On conspiracy theories of ignorance

Karl Popper, the doctrine of manifest truth, and the tendency to treat sincere disagreement as disinformation.

Photo by Tarik Haiga on Unsplash

The truth is manifest

In “On the Sources of Knowledge and Ignorance”, Karl Popper identifies a kind of “epistemological optimism”—an optimism about “man’s power to discern truth and to acquire knowledge”—that has played a significant role in the history of philosophy. At the heart of this optimistic view, Popper argues, is the “doctrine that truth is manifest”:

“Truth may perhaps be veiled, and removing the veil may not be easy. But once the naked truth stands revealed before our eyes, we have the power to see it, to distinguish it from falsehood, and to know that it is truth.”

According to Popper, this doctrine inspired the birth of modern science, technology, and liberalism. If the truth is manifest, there is “no need for any man to appeal to authority in matters of truth because each man carried the sources of knowledge in himself”:

“Man can know: thus he can be free. This is the formula which explains the link between epistemological optimism and the ideas of liberalism.”

Although a liberal himself, Popper argues that the doctrine of manifest truth is false. “The simple truth,” he writes, “is that truth is often hard to come by, and that once found it may easily be lost again.” Moreover, he argues that the doctrine is pernicious. If we think the truth is manifest, we create “the need to explain falsehood”:

“Knowledge, the possession of truth, need not be explained. But how can we ever fall into error if truth is manifest? The answer is: through our own sinful refusal to see the manifest truth; or because our minds harbour prejudices inculcated by education and tradition, or other evil influences which have perverted our originally pure and innocent minds.”

In this way, the doctrine of manifest truth inevitably gives rise to “the conspiracy theory of ignorance”:

“Ignorance may be the work of powers conspiring to keep us in ignorance, to poison our minds by filling them with falsehood, and to blind our eyes so that they cannot see the manifest truth. Such prejudices and such powers, then, are sources of ignorance.”

Although Popper concedes that this conspiracy theory sometimes contains a grain of truth, he argues that “in the main it [is] a myth, just as the theory of manifest truth from which it grew [is] a myth.” Moreover, this set of myths has “led to disastrous consequences”:

“The theory that truth is manifest—that it is there for everyone to see, if only he wants to see it—this theory is the basis of almost every kind of fanaticism. For only the most depraved wickedness can refuse to see the manifest truth; only those who have every reason to fear truth can deny it, and conspire to suppress it.”

Disinformation discourse as a conspiracy theory of ignorance

Popper’s conjecture that the doctrine of manifest truth is a specific philosophical thesis that rose to prominence during one particular historical period is implausible. Instead, it seems to be a general feature of human psychology (“naive realism”) to overstate the ease of accessing truth. Nevertheless, the idea that overestimating the ease of accessing truth gives rise to implausible conspiracy theories of ignorance is insightful, as is Popper’s overarching point that knowledge is far more challenging to explain than ignorance.

Why do people believe true things?

Popper’s main illustration of a conspiracy theory of ignorance is the Marxist theory of “ideology” and false consciousness, which I explored in depth in the last article. In the modern context, however, there is an obvious connection with the concept of “disinformation”, one of the most influential buzzwords in contemporary politics and policy-making. The popular idea that organised disinformation campaigns lie behind public misperceptions about topics like democracy, vaccines, public health, immigration, climate change, geopolitical conflict, and much more seems to be a classic conspiracy theory of ignorance in Popper’s sense.

In previous work, I have criticised how the concept of “misinformation” is applied by researchers and policy-makers. Roughly, I think that narrow applications of the term (e.g., defined in terms of fake news) are legitimate but focus on content that is relatively rare and largely symptomatic of other problems, at least in Western democracies. In contrast, broad definitions inevitably get applied in biased and subjective ways, transforming misinformation research and policy-making into “partisan combat by another name”.

In these arguments, I have focused on misinformation rather than disinformation because disinformation is simply a specific form of misinformation. That is, as most prominent researchers use these terms, “misinformation” is an umbrella category that identifies allegedly misleading information without making any assumptions about the intentions of those communicating it, whereas “disinformation” names intentional misinformation (i.e., misinformation spread deliberately to deceive or otherwise manipulate audiences).

Understood in this way, the concept of disinformation presupposes the concept of misinformation, suggesting that the latter category is more fundamental. However, if people have strong evidence that a source is deliberately trying to mislead audiences, abstract worries about defining “misinformation” become irrelevant.

Nevertheless, precisely because the term “disinformation” involves assumptions about people’s intentions, it gives rise to unique challenges of its own. Identifying people’s mental states is notoriously tricky at the best of times, but especially so in cases of deception and manipulation when people go to great lengths to conceal their intentions. It is precisely the desire to avoid such mind-reading that explains why many researchers prefer the term “misinformation” to “disinformation”.

Moreover, one might worry that ubiquitous applications of the term “disinformation” involve a misguided conspiracy theory of ignorance in the way Popper suggests. According to this objection, the ubiquitous use of “disinformation” to describe views and narratives that members of a threatened liberal establishment disagree with is rooted in a naive commitment to the doctrine of manifest truth. Because members of that establishment treat their preferred views as obviously, self-evidently true, they explain the rejection of such opinions by populist forces and foreign adversaries in terms of disinformation rather than sincere disagreement.

In previous writings, I have advanced a criticism of disinformation discourse that tilts in this direction. Nevertheless, the issues here are complex and defy simple generalisations. Although I think there should be a strong presumption against conspiracy theories of ignorance—our default assumption should be that those we disagree with are sincere—this presumption should be overridden in some instances.

The case for conspiracy theories of ignorance

To begin with, abandoning the doctrine of manifest truth need not undermine conspiracy theories of ignorance. Even if knowledge is not the default state of humanity—even if it is a precarious achievement—specific forms of ignorance might still result from deliberate manipulation.

Moreover, the non-self-evidence of truth plausibly makes such manipulation easier. If knowledge were easy to achieve, spreading ignorance would be challenging. It would require overcoming people’s “natural” state. In contrast, if ignorance is the default state, the task seems more manageable. The goal is not to undermine pre-existing knowledge but to direct people’s ignorance in specific directions.

This reasoning seems vindicated by what we see in everyday life. When knowledge is easy to come by, manipulation is more challenging and less prevalent. Many fraudsters would benefit from convincing their victims that they are close family members, but it is easy to track who one’s relatives are. In contrast, in domains like politics, where issues are inherently complex, and people are uninformed, there seems to be much more room for deception and manipulation.

In addition, although we should avoid naivety about the challenges of acquiring knowledge, we should also avoid naivety about human nature. The simple fact is that deception and manipulation are uncomfortably widespread in human social life at almost every level, as they are among countless other organisms that evolved through the harsh process of evolution by natural selection.

Socialism, self-deception, and spontaneous order

One of my favourite books is Brian Hayden’s ‘The Power of Ritual in Prehistory’. Drawing on a wide range of ethnographic and archaeological evidence, Hayden documents the repeated, independent emergence of “secret societies” in small-scale societies throughout the globe, including in complex hunter-gatherer, tribal, and chiefdom societies across Melanesia, West Africa, and the Amazon.

In such secret societies, powerful coalitions (typically high-status men) claim to “hold the secrets of the universe and of life, to be able to control spirits, confer wealth, bring the dead back to life, exercise the possessed, and perform supernatural feats.” Predictably, they then typically exploit their reputation for possessing this secret supernatural knowledge to control, dominate, and exploit others in the community.

As Hayden notes,

“Secret societies existed to dominate non-members and to achieve benefits for members, especially the highest ranking members, who were typically a select group of ambitious, manipulative, and largely self-centred, unprincipled individuals… The creation of secret societies was only one of a suite of strategies used by such individuals to concentrate power and benefits in their own hands.”

The deployment of such manipulative strategies has occurred throughout human history. And in many cases, such strategies have been at least partly successful in driving specific forms of ignorance. Rejecting the doctrine of manifest truth need not mean rejecting this commonsense idea.

To consider a modern example, I have written elsewhere about Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election he lost was stolen or fraudulent. Although I think people exaggerate the influence of disinformation in explaining why so many Republican voters accepted this narrative—a large part of this acceptance was driven by affective polarisation (i.e., hating Democrats), distrust of institutions, and a general tendency among those who lose elections to question their legitimacy—I do not doubt (1) that Trump and other MAGA elites launched a self-serving disinformation campaign (2) that was partly successful in increasing the popularity of election denial among ordinary voters.

One could list many other examples of seemingly clear-cut disinformation campaigns in modern times, including tobacco companies’ attempts to cast doubt about the dangers of smoking and the efforts of fossil fuel companies to discredit the science of climate change. In none of these cases does the attribution of a conspiracy theory of ignorance rest solely on a conviction that the truth in such cases is self-evident. Instead, such accusations rest on compelling independent evidence of conspiracy and manipulation.

Finally, it is worth noting that our tendency to posit conspiracy theories of ignorance—to blame false beliefs on dishonesty or manipulation—is never merely a response to the world. It is an intervention in the world that affects other people’s incentives. Healthy, well-functioning societies must discourage dishonesty, which means identifying and punishing dishonest communication when it occurs. Given this, an excessive reluctance to posit conspiracy theories of ignorance in the name of charity or intellectual humility might inadvertently encourage more deception by reducing people’s accountability.

For all these reasons, rejecting the doctrine that truth is self-evident—and we should reject it—need not and should not drive us to deny the possibility that specific untruths are rooted in deliberate attempts to manipulate public opinion.

The case against conspiracy theories of ignorance

Nevertheless, there are several reasons why there should be a strong presumption against conspiracy theories of ignorance.

Avoiding bias

First, although such conspiracy theories do not presuppose the doctrine of manifest truth, Popper is correct that widespread endorsement of this doctrine makes people jump too quickly to such conspiracy theories whenever they encounter disagreement. Given this bias, we should exercise significant caution in this area.

Moreover, in domains like politics, this bias is exacerbated by strong independent tendencies to denigrate and demonise our political adversaries. The result is that people are excessively willing to treat disagreement as insincere and to treat those they disagree with as either liars or credulous victims of lies.

There are countless examples of this. For instance, anyone familiar with mainstream liberal or progressive media will have encountered the readiness to label any dissent from mainstream progressive views on climate, vaccines, public health, the Russia-Ukraine war, or anything else as “disinformation”. In all such cases, the assumption is that deep down, at least some of those spreading the relevant content know it is false but are doing so intentionally. The alternative possibility—that deep down, people simply have radically different views about reality—often does not register.

Of course, this tendency is symmetric. For example, the popular conservative critique of “liberal bias” in mainstream media and academia very often posits outright malevolence or even an elaborate conspiracy behind it. Hence, Rush Limbaugh’s famous announcement that science, mainstream media, and academia have been “corrupted”: “None of what they do is real. It’s all lies!”

Internalising our propaganda

Second, the concepts of intentional deception and “disinformation” are greatly complicated by the fact that people often internalise their propaganda. That is, against a commonsense picture in which propagandists maintain a gulf between their private beliefs and their propagandistic advocacy, research suggests that people’s private beliefs tend to shift toward their advocacy. Given this, the mere fact that people spread self-serving narratives need not mean that they are insincere.

On one level, this means that those you might think are spreading propaganda are often sincerely convinced of their propaganda. Given this, concepts like “lying” and “disinformation”, as they are typically understood, will not apply. Someone cannot be lying if they are expressing their sincere beliefs. This greatly exacerbates the complexities of detecting and punishing deception. (In fact, the tendency to internalise our propaganda might exist precisely because it makes our deception more challenging to punish).

However, the tendency to internalise our propaganda also has another important consequence: Propaganda rarely feels like propaganda from the inside. If our private beliefs shift towards those claims and narratives we are motivated to spread, expressing those claims and narratives will feel like honesty. Given this, not only are we disposed to exaggerate the degree to which those we disagree with are participating in disinformation campaigns, but our own side’s propagandistic advocacy is typically invisible to us.

As Nietzsche observed, the most successful deceivers are those who believe their deception:

“With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception they are overcome by belief in themselves: it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those around them.”

However, if you believe your own deception, your behaviour will not feel like deception.

The consequence? The outgroup is spreading disinformation. The ingroup is participating in activism for truth and justice.

This interpretive pattern is utterly obvious to everyone who is not a partisan hack. To mainstream liberals and progressives, almost every claim associated with right-wing populism is a lie or originates in disinformation. In contrast, any falsehoods, misrepresentations, or exaggerations connected to liberal or progressive politics are, at worst, innocent mistakes—a matter of activists getting a little bit carried away when trying to achieve an ultimately noble goal.

Likewise, I have never seen anything more absurd in my entire life than Joe Rogan angrily declaring Barack Obama a “liar” for misrepresenting the content of one of Donald Trump’s speeches whilst simultaneously seeing no issue with Donald Trump launching an aggressive disinformation campaign to try to overturn the results of a democratic election.

Poisoning public discourse

These tendencies then exacerbate a third phenomenon: Although a failure to detect and punish dishonesty can increase the amount of dishonesty, the tendency to classify people’s sincere views as dishonest tends to poison political discourse and exacerbate polarisation.

It is unpleasant when others disagree with one’s sincere viewpoint. It is infuriating when they treat it as insincere and deceptive.

For this reason, baseless conspiracy theories of ignorance are not just consequences of intense polarisation; they tend to increase polarisation.

As I have explored elsewhere, when members of competing political or cultural tribes hold conflicting perspectives on reality, they must explain where the other side’s perspective comes from—and do so in ways consistent with their assurance that their own perspective is correct.

America's epistemological crisis

As Walter Lippmann observes,

“The opponent presents himself as the man who says, evil be thou my good. He is an annoyance who does not fit into the scheme of things. Nevertheless he interferes. And since that scheme is based in our minds on incontrovertible fact fortified by irresistible logic, some place has to be found for him in the scheme. Rarely in politics… is a place made for him by the simple admission that he has looked upon the same reality and seen another aspect of it. That would shake the whole scheme.”¹

Instead, our explanations “make villains and conspiracies.”

The problem with that is that the other side rarely feels like villains. Given this, when they see themselves depicted as dishonest, they will view such depictions as dishonest, which, of course, will simply reinforce their negative understanding of the other side. The result is a kind of polarisation doom loop.

The disinformation cope

Finally, although conspiracy theories of ignorance involve paranoia, they are also often optimistic. When you trace other people’s ignorance and mistaken beliefs to disinformation or intentional manipulation more broadly, you assume that, deep down, people really agree with you, or at least would agree with you if only you could rid the world of lies and malevolence.

As I have noted, in some cases, this interpretation is plausible. However, in many cases, it functions as a kind of “cope” to use internet lingo. By treating disagreement and dissent as insincere or as rooted in deception, you can end up significantly underestimating the political challenges you confront. If the problem is disinformation, the solution is to identify the disinformers and hold them accountable.

In contrast, if the problem is that people interpret reality through a fundamentally different set of beliefs and interpretive frameworks, the solution is far more challenging. It must involve deep persuasion, attempts to empathise and understand where others are coming from, and building trust between members of different belief-based communities.

Worst of all, if other people—people just as intelligent, rational, and well-meaning as you—have sincerely come to disagree with you about the nature of reality, you might be forced to question the rational basis of your own beliefs.

You might have to confront the possibility that the truth is not as obvious as you thought.

1. Conspicuous Cognition drinking game: take a shot every time I quote Walter Lippmann.