In our paranoid age, did X come before Q?
We like to think our paranoid moment came from a right wing playbook. But what if an old favourite TV show played a role?
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A bit of a lighthearted summer post this week. But it is something I have been thinking about a fair bit.
Donald Trump was recently indicted and arraigned for a third time. Once again, outside the courthouse were his usual set of supporters. Many of these were MAGA Republicans who believe it is all a plot by the ‘Deep State’ against their fearless leader. A subset of these, however, believe this plot goes deeper still.
When discussing the current paranoid moment in US and worldwide politics, one letter stands out: Q. The Q Anon movement - a vast conspiracy theory that holds that Donald Trump is leading a fight against state-enabled Satanic paedophiles - is at the heart of so much modern paranoia about what US and worldwide governments are doing without citizen's knowledge.
On January 6th, at the insurrection against the Capitol Building around which many of the most recent charges against Trump stand, many of the most iconic images are not of red-hatted MAGA supporters, but of those who vocally and visually follow the Q Anon movement.
Q thrives on two factors.
The first is a sense that there is a hidden pattern that few can see - and that those who do are better informed than those of us who just see chaos in the chaos.
The second is that there are all-powerful people working for the government - be that UK, US or UN (a secret one-world government is vital to most of these conspiracies) who both hide the truth from you while also dropping just enough breadcrumbs for those with the right amount of nous to follow them.
This sense that there is something going on didn't come from nowhere. It has been fed by decades of a culture that has long found dramatic mileage in David and Goliath stories of the little man (or woman) against an overweening, all-powerful government conspiring to keep us in the dark as they pursue ever darker ends.
As so many people no longer trust mainstream media and conventional news sources, is it time to re-examine the influence that the original show that told us 'the truth is out there' has had on our collective mindset?
The X Files ran for for nine Seasons and two films from 1993 – 2002 (with a brief two season reboot from 2016 – 2018). The premise was simple; two FBI Agents were tasked with examining unexplained phenomena. One was ‘true believer’ Fox Mulder, the other ‘sceptic’ Dana Scully. As the series went on, the show moved ever further away from a ‘monster of the week’ format into examining the deeper aspects of the government covering up events from telekinetic murders to an overarching plan for a full alien invasion of Earth.
Originally, we were invited to see this world through Scully’s sceptical eyes. Hers were the voiced over reports sent back to her superiors who had asked her to watch over Mulder’s over-enthusiasm for all things ‘spooky’. But as the show went on, this inevitably declined. The audience clearly agreed with the poster on Mulder’s office wall which read ‘I want to believe’. They were rewarded with ever more byzantine government plots against the plucky agents – the only people standing up against an cruel and inhuman (possibly literally) government.
Many of us have, at some point, at least flirted with a conspiracy theory. Whether it be a Kennedy assassination, a death connected to the royal family or the government covering up alien life – we’ve all wondered about whether there isn’t more to it than we’re being told.
When the X Files launched, the world was only just moving dipping a toe into the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories (Oliver Stone’s JFK was released the previous year). But usually this was the province of the fringe and the freak.
The show arrived at the perfect time to mainstream this instinct. The post-Soviet era and the decade of American dominance that followed made it seem to both anti-Capitalists and anti-Liberals that they were being defeated by a mainstream juggernaut. No matter which side of the political fence you fell, the sense that this hegemony didn’t represent your interests was rife.
X Files fans also fit the profile of those most likely to buy into conspiracy theories. Despite the caricature, research shows that they are likely to be of above average intelligence but slightly out of the mainstream. It is the combination of proud outsider and questioning everything that both the show and the conspiracist mindset reward. The X Files predates social media. But in many ways, it’s catchphrase “The Truth is Out there” could be the slogan of any conspiracy site telling you to “Do your own research”.
Doing your own research is fine – if you do so in a way that is scientific and sceptical, does not treat all sources the same and doesn’t fall back on motivated reasoning. But at the heart of conspiracy thinking is the artlessness of Mulder’s poster: I want to believe.
The X Files was a great show. But it’s dark heart of disbelief in institutions sowed seeds that have come to have some deep and pernicious roots in our society that are damaging our faith in democracy itself. Or could this too be just another conspiracy theory?
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What I’ve been up to
My TedX Talk was published online. In it, I talk about why it is essential to talk to people you disagree with.
I saw a very moving play that is on its way to Edinburgh - so if you’re going to the festival do check out Paved With Gold and Ashes.
Finally, I did two interview episodes of House of Comments that I am really proud of. I think they’re both really good discussions, first on political interviews with Rob Burley and the second on class and family with Polly Toynbee.
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