June 14, 2022: Self-Sealing Mindsets -

My favorite news story of the week is about how two guys, Dave and Doug, made hundreds of crop circles in the UK, back in the 1980’s and 90’s, which some folks took to be evidence that aliens were about to land. It all happened about 40 years ago, and the reveal isn’t news – they came clean way back in 1991.

The trouble is, true believers in the aliens-make-crop-circles theory just don’t believe that Dave and Doug made them - despite their having the drawings, and describing in detail how they did it. Eventually, a number of copycat pranksters made circles, and also came clean, at which point some true believers went for a variant explanation: yes, humans do make crop circles, but there is a supernatural force directing their efforts!

There’s a movie coming out about all this, which is why it’s in the news. The article quotes one Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology prof from the University of Bristol, who says, “conspiratorial cognition and conspiracy theories are self-sealing.’

“If you puncture a hole in a theory with new evidence, like proof that people are making crop circles, it will seal itself by incorporating the new evidence or flipping it on its head,” Dr. Lewandowsky said.

“And,” he continued, “if you point out that there is no evidence for a theory, they will say, ‘Exactly! That shows how hard the deep state is working to cover it up,’ or the lack of alien sightings just proves how advanced the aliens are because they are invisible.”

Dr. Lewandowsky noted that this kind of thinking long predates social media. “What is going on is that some people feel they have lost control, and instead of admitting that we live in a world we can’t control they take comfort from believing that there is agency involved and someone who can be blamed, whether it is mass shootings being faked by actors, or 5G causing Covid, or whatever,” he said.”

Or whatever!

I think we can all come up with a whole bunch of whatevers!

Also, I love the phrase “self-sealing,” and the image of the puncture that somehow just doesn’t deflate the balloon.

I watched some of the January 6^th Committee hearings this week, and they made me flash back to those four long, tense years, when it seemed as if “alternative facts” repeatedly had Normal Facts on the ropes. I was mildly cheered to learn that in the waning days of the former administration, there were two legal teams, one staffed by folks who called themselves Team Normal.

The revelations of the hearings are getting little press, and it’s no wonder. Those of us who follow News Normal pretty much know the story already, and while there are a few piquant new details, there isn’t yet anything entirely new.

The ex-president was and remains “willfully blind,” and repeatedly refused to listen to Team Normal’s facts.  Some of his cagey cronies refuse to say what they believe, and others, the true-believer Self-Sealing Team can’t hear a word, so the committee’s careful laying out of facts isn’t making a dent in them.  Still, it’s worth doing, laying out the facts. I missed facts when they were on the run.

(Speaking of dents, one of my favorite small amusements is when a car cuts right in front of me, and it has a great big dent already, right where I might have hit it. I love that! I get to say, “How’s that working for you so far?”)

The thing is, I suspect we all have self-sealing belief systems, and they don’t have to be conspiratorial.  I think we just do it, for the comfort it provides, not only the comfort of blaming someone for what is happening all around us, but all sorts of comforts. Case in point: I went on a fruitless quest today, and it was a waste of time. I suspected it might be. I should have canceled before I began.

And yet, I seem incapable of just accepting that. I can hold “waste of time” in my thoughts for a split second or so, and then I fall into, “Actually, I learned something from that experience,” or “It was a nice day for a drive.”  

As self-sealing systems go, “that wasn’t so bad” is generally pretty benign. I think. It helps me laugh at the dented car of the guy who cut me off. But I may be wrong. A beloved lefty friend urged me to “stay angry” recently, and I thought no, anger makes me dysfunctional and sleepless.  It makes her functional! But it doesn’t work for me.