Why so many wacko conspiracy theories?

A used book offers an unexpected insight .... there is no map

“I understand now that no one else in the world knows what I should do. The experts don’t know, the ministers, the therapists, the magazines, the authors, my parents, my friends, they don’t know. Not even the folks who love me the most.

Because no one has ever lived or will ever live this life I am attempting to live, with my gifts and challenges and past and people. Every life is an unprecedented experiment. This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.

There is no map. We are all pioneers.” — Glennon Doyle, Untamed

It looked like a safe book, an escape from the exhausting clamor of the election, the worry about whether “he” might be elected again or if “she” could row us to a safer shore. It was just another book crammed into a sale box at the hugely popular Planned Parenthood Used Book Sale with a price tag of $3. 

Maybe I should have saved my money, but it looked like a much needed distraction from the non-stop flood of worry about women dying from lack of health care, the threatening of the Haitian residents in Springfield, Ohio, the constant need to do more, read more, understand more, give more.

“Only 34 more days to elect the 47^th president” … will we cheer or crash?

By the third page of this book, questions were filling up the margins. When I discovered that I had purchased and failed to finish reading the Kindle version three years ago, I felt a weird sense of synchronicity and was already resonating with Rebecca Solnit’s comment, “I wish I had written Maps of the Imagination.”

Suddenly, all of my questions pointed to the same answer … there is no map that tells us where we’re going or what might happen along the way. We actually have to live the map, step-by-step into the uncertainty stretching to the far horizon.

No wonder we’re attracted to conspiracy theories.

When something horrible happens (such as the assassination of JFK or the devastation of 9/11 or the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook), rather than accepting that life, as well as the world around us, is uncertain and largely out of our control, it makes us feel stronger, more invincible, to rail against an unseen conspiracy, a “they” or a “bad guy” we can blame and point fingers at.

However, we are individually weak, subject to the whims of the Universe, the climate and geothermal upheavals, as well as our eight billion fellow travelers we bump into along the way.

It reduces our stress if we can blame the strangers, the “they’s”, the obviously different from us, the speakers of other languages, the followers of other religions, the keepers of other traditions. We feel safer with people who look like us, live in our same state, maybe even on our same block or, better yet, in our same house.

The problem is that we’re all on this one planet, sharing the same air and water, each needing food and shelter, wanting peace and safety.

Which “others” are most easily identified?

Those with a different color skin, or different language, or different clothing, or those new on the block … immigrants and, even more inappropriately, the people who lived here thousands of years before we actual immigrants first arrived.

Here in the US, there are 330 million of us … out there in the rest of the world, are 8 billion others. The US is a geographically fortunate land, isolated by two oceans, protected by two friendly neighbors, untouched by land wars, (other than the one we created amongst ourselves two hundred plus years ago.) All of us, however, are subject to the whims of global climate and the hazards of troubled governments who create unlivable conditions for their people.

Take for instance, Haiti. a country of only 11 million people. In 2010, Haiti was hit by a 7.0 earthquake that killed over 250,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Thousands fled to their island neighbor the Dominican Republic; a migration which overwhelmed existing systems in that country and resulted in a wall being built between them.

Haiti’s ability to govern itself worsened after a series of natural disasters, the assassination of its president in 2021, and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency. As violence increased, people began to flee the country and the US granted Haiti a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) which is given to nationals of countries where temporary conditions make it too dangerous to return, such as in cases of armed conflict or environmental disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. Many of the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are legal immigrants or are protected by the TPS for Haiti.

The Census Bureau estimates in 2024 show about 852,000 Haitian immigrants in the US, most of whom are in Florida.

Because JD Vance feels free to make up stories to serve his own causes, the citizens of Springfield, Ohio, including the approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants living there, are being terrorized by bomb threats and violence. While no one has confirmed the story of pets being eaten, many Springfield employers have praised the presence and work ethic of their Haitian work force.

Interestingly, as it turns out, the health of our economy depends on the availability of a strong immigrant work force as our population ages and birth rates trends downward. We need the immigrant work force. We need each other.

Our beleaguered immigration system needs improvement. Trump killed the bill.

A bipartisan group of Senators worked together to improve the immigration system. The effort was shut down apparently at the request of presidential candidate Trump who wanted to run on the immigration issue during his campaign. He fabricated a web of fear around “the border” and then ordered his followers to kill the bill which addressed many of the border issues.

Bipartisan Immigration Reform Bill

A personal immigration story; my local Unitarian group “adopted” an immigrant mother and child and has been helping them settle and get work for over two years. When they arrived, they were told it would take three months to obtain a work permit. Even with the help of a lot of local residents, it took two years to get the permit.

With climate creating more natural disasters and authoritarian leaders further destabilizing countries, there is a likelihood of more people globally being displaced and becoming migrants. We need immigration reform that will safely and sanely attract the labor force we need for the future and facilitate the integration of immigrants into their new communities, providing them a safe haven.

There are issues in Springfield (which have nothing to do with pets) but they are not caused by the Haitians, but rather by the way the rapid increase in population has strained local resources. Part of. our immigration system reform should be to help communities accommodate rapid changes in population.

In the meantime, Trump plans to visit the small city and Republican Mayor Rob Rue stated in a press conference, “It would be an extreme strain on our resources. So it’d be fine with me if they decided not to make that visit.”

Sources:

Brookings: The collapse of bipartisan immigration reform: A guide for the perplexed, by William A. Galston, February 8, 2024

The New Republic, “Springfield’s GOP Mayor Issues Stark Warning to Trump After His Lies,” by Hafiz Rashid, September 18, 2024