Conspiracy theories can be symptoms of a range of things from mental derangement to growing cults to a complete lack of social trust.

When a society is rife with conspiracy theories, as much of the world is, that’s due to a lack of social trust on a comprehensive level. People don’t trust institutions or each other. They think the worst of everyone and everything.

And they’re right.

We laughed when we saw that Iraqis literally didn’t believe anything they saw and responded with the most byzantine conspiracy theories. But that’s what happens when you live in a world of lies. When everyone is lying to you, and you’re lying, there’s no such thing as a reality check.

How do you restore trust?

The leftist radicals who took over our institutions insist that they’ll restore trust by silencing everyone they disagree with. This singular plan has been tried before in Iraq, Russia, China, and every single dictatorship. It hasn’t created trust. Instead it eliminated the very idea of truth.

Alternatively, there’s the American way in which you allow a wide range of debate and create open and transparent institutions.

But that’s crazy talk which no doubt only helps elevate systemic racism… insert four pages of critical race theory jargon.

Of course there’s another factor that feeds conspiracy theories. Conspiracies.

Open and transparent institutions make conspiracies difficult. But closed and controlled systems with ideological command and control setups make conspiracies all too easy.

When those same systems failed badly during the pandemic, not only at actually dealing with the outbreak, but at basic honesty, repeatedly lying to the public “for their own good”, why in the world would anyone trust them? Our pandemic management was about as bad as that of any third-world country which was then bolstered by…

1. Deplatforming and arresting critics who protested.

2. The system repeatedly changing its story and then denying it changed it

3. Obvious coordination between elements of the system, especially the media and the Democrat authorities

If you don’t want people to believe conspiracy theories, maybe stop lying to them and conspiring to manipulate them. Or you can go on demanding more repression in the name of fighting conspiracy theories.

It worked out well in Iraq.

Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield