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Once upon a time, my younger kid and I were volunteering at a children's museum for Space Day, running a SUPER cool demonstration of how gravity works. We had a length of knit fabric stretched tight in a hoop, and a bunch of balls of different sizes. Kids could put a heavy ball in the middle, then try to roll other balls past the heavy one and see if they got caught in its orbit. Or they could put the little one in the middle, roll a heavy ball past, and watch gravitational chaos in action! This is a tangent, but it was a picture-perfect STEM activity: process-oriented, experiential and experimental, and naturally leveled to different abilities, as kids who couldn't yet understand the science could still gain some excellent sensorial knowledge of physics. And for kids even younger--well, who doesn't love rolling balls?
So I was too busy to actually engage with anyone beyond our own station, but the station with the Lunar lander model and map of the Moon was next to me, and I overheard one kid announce to his field trip companions that his Dad said that the Moon landing wasn't real. I didn't notice then, but I do note now that distancing language, how the kid's Dad believes it, not necessarily the kid--testing the waters, perhaps, to see what the docent would say in response? Tattling on his Dad, maybe, or engaging in a little subtle trash talk about him? I didn't hear what the docent said in reply, but part of the day's activities was a presentation by a real astronaut, who notably described in great detail how one poops in space, so I'm hoping any lingering delusions about the Moon landing were also expelled. Ahem.
Anyway, that was my one real-life near-interaction with someone who knows someone who doesn't believe in science, if you don't count Christian homeschoolers who don't believe in evolution or the age of the Earth, etc., of whom I've encountered plenty but they're different because I already know where their misapprehension comes from--bad translations of the Bible, mostly. And probably that asshole Paul. I also think I know where the Moon landing conspiracy theory comes from--have you ever seen YouTube videos of the live news coverage they aired during the Moon landing? They used these really shitty-looking models to illustrate moments that they didn't have camera coverage of, but if you didn't have solid critical thinking skills, or you couldn't read the word "SIMULATION" on the screen, you might have thought that they were pretending those models were the real thing, and they look so crappy that they HAVE to be fake, right?
But I have no idea where on Earth (ahem) this idea that the Earth is flat came from. I mean, even lots of ancient peoples knew the Earth wasn't flat! Eratosthenes even measured it in 240 BCE, when he wasn't busy inventing his Sieve.
The documentary Behind the Curve did not enlighten me as to why anyone would ever think that the Earth is flat, other than being told by another Flat Earther, I guess, but it was nevertheless an absolutely fascinating look at some of the people who do think this.
As for people who think this, I expected the blowhards who get off on performing anti-establishmentarianism. The one the documentary mostly follows is Mark Sargent, who wears the cringiest shirt that literally says "I Am Mark Sargent" on it so that the other Flat Earthers he might encounter in the wild know they're seeing THE Mark Sargent, bless his heart. And he does these interviews about how he's so modest and never thought that he'd find himself the head of the world's most innovative movement or whatever, but he's willing to take the hit for the team, etc., while grinning his head off and clearly just loving himself sick. Bless his heart.
Honestly, I expected everyone in the documentary to be like that? The other key character, Patricia Steere, is similar though less obnoxious, and I was pretty into how aggressively she friend-zoned Sargent in every scene they shared. And then they showed a few clips of a super scarily ranting other guy who seemed just very dysregulated in general.
But then they also followed a couple of people who apparently represent a whole other aspect of the Flat Earther thing that I am SO intrigued by--they're really into creating and enacting experiments to show whether or not the Earth is flat! In some ways it's not good science, because they specifically and overtly want to show that the Earth is flat, which is not really how an experiment works, but in other ways it IS good science, because they end up creating some very valid experiments, regardless. In the documentary we get to see a lot of problem-solving, which is very good for illustrating how real science works, and because these are regular people--people with GoFundMe accounts, sure, but still regular people--they demonstrate some excellent usage of lower-budget DIY solutions to the problems they encounter. When Jeran Campanella's idea to use a fancy laser to shine 4 miles across the top of a series of posts (if it shines all the way to the farthest post, the Earth is flat, but if it's blocked by the middle post, then the Earth has curved and is round) doesn't work because the laser's light disperses too much across the distance, he sits back down and figures out a similar experiment that accomplishes the same thing using a high-powered flashlight and Styrofoam panels... and the experiment shows curvature! Which he decides means that either his experiment is flawed or that there's another Flat Earth explanation he hasn't thought of yet, so that's a bummer, but still. It was a really good experiment!
I'm really intrigued by these Flat Earth science bros primarily because nobody else seems *that* interested in the real-worldness of their view--they just kind of like to display these models they've made or invent their own logic for worldviews that they've made and talk about how they don't trust anyone else's judgment but their own. Which is another result of the "Do your own research" trend that, combined with rampant cultural and scientific illiteracy, is definitely leading to the dumbing-down of the overall standard of intelligence of the human population, sigh.
The most magical part of the documentary is when Sargent went to see the 2017 total solar eclipse. He started off incredibly blase about it, griping about having to travel to the path of totality when he was already at a place where there'd be a partial eclipse--what difference could just a few percentage points of coverage make? He seemed most enthusiastic about going just so he could show off his Flat Earth merch and do his anti-authoritarian thing to the Round Earth rubes and show off being THE Mark Sargent who's Flat Earth-famous. I was so embarrassed for him that I could barely watch, bless his heart. But then the total solar eclipse actually happens, and of course it's the most magical fucking thing, and of COURSE he was visibly awed and charmed and struck by the wonder of nature and for a couple of whole minutes, he smiled a genuinely sweet and sincere smile and looked like just the nicest guy having a wholesome moment of joy.
And then he said something ignorant and smug about the shape of the planet and the moment was over.
So, I don't really know why all these people settled on the idea that the Earth isn't round as their obsession, but here's what I think is going on WITH that obsession: they're essentially LARPing the post-modern fiction genre. The most obvious characteristic they share with post-modern fiction is, of course, the fact of the unreliable narrator. It's evident not just because the meat of their rhetoric is factually incorrect, but also through the constant disagreements within the group of adherents about every possible detail of their theories--it seems like the only thing that adherents agree on is that the Earth isn't round. This bleeds into the intertextuality that is another key component of post-modern fiction, wherein the adherents are constantly referencing each other and other people's theories, often adding to the theme of unreliable narration by accusing others of somehow being not just wrong about their own particular theory, but also false or duplicitous adherents to the entire Flat Earth mythos. Trigger warning for this blog post, as it's upsettingly anti-Semitic, but it's a solid example of the obsession with denying the affiliation of those who disagree in any particular with any single person's full conspiracy theory. Notice the ad hominem attacks interspersed with attacks on their various theories.
I can even see elements of metafiction in the discourse, from Sargent's continual movie references (he really likes The Truman Show!) to the overt artificiality of what many adherents describe (our flat Earth is covered by a dome... just like in The Truman Show!), to just the plain, evident non-truth of what they're describing, including how each experiment that proves a round Earth just inspires the experimenters to come up with a new justification and a different "experiment."
I imagine that it's exciting, though, to be living in the middle of a post-modern fictional universe. I mean, imagine if there WAS some kind of secret truth, deliberately hidden for the last millennia by everyone in authority, and only YOU have been smart enough to figure it out! Imagine how exciting that would be! Imagine how smart you'd feel! Imagine how much fun you'd have connecting with a small but mighty group of like-minded individuals, and together fighting the good fight to bring the light of truth to the rest of humanity! God, if *I* discovered some secret truth like that, I would be so into it!
I suggested this documentary to my kid who's studying abroad in an ocean-based environmental science research program, because they like to watch thematically-relevant movies once a week... but she said they'd already chosen the Spongebob movie, which is fair.
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
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