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How to cure a family member from believing in conspiracy theories?

So it's about one of my aunts, she says for herself that she is communist and says that Tito, Stalin and Lenin were the best presidents in history and defends USSR, PRC, DPRK, Cuba etc while in the same time unironically calls Putin a ''communist'', believing that he is on the way of slowly bringing socialism to Russia in secret and that conservatism and church stuff is just a mask to get votes from everyone, her only proof of this is that he supposedly attacked and jailed various oligarchs as soon as he came to power. While yes, Putin is based in foreign policy, no way in hell the stuff she's saying for domestic policy are true. Then she still holds conservative beliefs in sense that while she isn't ultra homophobic and transphobic like average reactionary, she says that LGBT minority should get every right by law, but she still dislikes other sexual orientations and preferences and says that they shouldn't be allowed in government to spread ''agenda'' or talk openly about it and that no communist would say his sexual preference in public, excluding the asexuality, possibly not to offend me.

Then even more insane part is that she unironically believes in deep state, shadow government in USA or whatever the fuck that's called, chemtrail bullshit, golden billion, NWO and that some secret billionaire supervillains control USA while Biden is their puppet because he has dementia and they put him by purpose as a mask and that average USA president like Biden must do as he is told by someone and something about German economist Klaus Schwab. Also antisemitic rhetoric that ''Jews or zionists'' control USA. She is saying that she isn't talking about all Jews, but ''billionaire zionists'' who control the USA, like USA is some small little powerless country who can be controlled by anyone who has a bit of money. She also believed that Obama's wife Michelle is trans, some weather control bullshit and climate change denial, but she toned down on that. She sounds like me and my friends in 5th grade when we talked about Illuminati and Masons but insanity jacked up to 100.

Every now and then when I hear something new from her about politics or geopolitics or anything related, it's getting more and more ridiculous each time. Then I saw that she's watching some ahem ''intellectuals'' on the internet who are coming in some TV shows and then spew that stuff with straight face and every, I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is a conservative or at best liberal cuck, you can get idea on how bad it is when I say that liberal would be best option, this is Serbia so you can imagine it and she's taking information from them. The rhetoric with them is that they support Russia, Global South and anti-imperialism against western imperialism, but are absolutely nuts in every other take, she only stops watching one of them when someone directly says something bad about communism or spews outright nazi shit like quotes about races or starts talking about great replacement theory or whatever. Not to mention her scrolling Instagram and Facebook full of conservative trash and rhetorics with conspiracy theories and spreading disinformation.

Of course my older sister tried to put some sense into her head(me and my brother are younger and don't have the nerves for that but I wanted to ask anyway), told her about the every single one of those idiots and in which parties they are and what they support and this was her response: Basically that their political parties and beliefs should be ignored while watching those talk shows because they are just talking about geopolitics and current events, you know just journalists and news. Then went ahead to say that on the other hand they have right information because they have collages, universities, lived abroad yadda yadda and my sister doesn't so she can't know more than them.... And instead of you know, reading Parenti for example, she is talking about those dinguses like they are Teslas, Einsteins, Newtons, Darwins, Socrates and Aristotles with their takes and quotes about geopolitics.

AND AFTER ALL OF THAT she calls herself a communist while supporting PRC, DPRK, wanting USSR and SFRY and her favorite country being Cuba above all else. I may not want to be involved personally because maybe there is no point, but I still want to ask, is there any cure for this?

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4 comments
  • Provide positive alternatives and if she bites, she bites. It sounds like she doesn't know the foundations of socialism so maybe there's a book you could read together. Since she likes Stalin, his stuff is some of the more concise and direct if reading Marx seems like a bit much.

    Lenin, Stalin etc would've shot Putin.

  • Because of a relative starting to explore conspiracy stuff - nothing too horrendous, just the faked moon landing and 9/11 stuff, which these days is pretty mild - I looked into how you might start to attempt to "de-programme" someone. Sadly, it's not good news, you just need to be gentle with your cajoling, no ridiculing (tempting as that is... for me at least!); the person has to find their own way out, and very often they will not. You have to just be there for them and try to make it easier for them to admit they made a mess of their beliefs - this is why the ridiculing is not a good idea, it can pressure someone into doubling-down, the same goes for arguing with them too.

    A couple of podcasts I can recommend - Conspirituality (they have a book out of the same name which is very good), and QAnon Anonymous - both explore conspiracy theories and the psychologies involved in them, they both look at grifters and this is the angle I've taken with my relative. I've tried to gently explain that these communities attract grifters and money-makers who don't actually believe the theories they are peddling to people.

    I've tried academic books on conspiracy theory theory but they were really disappointing so none to recommend there.

  • The real question is what do you count as real information? Supporting the global south and surrounded with nonsense from the liberal media can make one suspicious of all information and just go into an information silo.

    Its very alienating to see what is going on in this world and not go a bit batty. My suggestion is to encourage them to experience the world dialectically. Stop engaging with it online and try to build something good. Build something good in your community with them and maybe they'll let go of their racism.

    • Disinformation as in conspiracy theories and talking points.

      And she's not racist, just LGBT-phobic and buys antisemitic conspiracy.

  • I have my family that is pure conservative trash, they hate comunists, leftists, everyone who have left views, only for loving their favorite prime minister, Giorgia Meloni (im from italy, yes the country where police beat the hell out of gen-z and young people who are on the right side of history and im 24 yrs old). Everyone is like a follower of her, it's like a religion, but full of fascists and nazists. They're also racists, homophobics because im bisexual, and also christians, but im atheist with respect for satanists.