January 15, 2022 • 42 mins
This episode of ReligionWise features a conversation with Dustin Nash, Associate Professor of Religion Studies at Muhlenberg College.
In this conversation, we discuss conspiracy narratives and how the methods of religious studies can help us understand why individuals believe what they believe. Additionally, we consider how belief can lead to action as well as support an individual's view of self and identity.
Show Notes:
- Dustin Nash article: Fossilized Jews and Witnessing Dinosaurs at the Creation Museum: Public Remembering and Forgetting at a Young Earth Creationist “Memory Place” (https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/scjr/article/view/11027)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:09):
Welcome to ReligionWise the podcast where
we feature educators,researchers and other
professionals discussing topicson religion and their relevance
to the public conversation. Myname is Chip Gruen. I'm the
Director of the Institute forReligious and Cultural
Understanding at MuhlenbergCollege, and I will be the host
for this podcast.
(00:30):
Today's guest is Dr. DustinNash, Associate Professor of
Religion Studies in theDepartment of Religion Studies
at Muhlenberg College, we satdown to talk about epistemology,
belief, conspiracy theory, andhow all these things fit
together. He's a good guest tohave on those topics because
he's both published and taughton these topics, including a
(00:51):
first year seminar that he doescalled Proving the Unprovable
that thinks about what peoplebelieve and why they believe it,
particularly when those beliefsare out of the mainstream. He
has also produced a articleentitled "Fossilized Jews and
Witnessing Dinosaurs at theCreation Museum: Public
Remembering and Forgetting at aYoung Earth Creationist Memory
(01:13):
Place" in which he thinks a lotabout how community and ideology
and belief all wrap up togetherin this public place of
remembrance. So it's my pleasureto welcome today, Dr. Dustin
Nash.
Welcome to ReligionWise Dustin,thanks for joining us today.
Dustin Nash (01:33):
Thank you for having me.
Chip Gruen (01:34):
So I know that both in your teaching and research,
you're interested in thinkingabout not only what people
believe, but digging deeper intowhy they believe those things
and what those beliefs might dofor them. Can you talk a little
bit about how you becameinterested in this topic?
Dustin Nash (01:51):
Yeah, so my, my entrance into this subject, came
through some initial researchthat I did on the young earth
creationist community in theUnited States, where I did field
research at the Creation Museumin Petersburg, Kentucky, and
then later at the Ark Encounter,which is, which was constructed
(02:13):
and is run by the same parentorganization as the Creation
Museum. And it was through thatresearch, which was done in
support of a class that reallytriggered an interest in how
these communities are forming,why people were going to these
places who was going there, andthe kind of dynamics of the
communities that they weresupporting, especially having
(02:37):
done field research at thesesites, my own discomfort in
those spaces being palpable, andhow that ran in kind of
dissonance with their statedgoals. The goals of these sites
were ones of bringing peopleinto thinking in the way that
they wanted people to think. Buthaving been in those spaces, I
(03:00):
found this uncompelling to acertain extent. And so I didn't
feel like they were functioningso much in that way, that I
wasn't their audience. Theiraudience was somewhere else it
was doing other work, really,for people who are already
members of the community. Sothese weren't, these weren't
(03:21):
machines to create new membersof those communities to to show
the compelling or to convincepeople, if you are an ardent
evolutionist going to theCreation Museum is not going to
make one give up belief inevolution. But if you are
already at least open to theideas of young earth
creationism, these are sitesthat will help confirm that,
(03:45):
that position for you. So noone, it's not creating, you
might say new young earthcreationist, it's really
legitimating that identity forthe community already in place.
This is what my own research ledme to suggest and that it's
doing really important thingsfor them in helping build a
(04:06):
narrative, or a story that theycan align their identity with,
and point to a museum or alocation as the proof of that
identity. Because we in theUnited States, we view as almost
nothing more authoritativelythan museums, museums are the
(04:29):
thing that we regard as beingmost authoritative for one
reason or another.
Chip Gruen (04:35):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. One of the things
that I've been interested inreading about and thinking about
is the, just the question ofpublic discourse, like what how
does the public talk aboutreligion or about belief
systems, about narratives,generally? It's interesting what
you say about authority beingvested in the structure of the
(04:57):
museum, rather than in say, aneducational, a more traditional
educational institution or aprint literature or something
along those lines.
Dustin Nash (05:09):
And there's been lots of research on this the
there's survey data. And this isnothing specific to say younger
young earth creationism, I mean,just even when it comes to how
the American in the UnitedStates how people view sources
as authoritative on, say, theCivil War, or something like
(05:30):
this. What comes up again andagain, is that museums are
institutions, these places, theyare the most authoritative, or
memorials battlegrounds, thatthere's something about places.
And the way that places functionin our identity or the, they
seem more objective thanindividuals, even scholars. So
(05:53):
actually, historians come inpretty low on that survey, which
I find fascinating.
Chip Gruen (06:00):
So we'll get more in detail about the social function
about these communities in alittle bit, but one aspect of
this I want to dig into a littlebit more is why this topic seems
really relevant right now. Howthis is entering into our world,
I mean, on ReligionWise, we liketo talk about not only these
(06:22):
things in their esotericabstraction, but, but thinking
about them in connection withour world. And it seems to me
that the public, even in thelast several years, is more
interested in talking about howwe tell stories about how we
frame conversations, to takeonly the most obvious example,
(06:42):
something like Thomas Jefferson,the founding father versus
Thomas Jefferson, the slaveholder. And I'm wondering, you
know, how the conversationsabout religion, conversations
about history, you know, sort ofboil down to conversations about
epistemology, how we know whatwe know, and how we frame that
more generally.
Dustin Nash (07:03):
So the way that I've been thinking about this in
my own work, and the way thatI've been encountering it,
there's been a lot of researchdone on how how religious actors
make claims about how they knowwhat they know, or how their own
internal epistemological systemsmight support, reaching the
(07:27):
conclusions that they need toreach in order for the
identities to be maintained. Sothat one of the really
interesting studies that I'veread in the past few years by a
particular scholar named Butlerwas again, this was in relation
to my research on creationism.
But it brought up a veryinteresting notion about
recursivity, in knowledge, sorecursivity in the scientific
(07:52):
method, and the construction ofscientific ideas and knowledge,
and how that functions maybe alittle differently in what we,
in the public discourse would betalking about with conspiracy
theories, or in other various,not conspiracy theories, but
within particular religioustraditions as well. What it
(08:14):
really showed is that, you know,there's a lot that's in common,
there's a lot that's verysimilar between these. But
there's some interesting thingsthat are different. When it
comes to this idea ofrecursivity. I think it's
connected very importantly, toour present moment, within
within the pandemic, and thinkabout how different ideas about
(08:34):
or how knowledge grew over thecourse of the pandemic, from a
scientific standpoint about howthe virus replicated or how it
was passing so that we changedand got, we know, we knew more
later on than we did at thebeginning. And as knowledge and
research grew, we could adaptand change the conclusions
(08:56):
regarding how the virus behaves,and that, that affected policy
along the way as well. And thatwas allowable within a
scientific method because therecursivity that's built into
the scientific method allows usto come back around as it were,
and fully challenge ourconclusions at the beginning. So
(09:17):
that as new as more informationis accumulated you can it is
allowable and even desirable, toreevaluate your initial global
conclusion. Within, we'll takean example of conspiracy
narratives, there is tremendousrecursivity that's allowed at
the level of detail, so that youare allowed to constantly return
(09:40):
again and again and again todevelop more details that are
especially supportive of theconclusion. But recursivity is
not allowed in coming backaround to question the global
narrative or the ultimateconclusion. That's not part of
the recursivity. And actually,once that is allowed, it allows
(10:03):
others within the community toreject that conclusion, based on
the other details that havealready been produced.
Chip Gruen (10:13):
So I want to make the connection between
epistemologies around, say,fundamental or conservative
religious belief, and somethingthat we might label as
conspiracy theory, because Ithink what I hear you saying is
that these things are related toone another, in that they have
sort of similar epistemologicalmoves, even though we might not
(10:37):
necessarily categorize them asall the same kind of
information.
Dustin Nash (10:42):
Absolutely. And I myself as being a comparativist,
I see a lot of value in, inbringing things into dialogue,
even if they're not the samething. In fact, that's what
makes it really illuminatingwhen they're not exactly the
same thing. So thinking from thestandpoint of take taking a lens
of religion studies, or thinkingabout how epistemological
(11:05):
structures might work withinreligious communities, and
putting that lens on conspiracynarratives or conspiracy
theories allows us to see newthings in the conspiracy
narratives, and allows us to seethings we might not have noticed
as they were functioning within,within different religious
communities or how they'rethinking about things. And
there's, there's realinteresting work to be done in
(11:29):
bringing these things intodialogue with one another. It's
interesting that it seems thatthis is a notion or idea,
especially with regard toconspiracy theory or conspiracy
narratives, that the researcher,the discipline of religious
studies is starting to see arole for itself in these
conversations, that theliterature is starting to expand
(11:51):
with more religion scholarswanting to talk about, in one
sense, what religion studies hasto offer the study of conspiracy
narratives precisely because ofthe tools and methods that we've
been using to study other thingsfor all this time. Also,
recognizing that there areplaces where conspiracy
(12:12):
narratives have formed animportant element of religious
discourses, or, alternatively,cases where conspiracy
narratives have been makingclaims about different religious
communities so that there'sdifferent ways of intersection
between religion studies and thestudy of conspiracy theory or
(12:35):
conspiracy narratives, that isbecoming more more researched,
more analyzed, I think, to thebenefit of everyone involved.
This will create new knowledgethat's going to help everyone.
Chip Gruen (12:48):
So let's move a little bit beyond the the
abstract to the specific examplethat I think is on a lot of
people's minds right now. We areright now, very near the
anniversary of the January 6insurrection at the Capitol,
which is, of course, inexorablylinked with the QAnon
conspiracy. And, you know, therehave been conspiracies with us
(13:13):
conspiracy theories with asalways, I mean, the, around the
JFK assassination, or around themoon landing, or Jimmy Hoffa's
disappearance, I mean, there,this is just a part of the
framework of how we understandand work through history and
things that are difficult tounderstand. But this seems, I
(13:37):
don't know, is it different? IsQAnon different? Are we in a
different place? Or is this justmaybe some of the same turned up
to 11 on the amp?
Dustin Nash (13:47):
I don't have final answers on that one. But I think
there is a lot that's similar tothings in the past and things
that are different. So we cansee the similarity, we can see
the particularity and we can seethe universality. When it comes
to, as you just said, thesekinds of narratives that are
(14:09):
rooted in kind of anepistemology of doubt relating
to figures of authority orauthoritative narratives, those
have always been there. Andthey've been an important part
of cultures for a very, verylong time. An important part of
American culture as well I canthink being a child of the 90s,
(14:31):
the the between JFK shooting orgrey aliens or X Files and all
of these things we can we cansee that there's been this sub
current, these narratives, greatlarge governmental cover up kind
of stories, that's all, there'snothing new to the idea then
(14:53):
that's so important to QAnon ofthe amorphous narrative of this
secret of governmental cabalthat is going to be revealed,
eventually, and people are goingto be prosecuted. It's this kind
of eschatological moment of newworld order that will be
(15:13):
established. But at least thesecretive element of that
narrative, not entirely new.
It's really the specifics. Andthen the way that what might be
new is the way that technologyallowed it to spread in a way
that it never had been before. Iknow that a number of religious
communities are, have beenexcited about the way in which
(15:34):
the internet allows them toreach new people in the context
of the pandemic, you can stayconnected with members of your
community in a way that youmight not have otherwise been
able to, or I know, in a recentclass, we were even talking to a
rabbi who was excited about thefact that they were getting more
people tuning into videos oftheir Havdalah services than
(15:58):
they ever got actually coming tothe synagogue for the for the
actual service. So the potentialthere for stay for spreading
information, or communalparticipation is just different
than it ever was before. Youcan't achieve the same thing
through the self publication ofmagazines or pamphlets or any of
(16:21):
these factors. So I think thereis work to be done in thinking
about how, as a, I would thinkof QAnon as almost kind of a
poly cultural conglomerationthat spread virally on the
internet, there's more work thatmay need to be done on how the
(16:42):
role that technology played inthat process.
Chip Gruen (16:47):
Yeah, it seems to me like one of the great open
questions right now is aboutalgorithms and how algorithms
push certain kinds ofinformation and whether that is
a radicalizing element, youknow, in the dissemination of
information, whereas traditionalprint structures, I think, are
(17:08):
biased against radical, youknow, and more reinforce status
quo or conservativeepistemological methods.
Dustin Nash (17:17):
Absolutely. If you have a machine that is geared
and rewarded by putting thingsin front of people that get them
excited. And then if that isalso allowing them to see more
of themselves or more of theirexisting ideas spread more
broadly, then I think I have toimagine that it really did play
(17:42):
a play a role in ramping up theintensity. I think, as we said,
there's nothing there's nothingnecessarily new about the kind
of larger narrative. What reallywas new was the attack on the
Capitol. And the discourse,which had, obviously is
(18:02):
disturbing and troubling on anumber accounts, but there's
lots of troubling and disturbingnarratives existing in the
world. It's the way that itculminated in action that was
potentially new and different.
And how did you get from thediscourse to the action? How do
we square that circle, or circlethat square is where I'm not
sure we have clear answers yet.
(18:27):
I think that I mean, on apolitical level that many
politicians would like to findthe direct, find the direct
cause, or through line to thatthey want to find. I'm worried
that there, they might not findanything that that when it comes
to evidence, when you want toprove connections between these
things, there isn't that kind ofevidence to be found,
(18:51):
necessarily.
Chip Gruen (18:53):
So just to be clear, could you so you talked about
QAnon as a as a discursivethread. Right, that it's, it's
we call it a conspiracy theory,but it's something that was
bubbling up for a long time. Andthen what you said was that that
also leads to particular actionin the world the insurrection at
the Capitol. Can you talk alittle bit about the discourse,
(19:16):
the QAnon discourse itself? Andthen how that may have led to
the events of January sixth?
Dustin Nash (19:24):
You know, actually, this is where I think the lens
of religion studies helps agreat deal because the the
origins of the QAnon discoursego back to particular
information drops that are beingpublished on a particular on
4chan and then on on 8chan, andthey're very cryptic, but they
(19:47):
very quickly are gettinginterpreted by particular
individuals were become theauthoritative interpreters of
these of this information andit, it builds it's really
building out of we might sayconspiracy theories that already
existed such as immediatelypreceding like birtherism, long
(20:07):
standing narratives surroundingor suspicions within right wing
politics regarding HillaryClinton, which morphed then into
a more specific narrative aboutarrests of particular political
actors that are imminent thatthis is going to happen soon any
day now. And then it gets alittle bit bigger, and that
(20:29):
there's a whole cadre ofindividuals that are ensconced
within the government, everyone,I mean, a very mixed bag of
individuals, from politicians,to media figures, to the
mainstream media, movie stars,all of these individuals,
they're all members of this deepstate or secret government that
(20:52):
is going to eventually bearrested, they're going to be
executed. And that, slowly, thisevolves into what I think is can
very convincingly be describedas a almost millenarian type of
narrative, where we're closelyclosely we're coming, especially
as Donald Trump starts to beviewed from within the QAnon
(21:18):
discourse from a very kind ofsalvific perspective, that they
are the savior within thenarrative who will allow for
this final, eschatologicalmoment of arrest of all of these
individuals, and also thebeginning of a new world so that
(21:38):
a new paradise will follow thisevent, it starts to fit into a
mold of or what seems like avery familiar narrative. If you
have a very traditionalbackground in religion studies,
that's that's not a story that'snew to us. It's a well worn
story, actually. And when westart to notice that I think we
(22:00):
can start to understand whypeople became, once they were
embedded within this discourse,once they saw themselves as part
of that discourse and saw theirwhy they became so invested in
it, it had religious elementsthat were compelling. I think
there's another piece to this,which I'm reminded of a previous
(22:24):
podcast conversation withProfessor Hartley Lachter a
scholar of Kabbalah, I'mreminded of Kabbalah, in this
context of one of the things inthe past, that he has talked to
me about is the role of Kabbalahand what that might have done
(22:44):
for especially Jewishindividuals living in a
subaltern status in Spain, orItaly or in southern France and
how it provides a narrative.
Kabbalah provided a narrative ofexplanation for 'we know the
meaning of our own scriptures,even though we're surrounded by
kind of medieval Christiancommunities that are saying we
(23:05):
don't understand the meaning ofour own scriptures.' And it gave
each individual Jew a role inthe really a divine drama. So
that by doing things likeobserving particular Mitzvot,
you're really affecting god,you're doing something on a
religious level in a specificimpersonal way that the pre
(23:28):
existing narratives didn'tsupport. With regard to QAnon
the action hits the road,because there's they're seeing
in themselves a part, that's away to participate in the divine
drama of the moment, to be apart of it. And they're being
called to a moment toparticipate. And I think that
(23:50):
helps explain why some, not all,but some people wanted to be
there for the moment, wanted tobe the good guys within the
story as they understood it.
Chip Gruen (24:06):
So let me push on this a little bit, because I
think the comparison to Kabbalahis an interesting one. But the
difference I see is that thereyou are talking about a
religious minority, which ispowerless in the political,
(24:26):
social, economic world that isaround them, and they develop
this counter narrative. Whereasthough QAnon itself is not a
majority movement, some of theidentifying characteristics of
these people tend to be white,middle class, evangelical,
(24:47):
certainly Christian are notminority, fringe, marginalized
communities. And I find thatdistinction to be interesting,
right again from the religiousstudies. perspective, I'm not
sure that I would expect peoplewho would be in those kind of
hegemonic categorizations to beparticipating in this kind of
(25:11):
discourse. Am I missingsomething about how these people
perceive themselves in theworld?
Dustin Nash (25:16):
Yes, actually. I think the big the big difference
here is it is a matter ofperception. So whereas from a
statistical I think by anyobjective criteria, you're
absolutely correct, that there'snothing about the primary
demographics of the group thatwould suggest any of the any of
(25:38):
that direct comparison, say to13th century Jews living in
Christian majority culturalcontexts. However, anyone who
has interviewed members of thegroup, talk to them about how
they see their place in theworld or their position in the
world tell you that there is theperception of a siege mentality,
(26:04):
that everything that theyunderstand as being themselves
that they're being oppressed,and that the elites are
financially oppressing them. Theglobalists quote, unquote,
globalists are oppressing them,that even an important element
of certain areas of QAnon isthat particular technologies or
(26:25):
medicines have been denied them.
So we see perceptions ofeconomic disenfranchisement,
even in the places where QAnonstarts to bleed over into white
supremacist narratives, we cansee the notions of replacement
theory so that other racialgroups or religious groups are
(26:45):
replacing whites within thecountry. So there is this, even
though again, from an objectivestandpoint, it's difficult to
say that any of that is isstands on anything, but it is
the perception that counts. Andit's a story of that's been told
to them again, and again,through various media for a very
(27:06):
long time, from certain sectorsof media. So this kind of
culture war element to it, isreally important.
Chip Gruen (27:17):
So the careful listener, for the last 20, some
odd minutes will have picked upon the number of times you or I
have talked about community, andused the word social. And I just
want to draw out a little bit ofwhat you mean by that. So that
(27:38):
these narratives are not theseinert things that sort of sit in
a book or sit in a post, but infact, they're doing important
social work for for individualsand communities. Can you talk a
little bit about that?
Dustin Nash (27:54):
Yeah, I'm, uh, at least from my own standpoint, in
my own work within religionstudies, I'm constantly thinking
about what stories do for groupsand the work that they do for
them, especially as it relatesto constructing a notion of
their own identity. And oneelement of that we might think
(28:14):
of as no group wants, no groupwants a negative image of
itself, it's always going topositively construct the
conception of its own identity.
So if we're talking abouttalking about groups that might
have participated in, in theJanuary 6 insurrection, the
stories that are leading up tothat are framing them as the
(28:34):
heroes of a narrative, thechosen heroes of a story and
that is, again, for a group thatis perceiving itself as being
under siege from all of thesecultural, or social or
demographical headwinds, is veryimportant in establishing
(28:56):
legitimation for why the viewthat they already have of the
world is correct, that theirperception or their why they are
also claims to power. Why is thebalance of power the way that it
is? Is this a way to potentiallyclaim additional power in
(29:19):
particular sectors or maintainpower? So there's lots of
different kinds of work thatstories can do for any given
group, whether it's thatpositive self identification,
whether it tells them how theyshould be relating to other
groups of people, how theyshould be relating to various
(29:42):
institutions, and how theyshould be claiming their roles
or places or power inrelationship to other groups of
people in other institutions.
It's these are important thingsfor collective group identity.
Chip Gruen (30:02):
And that they can, beyond the collective, they can
also provide meaning and orderfor an individual's perception
of themselves and their ownidentity and make them feel
connected to a larger group aswell.
Dustin Nash (30:16):
Absolutely, it makes the world knowable, and in
a very important way. We oftentalk about ontology or the
building the categories in whichwe can understand the world. I
think one of the big problemswith a lot of people with trying
to understand QAnon is comingfrom the outside. Those
(30:37):
categories don't make sense.
They don't fit the categoriesthat we know. So if it doesn't
fit the categories that we know,it seems absurd. We might say,
How could anyone believe this?
How could anyone have then beenconvinced to go and storm the
Capitol building as might see tobe a participant in that in that
(30:58):
narrative, but if you thinkabout it more holistically, in
the way that the narrative gavemeaning to people's lives, and I
mean that in a very specific andliteral sense of making it
knowable, and putting it intofit into what they were already
feeling on an emotional level,about the relationships between
(31:21):
groups or relationships toinstitutions, and made that all
part of a linear orcomprehensible at the very least
comprehensible whole, we mightunderstand better how people
would say, Yes, I'm going to goand I'm going to be a part of
that story, and attack theCapitol.
Chip Gruen (31:40):
So there's another element I want to follow up on a
little bit. Because again, ifyou're, if you're watching the
news, and you're watching thedevelopment of these systems,
because as you say, they aretacking one way or another to
account for new details. It'samazing the amount that other
kinds like that, that there aresmall conspiracy theories, that
(32:04):
all tend to get scooped uptogether. So for example, one of
the most recent developments wasthis waiting for either JFK or
JFK Jr. to you know, come backand reveal themselves as not
only alive, you know, but readyto take a meaningful role in
(32:25):
history as it plays out. And Ithink that there are other you
know, so again, thinking aboutthe pandemic, or thinking about
vaccinations, but that thisvalue of wanting to stitch these
things together into oneholistic narrative seems to also
be another element that we cantalk about.
Dustin Nash (32:46):
Yeah, and we can imagine, it's similar than we,
if we think about variousreligious communities, trying to
make sense of the world as itis, as it's experienced for the
community through time, I canthink about this from a Jewish
studies standpoint of metanarratives, so that these meta
narratives which might be rootedin some original texts, or some
(33:08):
original interpretations ofthose texts, but they they
continue, and they continue togive meaning in much later time
periods. So the meta narrative,especially within Jewish studies
that we talk a lot about is theJewish meta narrative of, of
oppression, so the of cycles ofoppression and saving, which are
(33:29):
rooted all the way back into theDeuteronomistic history within
the Hebrew Bible and notions ofdivine punishment for wrongs
that are built right into thebiblical narrative itself. But
that becomes a model forunderstanding events far well
beyond the the biblical periodin trying to explain things like
(33:51):
Russian pogroms, or even in atroubling instances of the
Holocaust itself. But this ideaof meta narrative, I think, is
really helpful here. So as thecommunity QAnon begins before
the COVID pandemic, but it itreally brings that into this
into this narrative very quicklyand very efficiently, even when
(34:16):
it comes to something like JFK,Jr. not coming back, or not
arriving in at the Dallasairport. When that doesn't
happen, that doesn't invalidatethe narrative writ large. It is
folded more neatly back into thenarrative. This goes actually
back to what I was saying aboutthe recursivity, there's no
(34:38):
piece of evidence that candis... that's allowed to to
disprove the larger conclusion.
So him not showing up at thattime can't disprove though it
might for a few individuals, itmight be very jarring, but on a
broader collective scale. It canonly produce more detailed
commentary, commentary or moredetailed analysis that supports
(35:01):
the narrative. That's the onlything that's really allowed. So
I really like this idea of metanarrative for for thinking of
thinking about this, this issueor this problem of when new
things are encountered by theexisting narrative, how they get
folded in, or accepted as partof the pattern or part of the
(35:23):
the bigger story.
Chip Gruen (35:30):
I'm going to ask you now to be a prognosticator. From
what you know about other typesof epistemologies, belief
systems, conspiracy theories ofthe past, what do you see in the
next year or two, or five or 10?
About this group? You know, wewould think that they would be
frustrated by the pro... theirprognostications not coming
(35:52):
true. But but that's not the wayit works. What what do you see
happening going forward?
Dustin Nash (35:58):
Obviously, I'm, I'm not a fortune teller. But I
would actually, first of all, Iwould suspect, it's not going to
go away, there's no piece ofevidence, there's no event that
is going to end the community,as it were, or stop the stop the
narrative or stop the discourse,it's only going to continue. As
(36:21):
to what the size of thecommunity is, I'm not sure at
this point. But I would actuallysuspect that the, the more that
it is able to incorporatecontemporary events into the
narrative, the more it will beable to maintain stasis, and the
more that it will potentiallyappeal to more people as a way
(36:46):
of making meaning out of theirworld. Because so much of the
discourse within QAnon came tofocus on Donald Trump,
especially in the latter half ofhis of his presidency, if he
should choose to run again in2024, for the presidency in
2024, I have to imagine thatthat will be folded in very
(37:10):
significantly into thenarrative, and will continue to
drive it. The pandemic is alsogoing to continue to drive it
depending on the headwinds ofthis or that I've already seen
memes or pieces of informationregarding the Omicron variant as
an element of QAnon now as afurther Deep State kind of
(37:33):
conspiracy to, to do this or dothat. So, as history unfolds,
history is incorporated into thenarrative, as long as the
narrative continues to allow forit. It, it will maintain.
Chip Gruen (37:50):
So one of the things we like to do I mean, all of
these topics, you know, they'redrawn out of our guest's
teaching and research, and wethink about what they mean for
public conversation. But wealways want to come back and
think about how should thisaffect our listener's entrance
into that public conversation aswell. And I want to put kind of
(38:13):
a point on this, and ask ifbeing aware of any of these
processes being sort ofmetacognitive about our own
belief, or about how theseconspiracy theories work, should
be, could be instructive for theways that we consume
(38:35):
information.
Dustin Nash (38:37):
It should certainly inform the way that we consume
information, I think informationliteracy, in general, as a
public we're very bad at tobegin with. So there's a there's
a big element of trying tounderstand, where are we
receiving information? How arehow are we interpreting it? What
are the biases that might becoming into play when we
(38:59):
interpret information,regardless of who we are? And
what those biases might be? Whatare the limits of the
conclusions that I can reachfrom the information that I
have? I think, a major elementof conspiracy narratives is that
they make really big claims.
They make really big conclusionson very limited amounts of
(39:20):
evidence. And, I think ingeneral, as a teacher, and as
somebody who teaches students towrite that in an academic mode.
I don't want people to be makingreally big arguments or claims
based on limited information. Weshould be, we should scale our
(39:40):
conclusions to the evidenceavailable to us. And in this
way, this would be really good.
Another thing that I think is agood lesson to take from this
from the standpoint of abroader, interested public is
thinking about Who, who are thepeople that are involved in this
(40:03):
story? And how are they gettinginvolved, say with the with the
January 6 insurrection, orpeople who have become, you
might say, have fallen down therabbit hole of QAnon. I've run
into this with a study of anumber of you might say smaller
or marginalize religious groups,or what is pejorative the
(40:25):
pejorative term that generallygets thrown around with cult.
And I think in a lot of cases,there is a notion that the
people that tend to adhere tothese narratives or these
stories, or join thesecommunities that they were, they
didn't think hard enough. Theydidn't consider all the
(40:45):
information or they weren'tintelligent, or some other kind
of pejorative conclusionregarding the individual, rather
than understanding how there isreal reasons why people find
these narratives compelling, andwhy they are convinced by them.
And so even an individual who isvery literate with regard to
(41:11):
information might be temptedbased on a whole variety of
other factors to be compelled bythis narrative, to see
themselves in the story, to haveit make meaning out of the
world, for them to make theworld knowable to them in a way
that they're comfortable knowingit. We can lose sight of that,
(41:32):
because that's a much morecomplex and difficult thing.
Rather than labeling someone asunintelligent, or fooled or
conned, that makes them morepassive and doesn't understand
the their agency and activitywith regard to this and and how
important it can be for them. Itcan be really, really important.
Chip Gruen (41:57):
All right, well, Dr.
Dustin Nash, thank you very muchfor joining us today. It's been
great fun talking to you aboutconspiracy theories,
epistemology and beliefstructures.
Dustin Nash (42:06):
Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.
Chip Gruen (42:11):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. For moreinformation and additional
programming, please visit ourwebsite at
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(42:34):
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ReligionWise wherever you getyour podcasts. We look forward
to seeing you next time.
Welcome to ReligionWise the podcast where
we feature educators,researchers and other
professionals discussing topicson religion and their relevance
to the public conversation. Myname is Chip Gruen. I'm the
Director of the Institute forReligious and Cultural
Understanding at MuhlenbergCollege, and I will be the host
for this podcast.
(00:30):
Today's guest is Dr. DustinNash, Associate Professor of
Religion Studies in theDepartment of Religion Studies
at Muhlenberg College, we satdown to talk about epistemology,
belief, conspiracy theory, andhow all these things fit
together. He's a good guest tohave on those topics because
he's both published and taughton these topics, including a
(00:51):
first year seminar that he doescalled Proving the Unprovable
that thinks about what peoplebelieve and why they believe it,
particularly when those beliefsare out of the mainstream. He
has also produced a articleentitled "Fossilized Jews and
Witnessing Dinosaurs at theCreation Museum: Public
Remembering and Forgetting at aYoung Earth Creationist Memory
(01:13):
Place" in which he thinks a lotabout how community and ideology
and belief all wrap up togetherin this public place of
remembrance. So it's my pleasureto welcome today, Dr. Dustin
Nash.
Welcome to ReligionWise Dustin,thanks for joining us today.
Dustin Nash (01:33):
Thank you for having me.
Chip Gruen (01:34):
So I know that both in your teaching and research,
you're interested in thinkingabout not only what people
believe, but digging deeper intowhy they believe those things
and what those beliefs might dofor them. Can you talk a little
bit about how you becameinterested in this topic?
Dustin Nash (01:51):
Yeah, so my, my entrance into this subject, came
through some initial researchthat I did on the young earth
creationist community in theUnited States, where I did field
research at the Creation Museumin Petersburg, Kentucky, and
then later at the Ark Encounter,which is, which was constructed
(02:13):
and is run by the same parentorganization as the Creation
Museum. And it was through thatresearch, which was done in
support of a class that reallytriggered an interest in how
these communities are forming,why people were going to these
places who was going there, andthe kind of dynamics of the
communities that they weresupporting, especially having
(02:37):
done field research at thesesites, my own discomfort in
those spaces being palpable, andhow that ran in kind of
dissonance with their statedgoals. The goals of these sites
were ones of bringing peopleinto thinking in the way that
they wanted people to think. Buthaving been in those spaces, I
(03:00):
found this uncompelling to acertain extent. And so I didn't
feel like they were functioningso much in that way, that I
wasn't their audience. Theiraudience was somewhere else it
was doing other work, really,for people who are already
members of the community. Sothese weren't, these weren't
(03:21):
machines to create new membersof those communities to to show
the compelling or to convincepeople, if you are an ardent
evolutionist going to theCreation Museum is not going to
make one give up belief inevolution. But if you are
already at least open to theideas of young earth
creationism, these are sitesthat will help confirm that,
(03:45):
that position for you. So noone, it's not creating, you
might say new young earthcreationist, it's really
legitimating that identity forthe community already in place.
This is what my own research ledme to suggest and that it's
doing really important thingsfor them in helping build a
(04:06):
narrative, or a story that theycan align their identity with,
and point to a museum or alocation as the proof of that
identity. Because we in theUnited States, we view as almost
nothing more authoritativelythan museums, museums are the
(04:29):
thing that we regard as beingmost authoritative for one
reason or another.
Chip Gruen (04:35):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. One of the things
that I've been interested inreading about and thinking about
is the, just the question ofpublic discourse, like what how
does the public talk aboutreligion or about belief
systems, about narratives,generally? It's interesting what
you say about authority beingvested in the structure of the
(04:57):
museum, rather than in say, aneducational, a more traditional
educational institution or aprint literature or something
along those lines.
Dustin Nash (05:09):
And there's been lots of research on this the
there's survey data. And this isnothing specific to say younger
young earth creationism, I mean,just even when it comes to how
the American in the UnitedStates how people view sources
as authoritative on, say, theCivil War, or something like
(05:30):
this. What comes up again andagain, is that museums are
institutions, these places, theyare the most authoritative, or
memorials battlegrounds, thatthere's something about places.
And the way that places functionin our identity or the, they
seem more objective thanindividuals, even scholars. So
(05:53):
actually, historians come inpretty low on that survey, which
I find fascinating.
Chip Gruen (06:00):
So we'll get more in detail about the social function
about these communities in alittle bit, but one aspect of
this I want to dig into a littlebit more is why this topic seems
really relevant right now. Howthis is entering into our world,
I mean, on ReligionWise, we liketo talk about not only these
(06:22):
things in their esotericabstraction, but, but thinking
about them in connection withour world. And it seems to me
that the public, even in thelast several years, is more
interested in talking about howwe tell stories about how we
frame conversations, to takeonly the most obvious example,
(06:42):
something like Thomas Jefferson,the founding father versus
Thomas Jefferson, the slaveholder. And I'm wondering, you
know, how the conversationsabout religion, conversations
about history, you know, sort ofboil down to conversations about
epistemology, how we know whatwe know, and how we frame that
more generally.
Dustin Nash (07:03):
So the way that I've been thinking about this in
my own work, and the way thatI've been encountering it,
there's been a lot of researchdone on how how religious actors
make claims about how they knowwhat they know, or how their own
internal epistemological systemsmight support, reaching the
(07:27):
conclusions that they need toreach in order for the
identities to be maintained. Sothat one of the really
interesting studies that I'veread in the past few years by a
particular scholar named Butlerwas again, this was in relation
to my research on creationism.
But it brought up a veryinteresting notion about
recursivity, in knowledge, sorecursivity in the scientific
(07:52):
method, and the construction ofscientific ideas and knowledge,
and how that functions maybe alittle differently in what we,
in the public discourse would betalking about with conspiracy
theories, or in other various,not conspiracy theories, but
within particular religioustraditions as well. What it
(08:14):
really showed is that, you know,there's a lot that's in common,
there's a lot that's verysimilar between these. But
there's some interesting thingsthat are different. When it
comes to this idea ofrecursivity. I think it's
connected very importantly, toour present moment, within
within the pandemic, and thinkabout how different ideas about
(08:34):
or how knowledge grew over thecourse of the pandemic, from a
scientific standpoint about howthe virus replicated or how it
was passing so that we changedand got, we know, we knew more
later on than we did at thebeginning. And as knowledge and
research grew, we could adaptand change the conclusions
(08:56):
regarding how the virus behaves,and that, that affected policy
along the way as well. And thatwas allowable within a
scientific method because therecursivity that's built into
the scientific method allows usto come back around as it were,
and fully challenge ourconclusions at the beginning. So
(09:17):
that as new as more informationis accumulated you can it is
allowable and even desirable, toreevaluate your initial global
conclusion. Within, we'll takean example of conspiracy
narratives, there is tremendousrecursivity that's allowed at
the level of detail, so that youare allowed to constantly return
(09:40):
again and again and again todevelop more details that are
especially supportive of theconclusion. But recursivity is
not allowed in coming backaround to question the global
narrative or the ultimateconclusion. That's not part of
the recursivity. And actually,once that is allowed, it allows
(10:03):
others within the community toreject that conclusion, based on
the other details that havealready been produced.
Chip Gruen (10:13):
So I want to make the connection between
epistemologies around, say,fundamental or conservative
religious belief, and somethingthat we might label as
conspiracy theory, because Ithink what I hear you saying is
that these things are related toone another, in that they have
sort of similar epistemologicalmoves, even though we might not
(10:37):
necessarily categorize them asall the same kind of
information.
Dustin Nash (10:42):
Absolutely. And I myself as being a comparativist,
I see a lot of value in, inbringing things into dialogue,
even if they're not the samething. In fact, that's what
makes it really illuminatingwhen they're not exactly the
same thing. So thinking from thestandpoint of take taking a lens
of religion studies, or thinkingabout how epistemological
(11:05):
structures might work withinreligious communities, and
putting that lens on conspiracynarratives or conspiracy
theories allows us to see newthings in the conspiracy
narratives, and allows us to seethings we might not have noticed
as they were functioning within,within different religious
communities or how they'rethinking about things. And
there's, there's realinteresting work to be done in
(11:29):
bringing these things intodialogue with one another. It's
interesting that it seems thatthis is a notion or idea,
especially with regard toconspiracy theory or conspiracy
narratives, that the researcher,the discipline of religious
studies is starting to see arole for itself in these
conversations, that theliterature is starting to expand
(11:51):
with more religion scholarswanting to talk about, in one
sense, what religion studies hasto offer the study of conspiracy
narratives precisely because ofthe tools and methods that we've
been using to study other thingsfor all this time. Also,
recognizing that there areplaces where conspiracy
(12:12):
narratives have formed animportant element of religious
discourses, or, alternatively,cases where conspiracy
narratives have been makingclaims about different religious
communities so that there'sdifferent ways of intersection
between religion studies and thestudy of conspiracy theory or
(12:35):
conspiracy narratives, that isbecoming more more researched,
more analyzed, I think, to thebenefit of everyone involved.
This will create new knowledgethat's going to help everyone.
Chip Gruen (12:48):
So let's move a little bit beyond the the
abstract to the specific examplethat I think is on a lot of
people's minds right now. We areright now, very near the
anniversary of the January 6insurrection at the Capitol,
which is, of course, inexorablylinked with the QAnon
conspiracy. And, you know, therehave been conspiracies with us
(13:13):
conspiracy theories with asalways, I mean, the, around the
JFK assassination, or around themoon landing, or Jimmy Hoffa's
disappearance, I mean, there,this is just a part of the
framework of how we understandand work through history and
things that are difficult tounderstand. But this seems, I
(13:37):
don't know, is it different? IsQAnon different? Are we in a
different place? Or is this justmaybe some of the same turned up
to 11 on the amp?
Dustin Nash (13:47):
I don't have final answers on that one. But I think
there is a lot that's similar tothings in the past and things
that are different. So we cansee the similarity, we can see
the particularity and we can seethe universality. When it comes
to, as you just said, thesekinds of narratives that are
(14:09):
rooted in kind of anepistemology of doubt relating
to figures of authority orauthoritative narratives, those
have always been there. Andthey've been an important part
of cultures for a very, verylong time. An important part of
American culture as well I canthink being a child of the 90s,
(14:31):
the the between JFK shooting orgrey aliens or X Files and all
of these things we can we cansee that there's been this sub
current, these narratives, greatlarge governmental cover up kind
of stories, that's all, there'snothing new to the idea then
(14:53):
that's so important to QAnon ofthe amorphous narrative of this
secret of governmental cabalthat is going to be revealed,
eventually, and people are goingto be prosecuted. It's this kind
of eschatological moment of newworld order that will be
(15:13):
established. But at least thesecretive element of that
narrative, not entirely new.
It's really the specifics. Andthen the way that what might be
new is the way that technologyallowed it to spread in a way
that it never had been before. Iknow that a number of religious
communities are, have beenexcited about the way in which
(15:34):
the internet allows them toreach new people in the context
of the pandemic, you can stayconnected with members of your
community in a way that youmight not have otherwise been
able to, or I know, in a recentclass, we were even talking to a
rabbi who was excited about thefact that they were getting more
people tuning into videos oftheir Havdalah services than
(15:58):
they ever got actually coming tothe synagogue for the for the
actual service. So the potentialthere for stay for spreading
information, or communalparticipation is just different
than it ever was before. Youcan't achieve the same thing
through the self publication ofmagazines or pamphlets or any of
(16:21):
these factors. So I think thereis work to be done in thinking
about how, as a, I would thinkof QAnon as almost kind of a
poly cultural conglomerationthat spread virally on the
internet, there's more work thatmay need to be done on how the
(16:42):
role that technology played inthat process.
Chip Gruen (16:47):
Yeah, it seems to me like one of the great open
questions right now is aboutalgorithms and how algorithms
push certain kinds ofinformation and whether that is
a radicalizing element, youknow, in the dissemination of
information, whereas traditionalprint structures, I think, are
(17:08):
biased against radical, youknow, and more reinforce status
quo or conservativeepistemological methods.
Dustin Nash (17:17):
Absolutely. If you have a machine that is geared
and rewarded by putting thingsin front of people that get them
excited. And then if that isalso allowing them to see more
of themselves or more of theirexisting ideas spread more
broadly, then I think I have toimagine that it really did play
(17:42):
a play a role in ramping up theintensity. I think, as we said,
there's nothing there's nothingnecessarily new about the kind
of larger narrative. What reallywas new was the attack on the
Capitol. And the discourse,which had, obviously is
(18:02):
disturbing and troubling on anumber accounts, but there's
lots of troubling and disturbingnarratives existing in the
world. It's the way that itculminated in action that was
potentially new and different.
And how did you get from thediscourse to the action? How do
we square that circle, or circlethat square is where I'm not
sure we have clear answers yet.
(18:27):
I think that I mean, on apolitical level that many
politicians would like to findthe direct, find the direct
cause, or through line to thatthey want to find. I'm worried
that there, they might not findanything that that when it comes
to evidence, when you want toprove connections between these
things, there isn't that kind ofevidence to be found,
(18:51):
necessarily.
Chip Gruen (18:53):
So just to be clear, could you so you talked about
QAnon as a as a discursivethread. Right, that it's, it's
we call it a conspiracy theory,but it's something that was
bubbling up for a long time. Andthen what you said was that that
also leads to particular actionin the world the insurrection at
the Capitol. Can you talk alittle bit about the discourse,
(19:16):
the QAnon discourse itself? Andthen how that may have led to
the events of January sixth?
Dustin Nash (19:24):
You know, actually, this is where I think the lens
of religion studies helps agreat deal because the the
origins of the QAnon discoursego back to particular
information drops that are beingpublished on a particular on
4chan and then on on 8chan, andthey're very cryptic, but they
(19:47):
very quickly are gettinginterpreted by particular
individuals were become theauthoritative interpreters of
these of this information andit, it builds it's really
building out of we might sayconspiracy theories that already
existed such as immediatelypreceding like birtherism, long
(20:07):
standing narratives surroundingor suspicions within right wing
politics regarding HillaryClinton, which morphed then into
a more specific narrative aboutarrests of particular political
actors that are imminent thatthis is going to happen soon any
day now. And then it gets alittle bit bigger, and that
(20:29):
there's a whole cadre ofindividuals that are ensconced
within the government, everyone,I mean, a very mixed bag of
individuals, from politicians,to media figures, to the
mainstream media, movie stars,all of these individuals,
they're all members of this deepstate or secret government that
(20:52):
is going to eventually bearrested, they're going to be
executed. And that, slowly, thisevolves into what I think is can
very convincingly be describedas a almost millenarian type of
narrative, where we're closelyclosely we're coming, especially
as Donald Trump starts to beviewed from within the QAnon
(21:18):
discourse from a very kind ofsalvific perspective, that they
are the savior within thenarrative who will allow for
this final, eschatologicalmoment of arrest of all of these
individuals, and also thebeginning of a new world so that
(21:38):
a new paradise will follow thisevent, it starts to fit into a
mold of or what seems like avery familiar narrative. If you
have a very traditionalbackground in religion studies,
that's that's not a story that'snew to us. It's a well worn
story, actually. And when westart to notice that I think we
(22:00):
can start to understand whypeople became, once they were
embedded within this discourse,once they saw themselves as part
of that discourse and saw theirwhy they became so invested in
it, it had religious elementsthat were compelling. I think
there's another piece to this,which I'm reminded of a previous
(22:24):
podcast conversation withProfessor Hartley Lachter a
scholar of Kabbalah, I'mreminded of Kabbalah, in this
context of one of the things inthe past, that he has talked to
me about is the role of Kabbalahand what that might have done
(22:44):
for especially Jewishindividuals living in a
subaltern status in Spain, orItaly or in southern France and
how it provides a narrative.
Kabbalah provided a narrative ofexplanation for 'we know the
meaning of our own scriptures,even though we're surrounded by
kind of medieval Christiancommunities that are saying we
(23:05):
don't understand the meaning ofour own scriptures.' And it gave
each individual Jew a role inthe really a divine drama. So
that by doing things likeobserving particular Mitzvot,
you're really affecting god,you're doing something on a
religious level in a specificimpersonal way that the pre
(23:28):
existing narratives didn'tsupport. With regard to QAnon
the action hits the road,because there's they're seeing
in themselves a part, that's away to participate in the divine
drama of the moment, to be apart of it. And they're being
called to a moment toparticipate. And I think that
(23:50):
helps explain why some, not all,but some people wanted to be
there for the moment, wanted tobe the good guys within the
story as they understood it.
Chip Gruen (24:06):
So let me push on this a little bit, because I
think the comparison to Kabbalahis an interesting one. But the
difference I see is that thereyou are talking about a
religious minority, which ispowerless in the political,
(24:26):
social, economic world that isaround them, and they develop
this counter narrative. Whereasthough QAnon itself is not a
majority movement, some of theidentifying characteristics of
these people tend to be white,middle class, evangelical,
(24:47):
certainly Christian are notminority, fringe, marginalized
communities. And I find thatdistinction to be interesting,
right again from the religiousstudies. perspective, I'm not
sure that I would expect peoplewho would be in those kind of
hegemonic categorizations to beparticipating in this kind of
(25:11):
discourse. Am I missingsomething about how these people
perceive themselves in theworld?
Dustin Nash (25:16):
Yes, actually. I think the big the big difference
here is it is a matter ofperception. So whereas from a
statistical I think by anyobjective criteria, you're
absolutely correct, that there'snothing about the primary
demographics of the group thatwould suggest any of the any of
(25:38):
that direct comparison, say to13th century Jews living in
Christian majority culturalcontexts. However, anyone who
has interviewed members of thegroup, talk to them about how
they see their place in theworld or their position in the
world tell you that there is theperception of a siege mentality,
(26:04):
that everything that theyunderstand as being themselves
that they're being oppressed,and that the elites are
financially oppressing them. Theglobalists quote, unquote,
globalists are oppressing them,that even an important element
of certain areas of QAnon isthat particular technologies or
(26:25):
medicines have been denied them.
So we see perceptions ofeconomic disenfranchisement,
even in the places where QAnonstarts to bleed over into white
supremacist narratives, we cansee the notions of replacement
theory so that other racialgroups or religious groups are
(26:45):
replacing whites within thecountry. So there is this, even
though again, from an objectivestandpoint, it's difficult to
say that any of that is isstands on anything, but it is
the perception that counts. Andit's a story of that's been told
to them again, and again,through various media for a very
(27:06):
long time, from certain sectorsof media. So this kind of
culture war element to it, isreally important.
Chip Gruen (27:17):
So the careful listener, for the last 20, some
odd minutes will have picked upon the number of times you or I
have talked about community, andused the word social. And I just
want to draw out a little bit ofwhat you mean by that. So that
(27:38):
these narratives are not theseinert things that sort of sit in
a book or sit in a post, but infact, they're doing important
social work for for individualsand communities. Can you talk a
little bit about that?
Dustin Nash (27:54):
Yeah, I'm, uh, at least from my own standpoint, in
my own work within religionstudies, I'm constantly thinking
about what stories do for groupsand the work that they do for
them, especially as it relatesto constructing a notion of
their own identity. And oneelement of that we might think
(28:14):
of as no group wants, no groupwants a negative image of
itself, it's always going topositively construct the
conception of its own identity.
So if we're talking abouttalking about groups that might
have participated in, in theJanuary 6 insurrection, the
stories that are leading up tothat are framing them as the
(28:34):
heroes of a narrative, thechosen heroes of a story and
that is, again, for a group thatis perceiving itself as being
under siege from all of thesecultural, or social or
demographical headwinds, is veryimportant in establishing
(28:56):
legitimation for why the viewthat they already have of the
world is correct, that theirperception or their why they are
also claims to power. Why is thebalance of power the way that it
is? Is this a way to potentiallyclaim additional power in
(29:19):
particular sectors or maintainpower? So there's lots of
different kinds of work thatstories can do for any given
group, whether it's thatpositive self identification,
whether it tells them how theyshould be relating to other
groups of people, how theyshould be relating to various
(29:42):
institutions, and how theyshould be claiming their roles
or places or power inrelationship to other groups of
people in other institutions.
It's these are important thingsfor collective group identity.
Chip Gruen (30:02):
And that they can, beyond the collective, they can
also provide meaning and orderfor an individual's perception
of themselves and their ownidentity and make them feel
connected to a larger group aswell.
Dustin Nash (30:16):
Absolutely, it makes the world knowable, and in
a very important way. We oftentalk about ontology or the
building the categories in whichwe can understand the world. I
think one of the big problemswith a lot of people with trying
to understand QAnon is comingfrom the outside. Those
(30:37):
categories don't make sense.
They don't fit the categoriesthat we know. So if it doesn't
fit the categories that we know,it seems absurd. We might say,
How could anyone believe this?
How could anyone have then beenconvinced to go and storm the
Capitol building as might see tobe a participant in that in that
(30:58):
narrative, but if you thinkabout it more holistically, in
the way that the narrative gavemeaning to people's lives, and I
mean that in a very specific andliteral sense of making it
knowable, and putting it intofit into what they were already
feeling on an emotional level,about the relationships between
(31:21):
groups or relationships toinstitutions, and made that all
part of a linear orcomprehensible at the very least
comprehensible whole, we mightunderstand better how people
would say, Yes, I'm going to goand I'm going to be a part of
that story, and attack theCapitol.
Chip Gruen (31:40):
So there's another element I want to follow up on a
little bit. Because again, ifyou're, if you're watching the
news, and you're watching thedevelopment of these systems,
because as you say, they aretacking one way or another to
account for new details. It'samazing the amount that other
kinds like that, that there aresmall conspiracy theories, that
(32:04):
all tend to get scooped uptogether. So for example, one of
the most recent developments wasthis waiting for either JFK or
JFK Jr. to you know, come backand reveal themselves as not
only alive, you know, but readyto take a meaningful role in
(32:25):
history as it plays out. And Ithink that there are other you
know, so again, thinking aboutthe pandemic, or thinking about
vaccinations, but that thisvalue of wanting to stitch these
things together into oneholistic narrative seems to also
be another element that we cantalk about.
Dustin Nash (32:46):
Yeah, and we can imagine, it's similar than we,
if we think about variousreligious communities, trying to
make sense of the world as itis, as it's experienced for the
community through time, I canthink about this from a Jewish
studies standpoint of metanarratives, so that these meta
narratives which might be rootedin some original texts, or some
(33:08):
original interpretations ofthose texts, but they they
continue, and they continue togive meaning in much later time
periods. So the meta narrative,especially within Jewish studies
that we talk a lot about is theJewish meta narrative of, of
oppression, so the of cycles ofoppression and saving, which are
(33:29):
rooted all the way back into theDeuteronomistic history within
the Hebrew Bible and notions ofdivine punishment for wrongs
that are built right into thebiblical narrative itself. But
that becomes a model forunderstanding events far well
beyond the the biblical periodin trying to explain things like
(33:51):
Russian pogroms, or even in atroubling instances of the
Holocaust itself. But this ideaof meta narrative, I think, is
really helpful here. So as thecommunity QAnon begins before
the COVID pandemic, but it itreally brings that into this
into this narrative very quicklyand very efficiently, even when
(34:16):
it comes to something like JFK,Jr. not coming back, or not
arriving in at the Dallasairport. When that doesn't
happen, that doesn't invalidatethe narrative writ large. It is
folded more neatly back into thenarrative. This goes actually
back to what I was saying aboutthe recursivity, there's no
(34:38):
piece of evidence that candis... that's allowed to to
disprove the larger conclusion.
So him not showing up at thattime can't disprove though it
might for a few individuals, itmight be very jarring, but on a
broader collective scale. It canonly produce more detailed
commentary, commentary or moredetailed analysis that supports
(35:01):
the narrative. That's the onlything that's really allowed. So
I really like this idea of metanarrative for for thinking of
thinking about this, this issueor this problem of when new
things are encountered by theexisting narrative, how they get
folded in, or accepted as partof the pattern or part of the
(35:23):
the bigger story.
Chip Gruen (35:30):
I'm going to ask you now to be a prognosticator. From
what you know about other typesof epistemologies, belief
systems, conspiracy theories ofthe past, what do you see in the
next year or two, or five or 10?
About this group? You know, wewould think that they would be
frustrated by the pro... theirprognostications not coming
(35:52):
true. But but that's not the wayit works. What what do you see
happening going forward?
Dustin Nash (35:58):
Obviously, I'm, I'm not a fortune teller. But I
would actually, first of all, Iwould suspect, it's not going to
go away, there's no piece ofevidence, there's no event that
is going to end the community,as it were, or stop the stop the
narrative or stop the discourse,it's only going to continue. As
(36:21):
to what the size of thecommunity is, I'm not sure at
this point. But I would actuallysuspect that the, the more that
it is able to incorporatecontemporary events into the
narrative, the more it will beable to maintain stasis, and the
more that it will potentiallyappeal to more people as a way
(36:46):
of making meaning out of theirworld. Because so much of the
discourse within QAnon came tofocus on Donald Trump,
especially in the latter half ofhis of his presidency, if he
should choose to run again in2024, for the presidency in
2024, I have to imagine thatthat will be folded in very
(37:10):
significantly into thenarrative, and will continue to
drive it. The pandemic is alsogoing to continue to drive it
depending on the headwinds ofthis or that I've already seen
memes or pieces of informationregarding the Omicron variant as
an element of QAnon now as afurther Deep State kind of
(37:33):
conspiracy to, to do this or dothat. So, as history unfolds,
history is incorporated into thenarrative, as long as the
narrative continues to allow forit. It, it will maintain.
Chip Gruen (37:50):
So one of the things we like to do I mean, all of
these topics, you know, they'redrawn out of our guest's
teaching and research, and wethink about what they mean for
public conversation. But wealways want to come back and
think about how should thisaffect our listener's entrance
into that public conversation aswell. And I want to put kind of
(38:13):
a point on this, and ask ifbeing aware of any of these
processes being sort ofmetacognitive about our own
belief, or about how theseconspiracy theories work, should
be, could be instructive for theways that we consume
(38:35):
information.
Dustin Nash (38:37):
It should certainly inform the way that we consume
information, I think informationliteracy, in general, as a
public we're very bad at tobegin with. So there's a there's
a big element of trying tounderstand, where are we
receiving information? How arehow are we interpreting it? What
are the biases that might becoming into play when we
(38:59):
interpret information,regardless of who we are? And
what those biases might be? Whatare the limits of the
conclusions that I can reachfrom the information that I
have? I think, a major elementof conspiracy narratives is that
they make really big claims.
They make really big conclusionson very limited amounts of
(39:20):
evidence. And, I think ingeneral, as a teacher, and as
somebody who teaches students towrite that in an academic mode.
I don't want people to be makingreally big arguments or claims
based on limited information. Weshould be, we should scale our
(39:40):
conclusions to the evidenceavailable to us. And in this
way, this would be really good.
Another thing that I think is agood lesson to take from this
from the standpoint of abroader, interested public is
thinking about Who, who are thepeople that are involved in this
(40:03):
story? And how are they gettinginvolved, say with the with the
January 6 insurrection, orpeople who have become, you
might say, have fallen down therabbit hole of QAnon. I've run
into this with a study of anumber of you might say smaller
or marginalize religious groups,or what is pejorative the
(40:25):
pejorative term that generallygets thrown around with cult.
And I think in a lot of cases,there is a notion that the
people that tend to adhere tothese narratives or these
stories, or join thesecommunities that they were, they
didn't think hard enough. Theydidn't consider all the
(40:45):
information or they weren'tintelligent, or some other kind
of pejorative conclusionregarding the individual, rather
than understanding how there isreal reasons why people find
these narratives compelling, andwhy they are convinced by them.
And so even an individual who isvery literate with regard to
(41:11):
information might be temptedbased on a whole variety of
other factors to be compelled bythis narrative, to see
themselves in the story, to haveit make meaning out of the
world, for them to make theworld knowable to them in a way
that they're comfortable knowingit. We can lose sight of that,
(41:32):
because that's a much morecomplex and difficult thing.
Rather than labeling someone asunintelligent, or fooled or
conned, that makes them morepassive and doesn't understand
the their agency and activitywith regard to this and and how
important it can be for them. Itcan be really, really important.
Chip Gruen (41:57):
All right, well, Dr.
Dustin Nash, thank you very muchfor joining us today. It's been
great fun talking to you aboutconspiracy theories,
epistemology and beliefstructures.
Dustin Nash (42:06):
Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.
Chip Gruen (42:11):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. For moreinformation and additional
programming, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com. There,you'll find our contact
information, links to otherprogramming, and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. ReligionWise
(42:34):
is produced by the staff of theInstitute for Religious and
Cultural Understanding ofMuhlenberg College, including
Christine Flicker, and CarrieDuncan. Please subscribe to
ReligionWise wherever you getyour podcasts. We look forward
to seeing you next time.
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