Toll of QAnon on families of followers
New book by Nieman Fellow explores pain, frustration in efforts to help loved ones break free of hold of conspiracy theorists
Christina Pazzanese
Harvard Staff Writer
August 30, 2024
Since 2021, QAnon belief among Americans jumped from 14 percent to 23 percent, while the percentage of skeptics declined from 40 percent to 29 percent, according to a national survey published last fall by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The book focuses on five very different QAnon believers, but you interviewed hundreds of people in your reporting. Did you find any common psychological and sociological factors among believers or their families?
I did. I think there’s this misconception that the people who are susceptible to QAnon-type falsehoods have a low IQ or they’re mentally unstable. But what I found in talking to so many people is that they’re not fulfilled in their lives. They’re not doing well; they’re not happy. There’s some unmet need they have, and conspiracy theories fill that. Whether it’s purpose or meaning, they want something hopeful to latch onto and QAnon makes all these grand promises.
“To be a conspiracy theorist really demands a victim mentality because you’re convinced that there’s some grand entity, some evil, shadowy network working against your interests.”
Also, something that all these characters, maybe with one exception, have in common is a sense of powerlessness. To be a conspiracy theorist really demands a victim mentality because you’re convinced that there’s some grand entity, some evil, shadowy network working against your interests. For a lot of people, they come by this mentality naturally because they have been victims of oppression and abuse, maybe for generations or centuries. A lot of minorities and marginalized groups, in particular, can be vulnerable because they have very legitimate reasons not to trust the people in power and to be very skeptical and suspicious of our public institutions.
On the other end of the spectrum, the more privileged people can be conditioned to feel powerless. With one mother in the book, it was on Fox News where she’s told again and again “Your rights are being trampled all over, the powers that be are going to take away everything you care about.”
When you’re conditioned to feel like a victim of the establishment, it’s much easier to fall for anti-establishment conspiracy theories. So, there are a lot of different pathways into this, but it really comes down to feeling unfulfilled, feeling disenfranchised, feeling powerless — for valid reasons or otherwise.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/ ... followers/
I think it is more concerning now that, 3 years later, a growing number seem to be stuck in the denial phase and haven't moved onto the acceptance phase. The above may offer a partial explanation for this, but I think there are other factors at play too.
One comment on a recent Nate Hagens video discussed the concept of dividing the population up into factions of
Post Doom
Avert Doom
No Doom
However, I would mention that more and more people joining the "Avert Doom" camp entrenches the proliferation of ideas like "If we can just get rid of Trump, we can avert doom." The election of Trump is confirmation that "Post Doom" is where we are already headed.
The screed is rather long, but interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULn8I1b6vfw
I have called this "Avert-Doom + Post-Doom versus No-Doom" in my personal files. Jeremy Grantham is wonderful and I wish all wealthy people (inherited or self-made) had his level of concern about Nature. I am about to look up Sir John Hicks - the fact that he is so eminent and yet not a household name probably equates to him being uncomfortably truthful. I sometimes get annoyed when channels like this host optimistic people who insist that Mankind can fix the current Metacrisis. I forget my own advice that you have to have Thesis and also ANTI-Thesis in order to get Synthesis. I am human - a robot would not forget this, once it was firmly in its head.
Of course Jeremy (clearly not having read the Book of the Bible he is named after, or not believing in its historical accuracy) is going to have a "Can Do" attitude. This is his personality, and thank God for everyone like this. By setting his Avert-Doom logic against the logic of Post-Doom, each mindset emerges more clearly with its flaws and strengths.
In the end, if Avert-Doomers can get Mankind to start preparing properly for Doom because they accept Doom as a fact (whether it can be averted or not), this is way the best "solution" for all Nations. The British Army has the five P's - Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Humans don't see themselves as performing animals - but ultimately, we all have to perform in some way, if only by going into a convent or monastery or similar non-religious community of Retreat. Some modern Christians call it "The Benedict Option", thanks to Rod Dreher.
I mention convents and abbeys because we forget that Europe has often gone into mini-Overshoot in its history (and so have other continents). Jeremy Grantham mentions the Black Death - this revived the economy of England markedly, simply by halving the population (brutally, but it would have been halved by famine otherwise in those low-tech days with no Bank of England to print fake money). Even so, about a third of the population STILL did not have enough resources to marry and found a family. In the Middle Ages this third tended to go into abbeys, pre- and post- Black Death. Also into the armed forces if male, and non-maternal occupations if female. Later on in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, younger sons had to become Vicars or Soldiers for exactly the same reasons - not enough to go round for everyone to found a family. And there were many "spinsters" and "bachelors", most of them not by choice.
The Industrial Revolution did not on its own engender our relative luxury in the 20th century - it brought population explosion in Britain and appalling poverty, as bad as Calcutta or Mombasa nowadays or worse. Half of Britain was forced to emigrate to the "Colonies". A bit later half of the rest of Europe had to do the same. What brought relative prosperity to Europe was access to the Natural Resources of other continents on a really grand scale - indeed you could argue that both World Wars were fought over access to those Resources, and many scholars have done so (though their name is Mud).
Now the Developing World is suffering the same result of powerful Industry and High Tech - population explosion and massive Overshoot in respect of Natural Resources especially Water.
I have noticed that some younger environmentalists, though not Christian, are like Revd Michael Dowd and are firmly Post-Doom. I put this down to growing up in a world that is clearly already IN Doom because children are more perceptive than adults in many ways, and not easily convinced that bad is good and black is white as per "1984". In this mindset, they sail through the programming of Education and Higher Education with an internal armour that simply (and quietly) disputes the whole torrent of Liberal Progressive Globalist Perpetual Growth nonsense to which their parents and grandparents have (in the main) succumbed AS ADULTS.
Christians are uniquely capable of joining the late Revd Dowd in his firm but cheerful Post-Doom attitude - but they often don't, unless they have read the Bible carefully. The established Churches conform to the material world to a ridiculous degree these days, and have all jumped on the Avert Doom bandwagon though it contradicts every single line of both Old and New Testaments. But most Post Doomers are clearly not Christian, or even religious at all. I have been in the Post Doom camp for a while (though I spent decades in Avert Doom mode). So obviously I have already done my Synthesis, and remain Pro-Life for individuals but not for our entire species in its "algal bloom" numbers.
Humans are too nervous about horrific descent into the world of the Four Horsemen. Although they are supposed to signal the End of the World, their repeated appearance over centuries seems to indicate a series of huge Collapses, after which - AND ONLY AFTER WHICH - some degree of Recovery becomes possible. This is after all how the Natural World operates. Spring Summer Autumn Winter. Birth, Growth, Decline, Death/Decay. Then Birth again.
Fertility collapse for humans and other species is hopefully just Autumn and Winter (though species can and do go extinct). Certainly we should not be aiming to replace the current population in any Nation on Earth - even Japan and South Korea which are undergoing spectacular (and much-needed) declines. They still haven't declined enough to be viable at any standard of living,, even a relatively modest one.
But this is a Post Doom assertion, and only when set against Avert Doom assertions can its strength or weakness emerge blinking into the light. At the moment Post Doomers are like seedlings, struggling to grow in darkness. Arguably it is they who need more limelight than the ubiquitous Avert Doomers. But Avert Doomers are not NO-Doomers. They accept that Doom is on the way (unless humans can control events as they believe) - this is an asset to Post Doomers, ultimately.
Because if the "Go-Getters" accept that Doom is likely, our best brains switch to contemplating a possible Post-Doom strategy (IN CASE Doom happens), instead of wasting time trying to avert Doom. A committed Post-Doomer won't have a strategy, apart from "roll with the punches". But the personality of Avert-Doomers is not going to sit still and "wait and see". It is going to want to exert some control over the future, amid mutterings about "lazy" people "contemplating their navel". Fine - at least if it accepts Doom, then that control and "brio" will be going in the right direction, for once.
And speaking of "brio" - it is no coincidence that Italy was the first European nation to CHOOSE 1 child per woman on average, for the sole purpose of enjoying life to the full, the naughty things .......Italy also created the "Slow Food" movement, which has now morphed into "Slow Everything" (except possibly driving). You can't enjoy your SIMPLE and LOCAL Italian food unless you take at least two hours preparing it and then at least two hours eating it, in a convivial setting.
"At the moment Post Doomers are like seedlings, struggling to grow in darkness. Arguably it is they who need more limelight than the ubiquitous Avert Doomers."
I agree. Though I would just reiterate that sentiments like if we can just get rid of Trump, we can avert doom are not helpful at this point. Or sentiments like taking out the UnitedHealth CEO will serve as a wakeup call to fix existing health care. It's way too late for any of that.
