Two co-workers at a pizza joint debate whether the Earth is round...and other conspiracy theories.
Tell us your argument stories!
Two co-workers at a pizza joint debate whether the Earth is round...and other conspiracy theories.
Tell us your argument stories!
Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Have you ever had an argument hangover? We often think about disagreements as a contest of words and ideas, of two clever brains locked in a contest. It's a verbal back and forth, the classic he said, she said cliché.
But some arguments, especially emotional ones, don't work. are fully embodied. We feel them as much as we think them or say them. And they have an impact on our bodies long after they end. I can remember being in arguments, particularly ones that couldn't be resolved in the moment, that left me hungover for days.
It honestly felt like I had way too much to drink. My head hurt. I felt weak and I was so foggy that regular tasks felt difficult and overwhelming. I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility [00:01:00] Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest on When We Disagree Today is Victor Dupont from Delaware.
Victor, tell us an argument story.
Victor du Pont: Thanks for the introduction, Mike. Um, for my irksome argument, I'll be telling you about an ex co worker of mine who happens to believe the Earth is flat. Well, I mean, calling him a flat earther would be an understatement. He kind of believes in all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories, but, um, basically, I was working at this pizza place for a whole year and I had this co worker, Jock.
Um, Jock is a character. Uh, let's see. I first started hearing about it when we were looking at the moon and he said, That isn't real. And I was like, what? It kind of caught me off guard. I'm like, what do you, can you elaborate on that? And he's like, the moon, like it's a, it's a, it's a mirage from like the, the, the United States.
[00:02:00] They're like displaying an image of a moon on the, on the firmament. I'm like, what are you talking about, man? So we get more into it and you know, he's just telling me, I, the first, the first way I try to disprove his theory is I pick up a pen and I draw and I'm like, I go explain that. And he's like, dude, how do you really think gravity is real?
I'm like, he's like, dude, it's got weight to it. So I tried to get deeper into his logic and his thinking about why he thought this way. And the more and more I argued with him, the more and more he pushed back. And you know, it's, it's funny talking to someone that believes the earth is flat. Cause it's like, you don't really expect to, to see that.
on a day to day basis. It's just like something you see in like YouTube videos. It's like talking to flat earthers. But when you challenge someone's worldview, there's a bit of pushback and you can't really get into the [00:03:00] nitty gritty of that.
Michael Lee: Let me ask you about the argument itself. And it sounds like You could have a lot of contentious arguments with this guy over some pretty, pretty basic factual realities.
So let's just talk about the flat earth one just to take a case in point. So he brings up to challenge you that the earth is flat. You make your case. No, it's not. It's round. And then what does he say?
Victor du Pont: His, his entire spiel is that everybody, like the government, astrophysicists, they're all lying to you.
And that they have enough funding that they can do that, pretty much. And like the entire education system, it, it kinda, you can't argue against it because whatever you say, he says that you were taught incorrectly.
Michael Lee: Right. And so it's almost like you can't even really have an argument that's limited to the flat earth question because it inevitably gets into a [00:04:00] broader conspiracy of mind control of which he is the only person who has escaped and everybody else is just an unwitting peon who's parroting bought and sold lies.
Victor du Pont: At some point I had started playing into it and just acting like I was like, Oh, really? That's, that's crazy. I mean, and then like, I'd be like, all right. Trying to. I don't understand where he's coming from, but it really comes down to the entire flat earth argument boils down into two words and what he referenced time and time again was the two words, because God, you know, all he has is some like crazy conspiracist Bible that just says all this stuff and no matter what you say, it's just because God, because God, because God, and like, if that one statement were to not be true, his entire argument argument would shatter, but that's what the whole movement boils down to.
Michael Lee: Did you ever struggle to answer him? I mean, so many of us grow up and we're not, we're taught about the Copernican revolution and these [00:05:00] very old ideas about human consciousness of a round earth. But we're not actively taught to defend that against folks who are saying flat earth conspiracy theories.
Did you struggle at all or be conscious of your struggling to actually say, no, I think it's round and here's the good reasons I have?
Victor du Pont: Yeah, well, I'm not, like, a psychologist, so I can't really break someone down into, like, really believe, like, when, when someone's beliefs are that firmly planted, you know, it, it is, it is difficult to, like, respond at times, uh, a lot of the times I just found myself, like, laughing, and that just brought them deeper into the hole of, like, I don't want to talk about this because you're going to make fun of me.
Michael Lee: Right. And it's, it's not necessarily about the film. Firmness, right? Because I presume you would have a, you would say that your opinion on the earth's roundness is firm as well. It's more that there's a misinformation or perhaps even a disinformation and the other person's expression of opinion that you're struggling to deal with.
Victor du Pont: Yeah. Well, it all [00:06:00] really plays into like confirmation bias too. Cause you know, he would show me videos on tick tock. That was the primary source of information he got from. Unqualified people so it was just like you see something that goes against what you believe and you just disregard it I mean, that's that's what confirmation bias is.
I guess it's like one of our Strongest fallacies as humans where you know It's the same thing with like Democrats and Republicans if you're gonna watch Fox News or CNN Either side prefer like prefer like their own agendas. So yeah
Michael Lee: Well, so much of the culture now is struggling to argue about conspiracy theories and with conspiracy theorists.
From your experience, do you have any suggestions about better ways to approach folks who are a little lost in their beliefs in a broader conspiracy?
Victor du Pont: I gotta think about that one. I mean, [00:07:00] it, it, I think there could be some reform in education I guess, where, I mean obviously education doesn't teach you that the earth is flat, I, I, I honestly don't really, I don't, I don't know how you could really counter that, I'm not like, uh.
Michael Lee: And I, and too, from your own experience with this, this one person, and I've, I think we all have, but I've certainly had experiences like this, um. But I wonder to what extent you thought that belief is a performance that's designed to provoke you, that there's some joy in being contrarian about everything and challenging people's most basic, unstated assumptions about their world, or whether you think this is His legitimate belief system.
Victor du Pont: I am 99. 9 percent positive that he genuinely does believe this stuff. And it just makes me [00:08:00] sad because, I mean, his sister worked there as well. And she's like. Just don't even start with him, like it's, honestly, at times he was, he was, he seemed so confident that like I started to be like, wait, honestly, like, I don't see any curve in the earth, but
Michael Lee: starting to make some sense.
Victor du Pont: Yeah, I mean, there, there really is like no way you can. Fully know unless you're in a spaceship, but he says even even that like they put you in like a simulator Where you go up and like and it just looks like you're in space. I guess that's like his whole but the question I always asked myself was Why like from his point of view?
Why would? Millions of people in NASA, in anything that relates to, like, the physics of the Earth or space just lie about that. You know, there's, there's, there's nothing to gain out of it. Like, people, people enjoy, like, order and, like, being knowledgeable about subjects. Why would everyone be [00:09:00] together just against him?
It's like the same thing as people that believe, like, they're being, like, I don't know if you've seen like gang stalkers, people that like think they're being followed by everyone. It's like, why would everyone just be against you for no reason?
Michael Lee: Yeah, there is, in the literature, some people call this a solipsistic fantasy.
The world is a product of your own mind and creation. But I want to really tease out the line you said about people enjoy knowing things in a sense of order. Did you ever, when you're talking to this person, have a kind of fascination, or even interest in that kind of certainty. In other words, there is some speculation that perhaps one of the reasons that conspiracy culture and conspiracy theory is so wide in the internet age is that the world is a very confusing place.
and gray place. There's very few blacks and whites, but this kind of worldview offers you a very clear sense of black and white, of up and down, of [00:10:00] predictability in amidst all of the chaos. And so then he can present to you as if he's got it all figured out and then there you are lost in the quicksand.
Victor du Pont: I think it did give him a sense of um, security knowing that like this is what truly was happening and that like everyone was in the dark and he was in the light and I think it's, it's a mix of. Feeling safe that you know what's actually going on and knowing something that other people don't, you know, you feel like it almost places you above them and like a mental intelligence, you know, I would, I would argue.
Michael Lee: As we close, I'm curious to kind of broaden out on conspiracies. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories?
Victor du Pont: I, I, I do believe in quite a few. Um, do you want me to like, like list some, I guess? You
Michael Lee: don't necessarily have to, but I'm curious.
Victor du Pont: Uh, I, I, I'm speculative of the, the JFK [00:11:00] assassination. I think it's a little shady, you know.
There was, if, if, if you look into it, I mean the, the, the guy who shot him. His psychologist was in the CIA and there's all this stuff. I mean, I'm not going to get into it. I don't know it very well, like the back of my hand either, but there there's, there's definitely like a lot of like, there's like Bohemian Grove and all that, where there's like tons of high ranking individuals in the world who like go to like a spot and worship a burning owl.
And like, that's kind of weird. And there's some stuff there, but the earth, earth being flat, I think that's that bridge too far. Yeah. That, that, that kind of, it, it, It almost, it makes other conspiracies, like, seem more crazy because they can just point to, like, categorized conspiracies as a whole and, like, they're flat earthers and they believe this and they believe that, even though you can, it's, it's really more picky choosy than that.
So
Michael Lee: if you're, you're not pro conspiracy or anti conspiracy, you have a bit of both [00:12:00] within your psychological makeup. Where do you draw the line about which ones are true and which ones are false?
Victor du Pont: It really comes down to, like, the evidence behind it. Like, we have genuine pictures of these people at the Bohemian Grove.
Like, Alex Jones snuck in and took videos of everything. You know, if you look at, like, UFOs, for example, the CIA. They literally released clips of UFOs on their military cameras flying around and there's thousands of reports from, um, people who fly aircraft that, like, they see them off the coast of, like, North Carolina and tons of reportings.
Flat Earth, it's like, we have pictures of, like, the Earth. And we have so much evidence behind it that that's where I draw the line. It's just, if there's some sort of evidence, you know, that's what it comes down to.
Michael Lee: Victor, thank you very much for being on When We Disagree.
Victor du Pont: Thank you for having me.
Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with [00:13:00] creator and host Michael Lee.
Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. com.