Submitted to a Candid World

Don’t worry; I won’t let this site become a Conservapedia blog. After all, Conservapedia is ably covered in more detail by other internet venues. But, as a case study of creationism and extremist theocratic politics in action (”Idiots in the Mist,” if you will), Conservapedia has a lot to teach us, and when those case study moments crop up, I will gleefully report on them. So, wherever Conservapedia flops at making creationism intellectually respectable, I’ll be there. Wherever Conservapedia proves, in an exceptionally egregious way, the evil of theocratic conservatism, I’ll be there. And wherever Andy Schlafly makes a huge jerk of himself, I’ll be there, too.

It’s to the second of those points that I turn your attention today. Background: Conservapedia is run by a small group of people who believe that difference is to be corrected, that dissent is irrelevant, that power is best concentrated, that there is one Truth and other ideologies are malicious lies, that compromise is futile, and that the enemy is everywhere. Even though the Conservapedia administrators are working together towards a common goal, these ideological commitments that nominally bring them together have caused Conservapedia’s leaders to react with predictable animosity even towards each other. After all, where an intolerant man meets another intolerant man, even if they agree on 90% of the issues, they’ll kill each other over the last 10%. Put simply, the history of Conservapedia’s leadership is one of bigotry, anger, violence, and paranoia.

Let’s push the Jane Goodall metaphor a little farther. In the jungle of Conservapedia, last year, researchers were afforded a rare glimpse at the site’s “silverbacks” when, for a short period of time, the administration’s top-secret, password-protected Google Group became temporarily visible, exposing the group’s dirty laundry - and some personal secrets - for all the world to see.  When I came upon the newly public group, it was like looking into the smoke-filled backroom of a small spin-off Soviet nation, suffering from delusions of grandeur.  Everything was there: the draconian, imperialistic trappings (the group ominously styled itself either the “Special Discussion Group,” or “The Ten”), the persecution complex (every time the wiki software hiccuped, they blamed invisible hackers), the black ops mission reports (”I have successfully infiltrated RationalWiki”), the intricate grandoise plots for revenge (The Ten frequently considered suing “liberals” for merely posting on Conservapedia, and tried to report “vandals” to the FBI), and the backstabbing.  Tellingly, not all Conservapedia administrators were in the Special Discussion Group, and those that weren’t - even some of the most active administrators - were constantly either suspected of being ‘double agents,” mocked, or plotted against.  It was a poisonous atmosphere of hate, and distrust.

Moving from the general to the specific, and from external to internal tensions, even the story of how the Special Discussion Group became temporarily public is fascinating for the light it sheds on Conservapedia’s internal discord. The Group was co-owned by one high-ranking Conservapedia sysop who, growing disillusioned with his place in the pecking order, decided to expose the group’s secrets in an act of petty vengeance.  Suspicious, authoritarian personalities - shockingly - do not play well with others.

We need not turn only to private groups for gossip, either.  Although The Ten tried to hide all internal discord, a good deal of it managed to leak into public view.  Among a history of hatred, a couple particular schisms come to mind.

First, the religious. Latent antisemitism at Conservapedia (come on, don’t act surprised) turned away one conservative, creationist, Messianic Jewish administrator, and distrust of Mormons nearly caused the group to lose one of its more active members. And although I can’t cite to it for privacy reasons, Andy Schlafly’s unconcealed distrust of even adherents to different forms of creationism led to him repulsing more than one trusted and active administrator. Apparently xenophobic bigots can’t keep it in long enough even to get along with their allies.

Second, the ideological. By steadfastly sticking to the old lie that Barack Obama is Muslim, the site lost its one evenhanded captain, who just couldn’t take the lying anymore, and the same event has nearly alienated some other senior administrators. While about half of the Conservapedia leaders - and especially the ones in charge - are fine with “lying for Jesus,” the remainder apparently have some problems with blatant smear campaigns.  The Lenski affair has provoked the latest division, alienating the more thoughtful and friendly creationists on the site, who knew that Schlafly was fighting a battle that he was bound to lose.  Those administrators are now seeing that to Schlafly, ideology comes before tact, and even before intelligence.

The failings of Conservapedia are the failings of every tyranny and every theocracy that’s ever existed.  The site has, throughout its existence, tried to maintain an aggressive, theocratic, xenophobic party line, opposed to all things that the Fearless Leader (Andy Schlafly) deems “liberal” (ergo evil), regardless of the objective merits of the idea.  Just like dictatorships that try to maintain their own hard & fast ideological grounds, the rigid demands of obedience and unity in Conservapedia’s case functioned to exclude, alienate, and ultimately expel the talented, moderate, and intelligent contributors (the veritable canaries in the mine), creating a leadership group dominated by forceful and dogmatic individuals, which naturally fostered paranoia and suspicion.  By swearing itself to an ideology of hate, Conservapedia long ago sowed the seeds of its own destruction, which are even now blooming.