The thing that has always impressed me the most about the Flat Earthers, the Obama Birthers, and the Westboro Baptist Churchers, is the depth of their beliefs. (Okay: maybe impressed isn’t the word I’m looking for; maybe flabbergasted would be more to the point). So, anyway, the thing that has always flabbergasted me about those people is how they genuinely seem to believe all of those hateful, misspelled signs they are carrying. And so, even though I generally despise the views they are espousing, I have to admit that it really does impress me how terrier-like they are in maintaining them.
In fact, so impressed was I with their doggedness in maintaining their beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence that I used to think they must have some kind of a superpower (a lame superpower, to be sure—super cluelessness—but a superpower nonetheless). That was the only explanation that made sense to me. Surely, I thought, reality-denying of that magnitude was not possible for the average human to attain without some kind of help: there had to be something out of the ordinary going on for such devotion to nonsense to exist. A radioactive raccoon bite, maybe, or perhaps exposure to too much swamp gas. Or who knows, maybe even some serious Scientology—anything that would enable them to get that out of touch with reality. In other words, whether from inside the brain or out, I just figured they had to have some sort of chemical help.
And then, of course, I had a teenager, and I realized how wrong I was. Because once I had a teenager I realized that there are levels of denial that I had never even dreamed of, and that the people who think that the moon shot was faked, or that the Pyramids were built by aliens have got nothing on your average teenager.
Take seat belts, for example. Ever try and argue seat belt usage with a teenager? Forget about it: they are a a veritable font of misinformation on the subject.
“Put your seat belt on,” I’ll say, and the child who has been obligingly doing just that ever since she got out of her car seat will look over at me and say, with complete sincerity,
“You know, seat belts actually kill more people then they save every year.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“This guy at school. He’s a senior.”
“He’s an idiot. Put your seat belt on.”
“He’s not. He read it on this website.”
I’m so old I remember when the indisputable source was “my cousin’s girlfriend’s sister.” As in, “Dude, I’m telling you: my cousin knows this girl—well, I think it was his girlfriend’s sister or something—but she was actually on the grassy knoll. And she says that it was aliens that shot Kennedy. That other guy, though—he did shoot the Governor.”
The thing about a “cousin’s girlfriend’s sister” story was that at least it was relatively easy to debunk—a couple of probing questions and it would fall apart. (“Dude, I met your cousin: there’s no way he’s got a girlfriend.”) With the internet, though, it’s a little more difficult: there probably really is a website out there that advises against seat belt use. In fact, it’s probably right next to one where the Westboro Baptist Church gets their “facts.”
Who knows, maybe one day there will be a bit of confusion and everyone from that church will drive to a funeral protest without wearing their seat belts.
We can always hope.