The Sophistication of the Ignorant

 

Some weeks ago, over lunch, I was rather surprised to discover that one of my colleagues appears to believe that the US Government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Now, this is not some poorly educated or particularly gullible individual but a competent professional and a former political activist. And he is by no means the only such person to believe in one of the various 9/11 theories. It appears, for example, that Wikipedia's current entry on 9/11 conspiracy theories was written by someone who seems to believe some of them (although Wikipedia have added a disclaimer saying that the entry needs to be cleaned up). In any case, it is certainly not surprising that such theories are gaining ground among the less-well educated public if they have been able to make inroads even among relatively sophisticated people.

This came to mind again today while I was reading one of today's posts on Gardjola, which described a particularly hilarious example and one that is not likely to convince educated Westerners (although, to be honest, nothing would surprise me).

The reality seems to be that, whether they are sophisticated or not, many people go through life lacking adequate knowledge of certain areas that are fundamental for an understanding of public affairs. And what is true in the field of foreign relations is even more true in economics. I am no expert on the inner workings of the human mind but my guess would be that we may all suffer from some mild-paranoia which is triggered particularly by situations that are too complex for us to understand properly with the knowledge that we have available. A somewhat more reliable analysis of this fascinating phenomenon can be found in Daniel Pipes' work Conspiracy, How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From and in several articles on his website.

Incidentally, Mark Steyn has also just published a very good review of two books about 9/11 conspiracies.

At the end of the day, there is no doubt in my mind that education remains, as always, the antidote to ignorance and modern-day superstition. And the ability to provide clear and relevant bites of information in ways that can be understood by all is probably one of the contributions that moderate political blogs can make to this extremely important process.