It’s All Connected: Scams, Conspiracies, and Belief

In an interview shortly after publishing The Da Vinci Code, author Dan Brown stated unequivocally that the various secret holy orders contained within were real, that the French monarchy blood line claimed to have been wiped out in the 1000s AD had survived, and that he had the documents to prove it.  While those documents did exist, they had been put in France’s Bibliotheque Nationale only a few decades prior by a scam artist hoping to scrape a few bucks off gullible tourists wanting to buy a knighthood.  He, in turn, had gotten his inspiration from another grifter looking to drum up business for his combined hotel/restaurant.  And even he had pulled from a local urban myth that had grown out of proportion because the truth was far too boring.  It’s scams all the way down.

I got this info from an excellent podcast (The Rest Is History) that I highly recommend.  While they don’t generally focus on debunking conspiracy theories, I loved this particular episode and how it showed how Dan Brown could be so confident in his assessment of the historical accuracy of his novel.  He saw a tidbit of information he thought was neat, did a touch of research to validate his own notions, then pressed forward as though it were all gospel truth.  This is not to fault Mr Brown, per se, but to comment on the tendency we all have to get caught up in a good story at the expense of reality.

The problem is that we like connections and patterns.  Point A must lead to point Z.  Unfortunately, life doesn’t always line up nicely, but instead of shrugging our shoulders and accepting that this world is often a mad place full of inconsistencies, we look to find those tantalizing letters in between—even if they’re not there.  These can span from the relatively harmless like thinking Tupac is still alive to the incredibly dangerous like thinking vaccines cause autism (they don’t).

I have no answers or grand point to make here, just a curiosity as to where I’ve made leaps based on incorrect information or faulty assumptions.  Even though I avoid social media like the plague, evidence like the trail of scammers that led to the Da Vinci Code’s plot devices prove conspiracies and misinformation don’t require an algorithm to propagate.  What closely held beliefs do I have that are rooted in a lie some hotelier made up a hundred years ago because his business needed a boost?

More importantly, how do I tell a story on this blog that will resonate so deeply with someone that hundreds of years from now, an author can look with complete sincerity into a reporter’s eyes and say, yes, I have done the research and I can unequivocally say the descendants of the lost colony of Roanoke have controlled the world’s travel industry for centuries.

And thus, legends are born.