I bought this book a few years ago – pre-Q, which it does not cover – to educate myself about movements I had heard mentioned on TV and in folk-songs since I was a child, and yet I knew nothing about, things like the John Birch Society and Lyndon LaRouche. According to Vankin, this was the first “comprehensive and objective exploration of ‘conspiracy theory.’ ” I also wanted to read something mainstream about UFOs and the JFK assassination. I had read a lot of books written by people who were believers in conspiracy theories on those topics; and I had read books by skeptics, who just dismissed them out of hand, and I was craving something that would present the facts. Little did I realize…

When the 2000 election came around, and the deciding votes came down to Florida, to one precinct in Florida, to a bunch of ballots that had to be hand-counted, and those ballots were using the old punch method, a method that often resulted in human eye judgement of whether a voter had meant to punch for a candidate or not, I had a moment of deja vu. Hanging chad, they called it… Hanging chad… Wait a minute! I scrambled for my copy of this book and there it was. Chapter 2: Votescam.

Hmmm…

To paraphrase David Bowie’s character in one of the best movies of all time: You’re very good, Vankin. You’re really very good.

Okay, so what else does he cover in this book? It reads like a series of X-Files topics: Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon LaRouche, UFOs, the John Birch Society, the conservative conspiracy, the Christic Institute’s Secret Team lawsuit, the RFK assassination, the drug conspiracy, the Rockefellers, Masonry. What I like about Vankin’s writing is that he stays grounded and encourages you to stay grounded, to keep an open mind while not getting swept away by other’s beliefs. Vankin states up front that he “explores the ideas” of various conspiracy theorists but his “intention is not to endorse – and certainly not to discredit – any one conspiracy theory…” He opens and closes the book with a reflection on what conspiracy theories represent and why Americans, in particular, are so susceptible to them.

This is a great book and a lot of fun to read, if you can get your hands on a copy. It is a wee bit dated – it pre-dates social media, although much of what he says in the introduction, quoting scholar Bertram Grass, still holds true: “When the difference between lies and truth no longer means anything, we become easy to manipulate – fair game for ‘mass media, world spanning corporations, armies and intelligence agencies… Meanwhile, the majority of people have little part in the decisions that affect their families, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, towns, cities, country, and the world.’ ”

This is, I believe, one of the reasons that the right-track / wrong-track political numbers are always skewed wrong-track: even with social media lighting fires under the politicians and supreme court members, many people don’t feel like they have any influence over what’s happening to their world. They want more gun control, more control over their bodies, better access to education, and better jobs – or they want more freedom, fewer abortions, the ability to control what their kids learn in school or find in local libraries, and who is joining their communities. Either way, Americans believe the country is on the wrong-track.

That said, I will admit that this book was a lot more fun to read before the internet. Now anyone on social media can share unproven ideas and the great algorithms blow those ideas up and pass them around and promote them, causing unwary people to spiral further and further down the rabbit hole until they don’t know which way is up anymore and Thanksgiving is ruined yet again.¹

The other problem is that there is so much out there that it’s easy for the real problems to get swept under the rug.

When everything is a conspiracy theory, nothing is a conspiracy theory.

We’re living in an especially Orwellian time, where words get coopted by people who want you to believe that they have the answers, that they can save you, all you have to do is believe.

Right.

Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. It’s fun to think that our world can still contain wonders: Bigfoot may roam the Pacific Northwest; alien craft may visit our planet; ghosts may haunt places that we don’t live but could safely go visit; reskinning your company’s website yet one more time may reclaim all the market share that has slipped away; and all of our political woes, all of our fears about the world may be solved by one person. It’s fun to believe that our world could be so wondrous. But wanting to believe doesn’t make things true. Even Fox got swept away while pursuing things he wanted to believe.

They call it falling down a rabbit hole for a reason. When Alice fell, she encountered double-speak, people who believed things for no good reason, autocratic rulers who executed people who disagreed with her, characters who believed that they had all the answers but made no sense, and other scary things.

We are all guilty of trying to tell other people what is best for them, to try to save them, to some extent. One thing I am working on is, instead of telling people how to live their lives and what to believe, demonstrating kindness instead. I can try make the world a better place by helping others rather than telling others what to think and how to live.

The rest is up to them.

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1. Even if you agree with the prevailing view at dinner, the sheer volume is enough to kill your appetite. ↩︎