Many years ago I was called in for a consultation with a professional woman in her mid-50's who had been hospitalized, reluctantly, by her long time boyfriend, to rule/out recent onset paranoid delusions. The house staff at the hospital where I was the Chief Resident were confused by the case. The woman was well spoken, bright, successful and did not have any of the obvious stigmata of a psychotic illness. She was not hearing voices, her speech was not disconnected or bizarre (the "loosening of associations" or "flight of ideas" seen in certain psychotic states); furthermore, she was quite reasonable in her description of the kinds of difficulty she was having. The house staff were at a loss to determine how to treat this woman, or if, in fact, she needed any kind of treatment.
Her story was not an uncommon one in New York at the time. She was living in a rent controlled apartment and her landlord was eager to do a co-op conversion, from which he would reap an enormous profit. The local tabloids often had stories about landlords in just such situations using strong arm tactics and terror to get rent controlled tenants to leave so the conversion could proceed. Ms. W. calmly and serenely described how her landlord had hired thugs to threaten people in the building; while she had not been directly threatened, they had contrived to occupy the apartment upstairs from her and would pound on the floor all night long to keep her from getting any rest. Her calm in describing the story was a little disconcerting; after all, people in Psychiatric wards are rarely so calm, however, the question of her pathology, if any, was acute. [I might add that the fact that 6 young Psychiatric residents were observing the interview and waiting for me, only two years ahead of them in training, to solve their problem in our one hour time allotted for the conference did nothing to increase my calm.] Nonetheless, I persevered; she was here for a reason and the one who knew her best had convinced her she needed to be in a hospital. With many paranoid delusions, there is a tendency for them to spread; if someone important disappointed her, it would not be unusual for that person to be incorporated into the delusion. ("Now you've joined them in persecuting me!") In this case, she was quite sure her longtime boyfriend only had her best interests at heart. The first "break" in the case came when she admitted he didn't hear the pounding at night; however, she assured me he didn't sleep over every night (preferring his own place most nights) and he was a particularly deep sleeper. When I asked her to describe exactly how the pounding affected her, things became more interesting. She told me the pounding was so heavy that she could feel it throughout her body; and she added that when they hooked up the electric shock machine, she felt the shocks throughout her body as well.
At this point it was clear she was suffering from a delusion, since at the time there was no capability in existence that could project a shock through the ceiling of her room, into her body, without affecting her partner; when confronted (gently) she merely suggested they had gotten the machine from the CIA. Here is where it completely broke down; even if the CIA had such a machine, the likelihood they would allow it to be used by their agents in the interest of a crooked landlord seeking a co-op conversion didn't pass the test of reason.
Sadly, this woman's delusion was part of an unusual presentation of Alzheimer's disease; her delusions were an attempt to protect herself from knowing she was mentally deteriorating. She had a barely conscious awareness that her mental acuity was waning; she had been making mistakes at work and had been worried about her slippage right up until the time she "realized" it was her broken sleep, caused by the landlord, that was impairing her. Thus, if she were unable to sleep because someone else was attacking her mind, then there was hope; if she could get someone to stop the attacks on her sleep, she could recover. The alternative, that she was losing her mental facilities to her subsequently diagnosed Alzheimer's disease was much more terrifying.
I thought of this woman because of some recent discussion of conspiracy theories. I thought it would be useful to compare a conspiracy theory widely held on the left with one that is gaining some traction on the right. The idea that Bush lied about WMD, to get us into war, is a commonplace that drives much of the rhetoric from the left, which includes a large swath of the Democratic party. Dean Esmay remarked about the virulence of current conspiracy theories in his post on Some Swans Are Black: A Pre-War Intelligence Prediction:
Of course, I can't convince anyone who doesn't want to be convinced. But just remember: the harder you strain to make weak evidence look supportable, the weirder the places you find yourself in. Apply Occam's Razor and all of these speculations suddenly come into sharp relief: all things considered, the simplest explanation tends to be the most correct. The amount of assumptions you need to make before believing there was some big lie and coverup on pre-war intelligence are enormous; the number you need to believe that we--yes we, including people on all sides of the political spectrum--were simply wrong are quite small.
The discussion in the comments confirms how hard it is to use reason to persuade people to question their assumptions. Dean adds in a comment of his own that things seem particularly bad now:
Yeah I guess I have to agree it's never been quite this bad in my mind. Some of that's just because of the internet, and the disastrous choice the Democrats made in embracing Howard Dean as a result of that I think.
Neo-neocon advances the discussion; she too quotes Occam's razor as a useful device for discerning the reality (reality testing) a conspiracy theory and adds that the seeming increase in conspiracy theories has to do with people feeling out of control and frightened:
What's the origin of the need to see a conspiracy behind every unpleasant event? One reason is the desire for order and control--even though, paradoxically, conspiracy theories posit a shadowy world out of the control of most of us. But, like children who want everything to have a reason and an explanation, conspiracy theorists can rest assured that at least someone (if only the conspirators) is in control and that there are few accidents, few random terrible and unpredictable events that we cannot control.
The same, I believe, is true for some of the demonization of Bush: better to believe he's evil but in control than that the situation is inherently somewhat chaotic. Nature--and people--seem to abhor the vacuum of anarchy, and conspiracy theories rush in to fill the void.
Finally, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred bring the question of skewed information from those with a hidden agenda, into the mix:
In fact the MSM deliberately paints a picture of an America that is in direct opposition to the 'high minded' and 'noble' UN.
Conspiracies have no boundaries. They can be, and often are, the product of deliberate misrepresenatations- sometimes subtle, sometimes adversarial, of the agendistas of all stripes.
....
The people most likely to believe, without reservation, in the kind of conspiracy theory Neo-neocon describes are also the people who trult believe that Mr Bush is Hitler reincarnate and has as his goal a reinstatement of the Nazi agenda and Nazi ideologies. That is not an exaggeration. Spend a bit of time on Democratic Underground and Daily Kos, for example. In what has to be great irony, someone once noted that people most likely to believe in conspiracies are those most likely to participate in conspiracies. What is ironic is that the more significant the event, the more likely there will be charges of (outrageous) conspiracies. In addition, conspiracy theorists usually fail to explain how the most outrageous and complex conspiracy theories, requiring a cast of hundereds (if not thousands) is able to maintain itself. Oh well.
It is indisputable that if you have wrong information, you can easily arrive at incorrect results. If I believed an electric shock machine existed in the 1980's capable of shocking Ms. W at a distance, I might have not pressed her further and might never have done more formal neuro-psychological testing which ultimately revealed her early stage AD.
What about a conspiracy theory believed on the right? MacRanger and AJStrata have both been especially vigilant writing about the CIA leaks, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson scandal (from the point of view of a possible rogue CIA operation) and the idea of a shadow group in the CIA and State who have the dual goals attacking the Bush administration policy and covering their own culpability in the intelligence failures of the last 10-15 years. What evidence do we have that these two are not merely fanatical partisans who have invented a paranoid fantasy?
First, what about the facts in the case? In the 1980's, there existed no "beam" weapon known to man which could do what Ms. W. insisted it did; ie shock her internally without leaving a trace and without disturbing someone lying next to her. In a similar vein, in the case of the Bush lied theory, there has never been any direct evidence to support the idea. There have been no memos, letters, depositions, postcards, etc, stating that the President said that he knew there were no WMD's in Iraq, and decided to invade anyway. There are numerous memos, etc, suggesting he and many, many others, believed there were WMD's and were surprised to be found wrong. On the other hand, the rogue CIA story is true on its face. Within the last few weeks there have been several leaks of secret, and very sensitive, data to friendly newspapers which have prominently printed stories that have made the Bush administration's job in prosecuting the war more difficult; that is prima facie evidence of people attempting to subvert the President's policy.
Second, what about the motive for a conspiracy theory? In the case of Ms. W. she clearly gained relief from a greater terror by invoking a lesser terror; she had a personal stake in her delusion being held to be true. Her delusion was protective. In the case of Bush lied, the purveyors have a great deal to gain if people believe their story, and the Bush administration has little to gain if it is proved false and everything to lose if it is true; ie Bush had no motive (which is why the idea is bruited about that he lied based on some pseudo-psychological misapplication of the Oedipal complex.) To lie going into Iraq knowing there was no WMD would have been a disaster an order of magnitude worse than what we are seeing now. If a smoking gun memo were ever found, Bush would be impeached in an instant. The lack of such evidence is highly suggestive. On the other hand, those who insist he lied correctly surmise that the only way they can remain relevant, raise funds, and perhaps regain power, is by totally discrediting the Republicans. (This may only work if the Democrats can all get on the same page and repeat "Bush lied" like a mantra, and the war is a disaster, but that is a very high risk strategy which relies on their friends in the media to continue propagating a line that will not survive ongoing contact with reality; this suggests their narcissism is intimately invested as well, but that is dealt with in other posts.) As to the rogue CIA, again, there is plenty of motive to go around. Those who would gravitate to such a conspiracy have the training, may have financial motives (Valerie Plame is likely to reap a hefty book contract and perhaps a movie deal, at the least), and certainly have an interest in avoiding the ignominy that would accrue to them if they were seen to be part of the failed culture of the old CIA. Further, we know that Able Danger files have been destroyed, secrets have been almost continuously leaked to undermine our war effort, and people have been ignored and kept from testifying; classic bureaucratic CYA.
Finally, the best part of this exercise is that we have the ability to see for ourselves who more closely hews to reality, the "Bush lied" group, or AJ Strat and MacRanger. Congressional and Independent commissions have failed to find any evidence to support a "Bush lied conspiracy", which would, of necessity involve hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. On the other hand, future Congressional investigations, plus the efforts of Porter Goss, et al, will shortly be able to determine if there are rogue elements the CIA and State Department, or whether such ideas are fever dreams of the right.
As I have suggested, from the Psychiatric point of view, the rogue CIA conspiracy has the motive, means, and capabilities on their side, and only requires a small cadre of committed, like-minded souls. The Bush lied conspiracy has a difficult time finding a motive that is not inherently contradictory, has a difficult time with the means and capabilities (if they could fake the intelligence, why wouldn't they have simply brought in some WMD to "discover" in the Iraqi dessert?), and is burdened by requiring such a high number of conspirators as to be functionally impossible.
Luckily, time will tell who is "reality-based" and who is not, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anyone's minds to change just because of facts.
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