Rabbit Holes

Speculations on Conspiracy Theories, Patterns, and Dots That Connect

1.

A number of years ago, I gave a talk at the Harvard Coop, focused on conspiracy theories. I noticed immediately that the audience seemed to be sorted into two groups of people.

About two-thirds of them looked like curious students from the area. About one-third looked older, more serious, a bit angry, and (in some cases) oddly dressed.

I had an immediate intuition, which was that the older one-third consisted mostly of people who accepted one or another conspiracy theory. When we got to the question-and-answer period, my intuition proved to be right. Those I believed to be conspiracy theorists wanted to focus not on the talk (which was about how conspiracy theories arise and sustain themselves), but on why a particular conspiracy theory was correct.

As I recall, they pointed mostly to the 9/11 attacks and the Kennedy assassination (JFK, not RFK). They were angry that I did not seem to agree that their theory was right.

I tried to bracket the question they wanted me to address, but they did not like that at all. And what I learned, from their remarks in the session and afterwards, is that they were experts on their preferred topic. They certainly had far more information than I did. They knew a ton of details about the 9/11 attacks. They knew an immense amount about the Kennedy assassination.

The conspiracy theory that they endorsed seemed to be their hobby; it felt almost like their job. And while the question-and-answer period did not allow them to demonstrate everything they knew (not close), they much wanted to talk afterwards, at length, to explain to me what actually had happened.

They wanted to convince me. In learning about their preferred theory, they had gone down plenty of rabbit holes. As it seemed to me, some of them almost lived in rabbit holes.

When I told them that I was focusing on conspiracy theories as such, and not evaluating the truth or falsity of particular theories, they were unhappy with me.

2.

Winston Churchill is often said to have said: “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” (Apparently he didn’t say that, which is kind of perfect.)

3.

The idea of the rabbit hole, in this context, comes from Lewis Carroll, and in particular Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.

4.

I recently wrote a post, here on Substack, about the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers Case:

To do it, I had to read a lot about Hiss and Chambers. In fact I had to read a lot from people who thought that Hiss was guilty, and a lot from people who thought that Hiss was innocent. On both sides, it is easy to find highly intelligent people. What is striking is that they have gone down so many rabbit holes — nicknames, apartments, typewriters, pumpkins, 1937 or 1938 (which?), fake names (but which fake names?), dogs, birds, Ales, and much more (much, much more).

Part of the sociological interest of the Hiss-Chambers Case is that competing views map onto identifiable political commitments. If you are right of center, it might be important to you to establish that Hiss was a Communist. Establishing that might fit with, and fortify, your view of the world. If Hiss was not a Communist, your view of the world would take some kind of blow.

If you are left of center, well, rewrite the preceding three sentences accordingly.

Here’s a way of thinking about this. Participants in the relevant debates engage in motivated reasoning. They believe what they want to believe. (Hence confirmation bias.) They get an emotional reward when they find confirming evidence, and suffer a bit when they get disconfirming evidence. They have a rooting interest.

But some participants in the relevant debates are not motivated reasoners; they are good Bayesians. They update in light of their priors. If they begin with a commitment to the innocence of Alger Hiss, they will weigh what they learn by reference to that commitment.

(Compare: If I see something suggesting that dropped objects do not fall, or that the earth does not go around the sun, I will tend to dismiss it, not because I have an emotional commitment to my beliefs, but because I hold those beliefs firmly and it will take a lot to dislodge them.)

(Compare debates over climate change, where there are also plenty of rabbit holes, and where people with different priors update in radically different ways: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol102/iss6/1/.)

5.

In some circles, grand theories of one or another kind, pointing to the baleful effects of some “ism,” are sometimes a product of something like conspiracy theories. Something (perhaps a concept) is said to be an agent in history, or Voldemort, and it is responsible for all kind of terrible things. It might be capitalism; it might be racism; it might be colonialism; it might be liberalism; it might be neoliberalism; it might be “power” (early Foucault). People who adopt grand theories sometimes go down rabbit holes.

(The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.)

In its most ingenious forms, this way of proceeding connects a lot of dots. It produces a potentially thrilling causal account. Ir produces a satisfying “aha!” (“I get it now!”) For that reason, it has plausibility. It might even be right. But (a confession) grand theories tend to leave me cold.

A grand theory might be a house of cards, or a just-so story. (Compare vaccine skeptics, or those who believe in UFOs and space aliens, or those who insist that some pretty innocuous X causes some horrible health hazard Y. Social media platforms lead people down lots of rabbit holes.)

Those who join cults often go down rabbit holes. Once you are in a cult, everything might suddenly make sense. You can give your favorite examples.

6.

Rabbit holes are hardly all the same. It is important to say that some extended periods in rabbit holes can enable people to discover the truth. In law, here is an example, involving the nondelegation doctrine. https://www.columbialawreview.org/content/delegation-at-the-founding/ And here is another example, involving the unitary executive. https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/penn_law_review/vol171/iss3/2/

But note well: Intelligent people have gone down the same rabbit holes and concluded that the conclusions in both of these essays are wrong.

7.

It would be valuable to have a better understanding of the rabbit hole phenomenon, or what Robbie Sutton and Karen Douglas call Rabbit Hole Syndrome. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X2200183X.

Inspired by Lewis Carroll, they point to processes that are (1) initially inadvertent and then (2) accelerating, and that lead to (3) entrenchment.

Their account captures not everything but a great deal, including the spread of conspiracy theories and their cousins online. Sutton and Douglas point illuminatingly to “illusory perceptions of pattern and causality,” with a whole lot of dot-connecting. What I would like to add to their account, and what also deserves emphasis, on the part of those who go down rabbit holes, is

an intense form of curiosity (sometimes culminating in obsession),

an acute longing for certainty (almost erotic), and

a fierce determination to find some kind of “aha!”

Some mystery-full novels trigger something similar. Think about the great Harlan Coben, or Dan Brown (especially The Da Vinci Code - underrated!), or A.S. Byatt’s masterpiece (and my favorite novel, ever), Possession.

I speculate that enthusiastic readers of The Da Vinci Code have some of the psychological experiences that conspiracy theorists have when investigating the 9/11 attacks, or that vaccine skeptics have when reading or thinking about (say) tylenol and autism, or that some people have when first discovering Freud or Ayn Rand, ot that some people have during conversion experiences. (Neuroscientists, help me out here?)

8.

Those who have gone down rabbit holes often want others to join them. Sometimes they seem desperate to get others to join them. I am not sure why. It might be intriguing to visit, at least for a time, but it’s usually not a lot of fun there. It’s good to bust out, even if you have to break some chains,