Believe Me, We Did You a Favor!

So, I’m feeling quite impressed that more than three weeks after our “From 9/11 to COVID-19” conference, conspiracy theorists are still worked up about it. Some guy named Hank Wolfe on the Before It’s News conspiracy site is conducting an “investigation” of “Donovangate” and my masterminding of a nation-wide plot to replace students in online classes with deep-fake avatars. Seriously!

 

You can check out the “ongoing investigation” right here.

 

And, by the way, Hank Wolfe is also fixated on the Satanic significance of the October 13 date of the event. 

 

An article in the Saint Peter’s student newspaper about the event is still bombarded by unhinged comments and rants about how an audience of “truth seekers” were silenced in the Zoom chat room and we refused to answer any of their questions. 

 

The State of the Nation ran a couple of stories on the event, warning their readers about the “anti-truth” event and sharing a hysterical, whiny email from someone who claims to have logged into the event but couldn’t get any questions answered. You can check out the SOTN article here. The first story, by the way, also warns of a dark and dangerous Jesuit conspiracy to deceive America’s youth.

 

Now the student newspaper, as I understand it, contacted SOTN for comments about their dangerous Jesuit conspiracy but got no response other than a list of links to other conspiracy theorists. 

 

But were there questions from outsiders screened out during the conference? Yes, there were. This event was intended for an SPU audience, so imagine our surprise when we notice scores of people logging in who were not affiliated with the school. While we thought we were only sharing the login information with our colleagues and students, apparently someone must have shared that information with who knows how many other friends and they in turn shared it again and so on and so forth. Then it wound up in the conspiracy community.

 

Does the easy escape of the login information make you think of anything interesting, though? Do you notice how hard it really is to keep anything secret? Makes you wonder about those rococo conspiracy theories SOTN loves to spin seemingly 24/7.

 

But to get back to the issue of whether or not we tried to avoid answering the questions of the outsiders, let me just say this: we probably should have. We should have let them ask their Holocaust-denial questions and ask about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like Jews seen celebrating the attacks of 9/11. They would easily have been exposed as the vile hatemongers they are. The best defense against the worst, most hateful people in this world who trade in discord and prejudice is to shine a light on them and have the world see them for what they are. That, by the way, is why I don’t remove any reader comments from this blog, no matter how ridiculous or even hateful they may be. Stupidity should be shown off in all its slow-witted, demented glory. So not listening to and acknowledging these people’s comments during the conference probably did them a great big favor. 

 

It is also for this reason, to shine the light on American culture’s ugly, deranged underbelly the conspiracy culture represents, that I teach my class on conspiracy theories. People like whatever anonymous collection of charlatans is behind State of the Nation is a constant staple in the class. They are a perfect teaching tool when it comes to demonstrating every underhanded, unethical, dishonest, and manipulative form of communication today. For the major final assignment of the semester, the Do It Yourself Conspiracy assignment, I repeatedly send my students to the SOTN page to have them see conspiracist sleaze at its very worst…or is that sleaze at its very best?