Reference no: EM133210237

Democracy Dies in Darkness: Conspiracy Theories

Everything flows from your sources of information. Think about your sources of information. Newspapers, television, social media, the classroom, your classmates, family or neighbours.

In authoritarian countries the government is the primary source of information and with respect to sensitive topics tied to government power, the information is limited or shaped to support the government's narrative. In China, the Great Firewall blocks controversial information from the outside (and inside) and those who do manage to hear accurate information often don't know what to believe. As we saw in the Tiananmen Incident discussion board discussion, few Chinese students knew many details about the incident until they came to the West. People who emigrated to the West from the former Soviet Union (The Russian Empire) used to say, 'I don't believe anything'. And that is sad because there are people who tell the truth or at least doa good job of estimating the truth. Personally, I come from a scientific background and in science we never say that we have found the truth but only that through rigorous methodology we are better able to estimate the truth, and yet sometimes we will still be completely wrong.

Of course, one might view control of information as somewhat necessary in authoritarian one-party states where the only alternative to the present government is revolution. The government needs to control the narrative and such governments often work overtime through 'education' to promote the values of stability and harmony.

In democratic countries there are many sources of information and one is free to believe what one wants to believe. And with the advent of the Internet, it's even easier to shine a light on the truth. However, as we've learned from Chinese Daoism, everything has good and bad. It's also easier on the Internet for unvetted stories to gain traction, stories that are pure fabrication. And worse, the Internet controls which stories you "see" because "your" news is fed to you by the provider (e.g. Facebook) based on your past viewing history. Today, anything can pass for news and misinformation is a threat to stability in any country. Witness Trump's claim that voter fraud led to his loss in the US election. Approximately 60% of Republicans believe him even though no credible information has been provided and his court cases have been thrown out of court across the United States. Trump has created his own conspiracy theory and he is undermining people's confidence in democracy. But again, it's not all bad news. The reality appears to be that the recent American election was the safest and most honest election in American history. Biden's victory was real. However, low information people subjected to disinformation campaigns by unscrupulous politicians and media are at risk of not knowing the truth. Might they become pawns in a revolution designed to bring to power or keep in power untrustworthy leaders, such as happened in Germany at the end of the First World War?

Conspiracy theories can destroy countries and lead to war. The Germans lost the First World War. Media coverage of the war was restricted in Germany and many people did not know the facts. Of course, losing a war is always a humiliating experience. After the war, a conspiracy theory was born that led to the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler. The conspiracy was that at war's end, the Germans were not losing the war, but that the war effort was undermined by liberals within Germany including socialists and Jews, leading to the German surrender. It's known as the "stab in the back" theory. In other words, there were enemies both within the country and outside the country that led to the German defeat and decades of humiliation for the German people. It was a lie and it was a lie promoted by the German general who led the army during the War, a German general who had actually pleaded with the government to arrange an end to the war. He became a supporter of Hitler and Hitler used this conspiracy theory to gain influence and power in Germany and we all know that Hitler's rise to power had world-wide impact, witness the millions of Chinese who died at the hands of Germany's ally Japan during World War II.

There's a somewhat similar story in China, but not as extreme. Students in China are taught in school about China's 100 years of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers in the 19th and early 20th century during the Qing Dynasty and the early Republican Era. You will know from our PowerPoints that 19th century Shanghai, for example, was dominated by the English, French, and Japanese and other nationalities had influence. The police in Shanghai were Sikhs from India!!!! The special privileges enjoyed by the Western powers in China (called extra-territoriality) were ended by the Nationalist Government and the last special rights treaty ended in 1936. But the Chinese saw parts of their country (mainly treaty ports) dominated by foreigners and certainly that is humiliating. But can these facts be used to serve broader conspiratorial purposes? In conspiracy theories there is always an "other", an enemy. During the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, the Chinese government claimed that the Americans were sending weapons to the students in the Square. It was a silly lie. But it fit with a narrative that China's problems are not created by China but by foreign powers, by "anti-China forces". Conspiracy theories, through distraction, serve to insulate governments from criticism. It's the same sleigh-of-hand magicians use, don't look here, look here.

And here's where education factors in. The European era in China was NOT represented as a humiliation in Chinese education nor Chinese historical writing until after 1989 and the onset of 'patriotic education' in the Chinese education system, not until after the 1989 student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square calling for Western-style freedoms. You might remember seeing the students carry the Goddess of Democracy through the square, a replica of the Statue of Liberty. The sentiment in the Chinese government was that the students needed more patriotic education, that foreign ideas were a danger to the Communist Party and stability. Today, patriotic education dominates the Chinese education system. One Beijing university professor was censured and lost his job a few years ago when he argued that notwithstanding the regrettable Western "sense of superiority" in the 19th century, the West brought many good things to China including technology (e.g. countless millions of Chinese lives were saved by Western vaccines during the smallpox era) and new ideas about government (before her death, the Empress Dowager Cixi was considering adopting a constitutional monarchy form of government like the British), and the professor suggests that there was a measure of sincerity in Western efforts to help modernize China (efforts some Chinese resisted unlike the Japanese who modernized quickly only to then invade China). Is there a danger that sensitivity, sensitivity evolving from a sense of humiliation and grievance stoked by political motives, can evolve into an unhealthy nationalism where any criticism is viewed as being motivated by anti-Chinese feelings and a desire to keep China down? Are there dangers in cultivating the idea that foreigners are trying to stab China in the back? German lies turned German against German and eventually Germans against the world. The Cultural Revolution turned Chinese against Chinese as the education system focused on the difference between good people (Communists) and bad people (everyone else). Trump's lies turn American against American.

Are there dangers in Chinese nationalism, both for China and for the world?