I’m working slowly through the archives of the Conspirituality podcast — about the crossover between New Age movements and scams/cults. And it dropped this casual observation about QAnon (which isn’t their central theme or anything, but it comes up in this context a lot) that was so striking, I kind of can’t believe it hasn’t come up in any of the other scam stuff I follow:
QAnon has a lot of religious themes and overtones, mostly Christian-specific ones…but it doesn’t have original sin.
There’s no concept that you, the believer, have done wrong. You’re not inherently flawed, in some way that means you need redemption or grace by default. No, no, no — you are an inherently good person who deserves good things!
And, look, if we cut the whole premise off right there, it sounds…actually healthy?
You can see how it would be actively healing. Especially to anyone who was raised in a religious community that went heavy on the blame and the shame. Especially-especially to anyone who was personally, directly abused, and then told things like “you brought this on yourself with your sinful and impure nature.”
But QAnon takes it to toxic places. Not just “the suffering in the world is not something you caused by being inherently broken,” but “no suffering is ever caused by anything you did! And also, none of it is your responsibility to try to fix.”
All the problems are caused by (((The Secret Evil Baby-Eating Cabal))). All of them will be solved with a glorious revolution from some quasi-messianic political figure — whether that’s Trump, or JFK Junior, or the “Queen of Canada” — who will sweep in, save all the victims, destroy all the villains, and fix everything!
All you need to do, dear Q supporter, is grab your popcorn, sit back, and watch the triumph.
This ties right in with pandemic-related conspiracies. Scientists are telling you to wear masks and get vaccinated? Sounds like they’re saying you have responsibilities, like the spread of disease could be your fault, and gosh, that doesn’t make sense at all. It’s all the fault of a sinister underground conspiracy, obviously. If a virus spreads in your area where nobody is masked or vaccinated, that just proves how much the conspiracy is out to get you.
It ties in with things like Canadian qultists who stop paying their utility bills, because the Queen of Canada said they didn’t have to. Power and water are good things, you deserve them, so when some lady calling herself a Queen says you don’t have to pay for them, that makes perfect sense. And when the utility companies cut off your service, you don’t think “oh no, I was wrong, I need to fix this by paying my balance.” You think “I need to reach out to the Queen, of course she can fix this, all I have to do is watch.”
And it ties in with the way Q doctrine keeps talking about “the Cabal is trafficking and abusing millions of children,” but there’s not, you know…a mass movement among Q followers to adopt.
There’s supposed to be a huge cache of, say, mole children in a prison under Central Park that the military is going to rescue! But there’s no “here’s how to prepare your home to take in a rescued mole child.” Heck, I haven’t even heard “we are the organization providing homes for the rescued mole children, please send us donations.” (Meanwhile, we do hear “maybe the real child who needs rescuing was your inner child all along?”)
The closest thing you get to “doing something” is, generally, qultists calling child-protection organizations with (useless, time-wasting) “tips.” Not volunteering! Not putting in any effort themselves. Just calling. The work is somebody else’s problem.
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Gonna pivot for a second, but stay with me:
We just passed the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which means this post about the madcap rescue dash of the RMS Carpathia is going around. You should read it. It’s incredible. (Well-written, too.)
This is an actual rescue, with actual victims. Carried out by people who were not trained for it — I mean, some of them had training in specific relevant skills, but the crew as a whole was not a maritime rescue operation.
What they did have was an actual desire to think through “if we find survivors, what are they going to need?” — and then prepare as much of that as humanly possible.
Medical care? All the doctors are awake, all the dining rooms are first-aid stations. Something hot and nutritious? All the kitchen staff are turning all their resources to prepping soup and tea. Dry clothes, warm blankets, beds to pass out in? The passengers are volunteering theirs en masse. If you don’t have a single other applicable skill — well, you’ve got a shoulder, so you get that ready for someone to cry on.
(…I know these situations aren’t parallel in a lot of ways, but there’s a striking thematic contrast in “Canadian qultists believing that utility bills are no longer their responsibility, then being shocked and angry when the heat to their homes gets cut off” versus “Carpathian passengers not being shocked or angry when the heat to their rooms gets cut off, because diverting all that power to the engines — getting their ship to the scene of the wreck as fast as humanly possible, no, faster — is their responsibility.”)
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Very, very occasionally, you will get a qultist taking some kind of decisive personal action. Like the guy who showed up at Comet Ping Pong and pointed a gun at the staff, or the guy who showed up at Comet Ping Pong with lighter fluid and set a fire in the middle of the game room, or…you get the pattern.
If one of these guys had uncovered a secret evil basement full of imprisoned kids — what was he going to do next?
You think he had any kind of resources lined up? Safe housing? Childcare? Medical attention? Therapists? Clothes, toys, books?
I guess if you’re doing this at a pizza place, “food” is taken care of. But literally anything else?
Of course not! That’s not on him. Someone else (probably a nigh-omnipotent authority figure!) is supposed to handle the follow-up, and any hard work that comes with it. All he has to do is sit back and watch.
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