Short: We never talk about the actual world, but that alone does not have to be bad. This essay shares an understanding on one major factor of populism, why it works, especially when people are afraid or uneducated; and why the actual world doesn't care.

One of the most important things you have to understand, when studying for social science theory finals is, that every theory is ‘wrong’. It has to be.

Theories are stories we tell each other about how the world works. As the world is (more or less) infinitely complex, and our brains are (more or less) finitely good at making sense of things, the stories we tell about the workings of the world are (more or less) removed from the actual ways the world works. Our world is complex; our theories are abstract.

So every theory can be accused to not represent the real world. And frequently opposition to good theory will try to use this trick. Either by using What-Aboutisms (“Your climate change theory doesn’t consider reoccuring historical changes in temperature.”) or decisions for simplification (“Its not just about CO2”.) or complexity (“Shutting off my monitor is too minor of a factors to be relevant.”). But we still need to try to understand the real world, so what makes a good theory? I would conjecture a good theory to find a useful balance between simplification and misrepresentation.

Sometimes topics are so complex, as to not be suited to be simplified too much (e.g. climate change). Sometimes these topics affect many people (e.g. climate change). It is often in these contexts, that many people would like to have these topics be simple, and bad theories find demand. Even though they are unhelpful they find believers (e.g. the real world climate change does not care if we think there is no climate change). They find believers “even though” they are unhelpful for understanding the real world, BECAUSE they are simpler and - that way - feel more intuitive for many listeners.

In these important and diffficult contexts, false believes are most harmful.

Where the first part in our series “Losing Conspiratorial Thinking” argued for an openness for multiple factors. This second part follows suit in opening up the idea further. Some things can only be understood when accepting due complexity. A good shorthand for due complexity - in my mind - is the plausibility of agenda behind arguing something was simple (often it is plausible that political power is to be diverted).

Thank you for reading and stay beautiful <3