, you don’t have to worry about what those problems even were, we’ve got what you need to know packaged up all nicely for you in an easy to read, no need to investigate single narrative.
HOW I WOULD DEFAME BROTHER JOSEPH
Let’s put me back in Brother Joseph’s time. Let’s say that Joseph is a monogamist, but I want him to be a polygamist, for my own reasons. Maybe because I want to be a polygamist and want to use him for justification. Maybe because I want to assassinate his character because I don’t like him. Whatever. I could use a wildfire conspiracy to make it look like he is, no problem.
All I have to do is tell someone else with a middling opinion of him that I’ve heard he’s a polygamist. The scandal will be irresistible. I can then sit back and watch the show begin.
As that person considers my rumor, they will spread it. Perhaps they begin by just asking others if they’ve heard it. Well, now they have, thanks to my planted seed. The rumor will spread quickly, through all the different dynamics discussed above. Some will buy it outright, some will debate back and forth, some will fear its possibility and unwittingly sell themselves on it, and only a few will know better. Most people don’t care to think critically, preferring to assume someone else has already done that for them, so they can be led around by the nose easy-peasy. And the majority, not the entirety, is who I am interested in.
Eventually the rumor will reach Joseph, that is inevitable. He will surely deny it and call it a lie. That will put some people back on the fence over the issue. But I didn’t need to prepare for this, I didn’t need a scheme in place to prevent it. Now that it’s here and I see exactly how he goes about his denial, I can easily just explain it away. Oh, Joseph called it a conspiracy? Well, conspiracy was on his mind because HE’S actually the one in a conspiracy, to engage in polygamy! Not just any conspiracy, but a VIP conspiracy! Ooh, now I’ve included a sexy new VIP conspiracy within my original conspiracy! It’s the Inception of conspiracies! Con-ception! Wait, that’s something else… Anyway, this VIP conspiracy is too tasty a scandal for most of those fence-sitters to pass up, they’ll land back on my side. Joseph’s denial is no match for the power of my rumors.
As the rumor takes hold, there will surely be wrinkles that come along similar to Joseph’s first denial. He will deny more, try to use “facts” to exonerate himself, second witnesses who can attest to the truthfulness of his presented “facts,” circumstantial evidences, so on and so forth. I don’t have to worry about these. For the majority, those things simply can’t hold a candle to the power of my scandalous rumor. If he presents some evidence to clear his name, all I have to do is fabricate some new detail of his VIP polygamous life and BAM, he’s in the doghouse again. It’s so damn easy, I just attach basic items like time and place, names involved, and other verifiable bits of worthless information, and everyone will assume the rest is also true and verifiable.
Once it’s clear that Joseph can’t escape the rumor of his polygamist angle, the door is opened for me or anyone else to engage in the practice. “Joseph did it.” That’s all the justification you really need. If the leaders do it, so can you, because we certainly don’t want to make the leaders into a privileged class above the rest of us, right? So hey, now I’m Scott-free to be a polygamist.
But oh no, Joseph is calling me forward on disciplinary charges for polygamy. Well, I can play it any number of ways, and still turn it to my benefit. I can play the penitent card. This will get Joseph off my case, as he thinks he can forgive me and I will stop. The schmuck. That puts me back under the radar for a while, stronger than ever. Or I could be defiant and use Joseph as justification to his face. His denials will only mean something to his inner circle, he is already guilty in the court of public opinion. Then when he casts me out, the public will think me good and honorable, for standing up with honesty and integrity to the secret liar Joseph. Joseph simply can’t win this one, no matter what he does. I hold all the cards.
Conflicting stories begin emerging about the polygamy of Joseph and others, about how the doctrine operates, about who is privileged and who is not. This is no threat to the health of my conspiracy, it in fact bolsters it. The fact that they all agree that Joseph was a polygamist, but just can’t agree on the details of what it looks like, only cements the idea that he is a polygamist. People certainly wouldn’t argue about a bullshit rumor as though it were true, would they? So it must be true. And every rationalization offered to explain the disharmonies and aberrations and conflicts will be eaten up, over and over again, because everyone wants the scandal to stay alive.
As years go by, my rumor needs very little further maintenance. The conspiracy continually perpetuates itself, and the polygamist actions of myself and others certainly keep the flames of the rumor mill alive. I can continually embellish the rumor as I see fit, or not, it doesn’t really matter. People are doing it on their own now without any help from me. And then Joseph gives me a gift.
He dies.
Well, now he is completely vulnerable. There is nothing he can say or do to counter my rumor. In fact, I have a whole new degree at which I can perpetuate this conspiracy baby of mine. The wildfire conspiracy will keep itself alive, but now I can tamper with his records to fabricate a new level of evidence to support my conspiracy. Those who have proven to be the friendliest to my conspiracy can join me in now constructing a full historical narrative about Joseph’s polygamy which will be verified through documentation. I am now the parent of both a wildfire conspiracy, and a regulated public conspiracy. This isn’t hard at all. Just cross out his denials of polygamy, and insert some BS that reveals how he understood and practiced it in secret. If I keep it simple enough, if I don’t go too far down my own rabbit hole of invention, I can create enough sense of consistency that all the problems with my narrative will fall by the wayside. Keep it simple, Stupid.
As the documentation spreads, I watch any possibility of my conspiracy dying vanish. It is here to stay. Those who come after me will continue building on my legacy, fine-tuning the story, adding their own voices to it, saying whatever they want to say. New champions may be even more crazy about perpetuating it for themselves than I am. So long as they stick to the original idea, “Joseph was a polygamist,” my baby, my conspiracy, will never die. The practice of polygamy may eventually be stamped out, but hey, I got mine, and my rumor is now cemented in history as “fact.” That’s a damned legacy.
And holy shit, was that ever easy.
