Editor’s Note: A Special Thanks to B&H for permission to reprint this adaptation of chapter 7 of Dan Darling’s A Way With Words: Using our Online Conversations for Good (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2020)
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Well, that’s what they want you to think,” a friend insisted, with particular emphasis on the they and want, after the end of a long and fruitless argument about whether or not a group of secretive bankers was plotting in smoke-filled rooms to destroy the world. I tried, in vain, to convince him that Donald Trump’s election, a natural disaster in Indonesia, and the rise of the price of plastics were not, in fact, tied to a central, evil, dark conspiracy.
You, too, probably have encountered a friend or family member convinced of a conspiracy. Perhaps you’ve had someone plead with you to “just watch this” or have had someone tell you, convincingly, “It’s been proven!” and provide the web links to back it up.
Or maybe it’s not a friend prone to believing in Sasquatch, UFOs, or that the world is flat; maybe you are the one who believes these things. If so, this might get awkward because I’m pretty skeptical
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