A Useful Theory of Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories are no different from workplace gossip. They just feel more important. And, conveniently for those spouting them, they're harder to prove.
There’s a Sufi wisdom tale in which somebody bumps a person who is holding a cup of coffee. Let’s say it’s you, and you spill the coffee.
Why did you spill the coffee?
“Because someone bumped me,” you would typically answer.
No, goes the response, you spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. If there was tea, you would have spilled tea. Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.
The moral of the tale is that when life comes along and shakes you, which it inevitably will, whatever is inside you will spill out. If you have a peaceful mind filled with understanding, then peaceful understanding will spill out. If you have a paranoid, suspicious mind filled with vitriol and thoughts of revenge, then vitriol and revenge will spill out.
So, our task is to ask ourselves what’s in our cup? Well, when life challenges you, what spills out of your cup? That’s your answer. Life provides the cup; people, the bumps. You can choose what to fill your cup with.
The high and the low road of team performance
As a leadership coach, I specialise in working with teams. Some are functioning well and just need a little boost. Others have a toxic environment. Very often, I find that, even in those toxic teams, nobody’s cup is deliberately filled with poison. The toxicity is simply down to a lack of self-awareness and people unwittingly taking what I call the low road of reacting instead of the high road of responding. (I’ll explain that in a minute.) When those people see what they’re doing, they naturally take the high road. They empty their cups of whatever poison they might be carrying and fill it with something better—trust, curiosity, willingness—and the team dynamic improves.
Sometimes, however, you do get people who don’t want to take the high road, who fight to keep their cups filled with paranoia and suspicion, with misery and bitterness, or with anger and vengeance. Of course, they don’t see it like that. For them, the world really is the way they say it is and so they feel entitled to hold onto their poison.
I’m always interested in how my coaching experience and expertise could be translated for broader social relevance. It’s what this newsletter is about. And over time, as I encountered many dysfunctional and sometimes toxic teams, I started to see the parallels between what was happening in those teams, inside organizations, and what shows up in the wider world as conspiracy theories.
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After all, we all have our conspiracy theory friend. The one who drives you crazy with their absolute certainty about what’s really going on, and how ignorant you are for not seeing it when it’s so obvious. Their cups are filled with that same paranoia, suspicion and so on. They have an additional cup of dead certainty, which they spill quite often. And sometimes we can get sucked into that vortex ourselves. I’ve been there myself. I had my time down the rabbit hole. It was very dark. I nearly lost my mind, and so I emptied my cup and refilled it with better stuff. I took the high road.
Let me explain what I mean by that. Taking the low road looks like this.
The workplace low road
Something happens (or doesn’t happen) and we make it mean something. For example, somebody says something unskilful, or doesn’t include us in an email, or makes a decision without consulting us, and we make it mean something, usually something personal. They don’t respect me. Or, They’re trying to sideline my team. (It’s always personal, always about me, my or mine: my job, my team, my reputation.) Arising out of this come further assumptions. They’re after my job, that’s the real reason. Then we go home and complain to our spouse. We bend their ear because we know they’ll support us. When they do, we use that as justification to get riled up further. The next day back at work we talk to someone else. And so the gossip starts.
When someone takes the low road, they’re being reactive, meaning they’re not aware, they’re reacting automatically. On the low road they’re also in victim mode. Everyone else is wrong and everyone else is to blame for their problems, not them. Their cups are filled with blame. And denial: they filter out contradictory evidence. When somebody challenges them, they explain, defend and justify. I’m telling you, I know. I saw them do this. Or, I heard so-and-so say that. They refuse to do what David Bohm said is essential for constructive dialogue: they refuse suspend their assumptions, to hold them out for examination.
It’s satisfying for the ego (and the brain) to be right. And that’s easy to achieve from inside one’s own bubble, nursing one’s cup of certainty
As we saw in the previous post, being right can be addictive. The ego loves to be right, and the brain gets a dopamine hit from winning a point—even if it’s only in your own mind that you’ve won the point. The brain doesn’t care, it still enjoys the hit. So, it’s very satisfying for the ego (and the brain) to be right. And guess what, inside one’s own bubble, while they’re nursing their cup of certainty, it’s easy to be right. They just have to deny all evidence to the contrary and cling to their assumptions as the absolute and only truth.
Now nobody does that consciously, of course, which is why my workshops are effective. Because once they see that they’re taking the low road, most people I encounter strive to get off it. They empty their cups willingly and refill them. They take the high road. And as I said earlier, there are those who don’t want to see, who don’t want to empty their cup, or take the high road. They don’t want to hold out their assumptions for examination.
Now to return to our conspiracy theorists. Can you see that they are on the low road? Can you see that their cups are filled with the same stuff? The difference is that their dopamine hits are bigger. And why? Because their issues are so much bigger. Can’t you see? Not for them petty office politics. No mere corporate gossipmongers are our conspiracist friends. No, in their minds they’re making broader political, social, even global events mean something.
The conspiracy theory low road
Here’s the conspiracy theory low road journey. Something happens and our person makes it mean something. The Dems did this because they know they can’t beat Trump. They make it personal. They want to take our country away from us! And with that come the assumptions. The cops let the shooter onto the roof because ABC. That person in the audience with the white cap knew what was going to happen because they moved out of the way just moments before the shot was fired. See? It was a setup. Their cup filled with certainty, they complain and gossip. (The definition of a complaint is that it’s a problem statement, not a solution statement. Gossip is sideways communication: you’re making the problem statement to someone who is not directly involved in the situation.) Of course, they also filter out contradictory evidence. And if they encounter it, or if anyone is foolish enough to challenge them, they explain, justify and defend. They spill their cup of certainty. And they refuse to suspend their assumptions, to hold them out for examination.
I hope you can see that conspiracy theories are no different from corporate gossip. They just feel more important because their issues seem bigger and more consequential.
So, what do we do? If you’re the person who’s been doing a bit of that, let’s say at work, the first thing to do is to recognise when you’re on the low road. A good indicator is that you’ve been bending someone’s ear for longer than two minutes. That can act as your alarm clock. Then, instead of torturing that person, take your issue to the person concerned. Check your assumptions with them. (You’d have to empty your cup of blame and fill it with responsibility, humility, curiosity or healthy scepticism.) Ask questions and get the facts. Take the answers that you get at face value unless there is real evidence to do otherwise. Don’t try to catch everybody out. Achieve some form of understanding (at face value). Ask for what you want or need and take what you get. Don’t try to force or manipulate the person to give you the answer that you want if they’re not willing to give it. Walk away and act cleanly and responsibly based on what you know for sure and can control. That’s the high road.
Now, admittedly, that works in the corporate world because, for the most part, you can access the person you need to have that conversation with. In the world of big global conspiracies, there’s usually nobody you can address the issue with. Conveniently, I say, because if you could find the person to test your assumptions with you might find your cup of certainty getting bumped. Still, the principle applies. Try to find somebody. In other words, go and do your actual research. And if you can’t, or won’t, then don’t go back to assumptions. Keep the question open. Don’t draw conclusions without the facts, and don’t spread gossip. Period. It’s as simple as that. Fill your cup with curiosity, with grounded realism, with peaceful acceptance. Because you know that perfect world you’re after, the one that you believe would exist if you could get all your conspiracies proven and agreed to and the right people in power? That world is not out there, it’s in your cup.
And if you know somebody else who’s taking the low road, don’t try to explain it to them, rather show them this article. They’ll either get it and redirect, or they’ll do what people in my corporate teams do when they don’t want to empty their cup of poison. If they find that nobody else is buying their poison anymore—if they find themselves alone on the low road—they very quickly take themselves out of the team. They find another team or another organisation, one that’s on the low road, where they can spill their cup and get a reaction. The irony is that they think they’re the ones who are self-aware when nothing could be further from the truth. I just smile and wave. I don’t waste energy trying to argue with them.