David Frum is (somewhat) right

Last week I retconned a 10-year-old post into a recurring series: Parlance Rants. So far I’ve explained my hate for the terms “content” and “viewer,” and there’s huge potential for future entries.

This week I’m unexpectedly creating an even more unlikely series: “Reacting to Conservative Commentators Named David.” This one truly won’t become a recurring thing, not least because reactions to other people’s opinions is a pretty intellectually constrained theme. I’m also rapidly running out of Davids.

But in a recent Bulwark podcast episode, the Atlantic writer David Frum made a point that demanded a response because it’s so insightful and also so incomplete. The insightful part is worth amplifying; the incomplete part is worth filling in. I’d encourage listening to the whole episode but the key segment starts (21:10) with him saying that “conspiracy theories may be the price we pay for the rising level of education and information in our society.”

This is a fascinating, and I think optimistic, take on the very obvious phenomenon of conspiratorial thinking—which has long been noted in human societies generally and American society specifically. Frum frames conspiracy as a sort of misguided reaction to overwhelming but still incomplete information, an understandable outpouring in response to the continual feeling that everything is recorded and available, an impatience for thorough fact-finding, a confidence in one’s own research, and a response to the rising pressure to have a reaction to, or opinion about, nearly everything. I’d truly never considered conspiracy theories as a manifestation of more information, and I think it’s a really valuable lens through which to see the phenomenon.

However I think Frum understates, or at least doesn’t here mention, the influence of specifically internet culture: shitposting, bots, engagement chasing and so on. It’s certainly true that people hold conspiratorial views sincerely, but there’s a portion of the field that’s insincere and simply aimed at riling up or otherwise engaging a readership. I doubt there’s solid data as to the ratio of sincere to performative insanity, but I strongly suspect the performative part is significant. So this insincere conspiracism is both an output and input: it increases the volume of noticeable takes, and probably also nudges some people towards their own (sincere or insincere) conspiratorial thoughts.

I’d also propose a corollary to Frum’s point. Information is more accessible, and that’s probably driving weird opinions, but it’s also true that other people’s weird opinions are simply much more accessible than they were in the pre-internet era. Some part of the wtf is even happening feeling that you get from being online is because weird thoughts that were previously confined to a person’s skull or dorm room are now broadcast in such a way that they’re accessible anywhere in the world, instantly. And because of the internet-specific features mentioned above (algorithms, performative posting), the most engaging/enraging ones get amplified.

Conspiracy theories might be the price—one of the prices—we pay for having more information floating around. Frum, as is his habit, provides a fascinating take that’s worth keeping in mind. But (ironically enough for a discussion of conspiracy theories) I don’t think it’s the whole story.