The Principle of Disinformation

But just being on the margins doesn’t ensure that someone is trustworthy for the woo-woos. Some of those on the margins are sent there on purpose, as disinformation agents. They are sent by The Powers that Be. Take for instance, this letter produced by one woo website (Rense) about another (Project Camelot), and the reply. If you don’t feel like reading it, here is a concise summary of the content:

Rense: You’re a government mouthpiece.

Camelot: No, you are.

I think this makes it’s own kind of sense. In fact, a recent (non-woo) paper “Conspiracy Theories” (Sunstein and Vermeule, 2008, available here) argued that governments ought to engage in precisely that kind of infiltration:

“Our principal claim here involves the potential value of cognitive infiltration of extremist [ed: woo] groups, designed to introduce information diversity into such groups and to expose indefensible conspiracy theories as such.”(p.3)

One of the reasons I think that Sunstein and Vermeule’s proposed strategy would not be effective (I’ll have more to say about this paper later) is that the woo-woo community is acutely aware of the potential for disinformation, as we can see in the above exchange between Rense and Project Camelot.

In fact, I want to propose that the awareness of disinformation is a major stabilizing factor in the woo narrative. In another community, if half of the members had radically different opinions about basic tenants of the shared story, it would sow doubt. In some contexts, everyone would become less confident in their story. The community couldn’t cohere and continue to cross-fertilize. But woo-woos believe that they have aroused the ire of the Powers that Be, and that the Powers that Be are actively intervening in their narrative. So people with very similar narratives, but with one or two radically opposed elements, don’t come to doubt their own stories.

I’ll posit the pervasive suspicion of disinformation by the Powers that Be as another principle:

The Principle of Disinformation[PoD]: A lot of woo is disinformation, specific attempts by the Powers that Be to mix truth with lies to dilute true woo.

The PoD actually serves to promote narrative cohesion in the world of woo. In the face of the PoIA, there is a constant need to justify how the woo-woo is allowed to air the secrets of the Powers that Be, without being stopped or molested by them. They speak out, courageously defying the Powers that Be to stop them. What they find is that, not only does no one stop them, no one even seems to take notice. What explains this? Their ideas are being specifically combated with disinformation.

Although it seems naive to suppose that there is any conscious or unconscious design going on here, there does seem to be a selective pressure for narratives which embrace the PoD. When you accept the PoD, it becomes possible for narratives with considerable overlap, but also radically opposed elements to co-exist. Since the Devil always mixes his lies with quite a bit of truth, the fact that many of your fellow woo-woos believe things that completely undermine your own narrative is not evidence that woo in general is bunk. Rather, that so many otherwise on-point woo-woos believe falsehoods is evidence that the Powers that Be are concerned enough to attempt interference.

Take, for example, the ambiguous status of Zionism in the woo-woo world. Rense argues that Zionists are identical with the Powers that Be. The video below argues the opposite, that Zionism is the truest resistance against the Powers that Be.

Here we have a good example of both the Principle of Inverse Authority and the Principle of Disinformation working together. The narrator makes a fairly cogent political argument that Zionism, defined as a national liberation/soverignty movement, is fundamentally opposed to globalization. This stands opposed with the Rense line that Zionism is identical with the movement to create a NWO. In both cases, the Powers that Be are defined by the PoIA as whatever power structure is Other to myself. But a difference in who is the Other creates narrative incompatibility. The narrative difference is explained by the PoD – because his narrative is almost but not quite true (apparently only the identity of the Powers that Be is incorrect), Rense must be a disinfo agent. This is speculative, but I think Rense would return the compliment.

Thus, the community remains stable. Both actors have their narratives confirmed, rather than defused by opposing views: the Powers that Be are obviously interested enough to spread this disinfo, therefore I must be on to something.