Spot-on analysis from my fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark<\/a>:<\/p>\n I still love The X-Files,<\/em> but the mythology of that show was squarely far off on the Them side of the conspiracy spectrum of paranoia. That wasn\u2019t because Chris Carter was himself a paranoid conspiracist, but because he recognized that the fantasy world of paranoid conspiracists makes for a more exciting story<\/em>. It provided a host of villains and antagonists to prove the mettle of our heroes.<\/p>\n And that, I believe, is also what motivates most \u201cbelief\u201d in conspiracy theories and pushes them further and further along the spectrum toward the more paranoid, more harmful end. It\u2019s a search for excitement and a way to create villains that will make \u201cbelievers\u201d seem or feel or pretend to feel like more of a hero.<\/p>\n It\u2019s this need and desire for meaning and excitement, the need to feel like a hero, that accounts for much of the anger, resentment, and hostility that conspiracy theorists demonstrate when they react to evidence that debunks the existence of their longed-for villainous \u201cThem.\u201d This is not the courageous anger of a hero boldly standing up against evil despite overwhelming odds. It is, rather, the whining anger of someone upset that you\u2019re threatening to spoil their game.<\/p>\n This, again, is why trying to debunk paranoid conspiracy theories with facts and evidence and logic tends not to work. The game provides an in-game explanation for all of that, dismissing inconvenient facts and evidence as the work of \u201cThem.\u201d But more importantly, all those facts do not and cannot address the deep need for meaning and excitement \u2014 or, at least, for a passable imitation of them \u2014 that the player first turned to the game to find. They \u201cbelieve\u201d in the game because, even if they semi-consciously know it\u2019s not real, they believe it\u2019s the closest they\u2019ll ever get to meaning and excitement and being able to think of themselves as heroes.<\/p>\n This is what accounts for the indomitable \u201cNothing will ever convince me otherwise\u201d aspect of their commitment to pretending to believe in the game. And I fear that even the possibility of catching, spreading, and dying from an undeniably real pandemic virus won\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n They\u2019re stuck in the game, stuck in preferring the game to reality, until and unless we can convince them of some other meaningful source of meaning. They want and need to be heroes. If we\u2019re going to convince them to stop playing games, we have to show them that\u2019s possible here in reality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read the rest on his blog<\/a>. See also the articles \u201cDid the X-Files Prime Us for the QAnon Era?<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Millions of Christs of America<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The Millions of Christs of America<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n