Episode Overview

Title: Exploring Belief and Belonging in a Fractured Online Age
Podcast: The Tech Policy Press Podcast
Host: Justin Hendricks
Guest: Callum Lister Matheson, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh; Author of Post Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream
Release Date: December 4, 2025

This episode dives deep into the psychoanalytic and rhetorical roots driving contemporary belief systems, exploring why fringe online communities and conspiratorial thinking have flourished in the Internet era. Matheson’s book serves as a launching pad for a conversation probing collective fantasy, symbolic authority, technology’s double-edged influence, and the deep desire for order and meaning in a splintered digital landscape.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Lens of Psychoanalysis and Rhetoric

• Psychoanalysis as a Tool:
  Matheson frames psychoanalysis as less about diagnosing pathology, and more about speculating on motivations that escape rational explanation (01:55).

  “Psychoanalysis and rhetoric…are sort of about how we attempt to speculate about why people do what they do and what remains unsaid and what remains beyond the bounds of our direct observation.” (Matheson, 02:57)

• The Role of the Unconscious:
  It’s not just what people do, but why they do it—often beyond their own awareness.

The Power and Pitfalls of Collective Fantasy

• Consensus as Collective Pretense:
  Matheson and Hendricks discuss the idea that supposed unity in mid-20th-century media was always something of a fantasy. True consensus was more enforced than actual, masking differential experiences among marginalized groups (05:55).

  "The way we talk about societal fragmentation now is sometimes too nostalgic for an era of unity that never really existed." (Matheson, 07:03)

• Fantasy’s Unifying Power:
  Pretending not to pretend is identified as a universal human tendency.

Decline of Symbolic Efficiency (Authority & Trust)

• Concept Explained:
  Symbols (like a doctor’s white coat) used to stand in for larger institutions and authority. That capacity has eroded—authority is routinely questioned (07:43).
• Fauci as Example:
  Where once the white coat sufficed, now “I do my own research” reigns (08:53).

  “It’s the way that these symbols stand in for those larger structures. What Žižek was interested in is the way that that authority seems to slip over time…” (Matheson, 08:06)

Evaluating Technology’s Role

• Matheson’s Law:

  “For every subjugated group that finds space for self-expression online, another finds space to advocate the extermination of that group.” (Hendricks, paraphrasing Matheson, 11:01)

• Neither Technological Utopia nor Determinism:
  Matheson critiques both naïve optimism and outright blame:

  “I don’t think social media caused any of our problems…On the other hand, I do think that new communication technology has vastly accelerated processes that would have happened in a different way.” (Matheson, 11:14)

• Collective Fantasies Disappoint:
  The Internet’s utopian promise of democratization and transparency has not been realized; psychoanalysis is valuable for understanding why our hopes continually fall short (12:50).

Case Study: Sandy Hook Denialism

• Origins and Evolution:
  Sandy Hook conspiracy represents the first social media conspiracy, participatory and crowd-sourced, rather than simply disseminated by leaders (14:56).

  “There’s this really kind of almost organic upswelling of conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook…” (Matheson, 15:45)

• Desire and Community:
  Deep-rooted desire—not facts—binds these communities, often to self-destructive ends (20:51).

  “Desire, I think, is the closest that we can come to a good name for that motive force that lies beyond the limit of what we can directly observe…” (Matheson, 24:52)

• Order vs. Chaos:
  Conspiracy thinking offers comfort: “They’d rather have a plan exist than face the possibility that it’s all meaningless and that it’s all just chaos.” (Matheson, 25:57)

Media Artifacts & Evidence (in a Post-Trust Age)

• Trusting “Direct Observation”:
  People reject mediated information from “establishment” sources, opting for what they “see” themselves—even if that “direct” evidence is itself heavily mediated (video, transcripts, snippets) (27:23).
• The Flat Earth/Chemtrails Example:

  “You can plainly see by looking at the sky that [chemtrails] are not [normal], that they're actually chemicals... Can you, buddy? Can you really? No. But that's the kind of evidence…” (Matheson, 29:31)

Beyond Technology: Serpent Handlers and Community Exclusion

• Offline Formation & Literalism:
  The serpent-handling community predates the Internet and centers around extremely literal readings of scripture, demonstrating ritual commitment (32:56).
• Exclusion as Motivator:

  “A lot of these communities…start with this rejection of the idea of the mainstream, where they say, no, no, the doctors are wrong... In the case of serpent handlers, I think it happened in the opposite way…they were themselves rejected…” (Matheson, 35:53)

• Not All Fragmentation Is the Same:
  Serpent handlers seek a sense-making framework for the ostracized, not necessarily one built on exclusion of others.

Pseudoscience, Fringe, and Mainstream Inversion

• Interpreting “Science”:
  Anti-mainstream groups do not see themselves as anti-science; rather, they believe they have unearthed a “truer” science the mainstream denies (39:32).

  “They don’t think of themselves as rejecting science. They think of themselves as…revealing a different science…” (Matheson, 39:36)

• Fringe Tactics:
  White supremacist journals, for example, mimic academic forms to claim institutional legitimacy (41:20).
• True Belief vs. Hucksterism:
  Many purveyors of pseudoscience (unlike frauds like Clark Stanley) are true believers, fueling their own certainty and that of their followers (43:10).

Rhetoric, Uncertainty, and Tech Policy Limits

• No Easy Tech Fixes:
  Matheson is skeptical that regulatory or technological solutions alone can mend the root problems:

  “I am skeptical about our ability to solve any of these problems technologically or through kind of top down policy changes.” (Matheson, 45:50)

• The Real Problem — Intolerable Ambiguity:
  The rise of fringe communities is less about the substance of beliefs, and more about the need to impose new narrative order on an unmanageable and chaotic world (46:10).
• Rhetoric as Ancient Wisdom:
  Matheson suggests returning to rhetorical modes that embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, cultivating humility and curiosity as cultural values (47:55).

  “Maybe the issue is that in trying to, you know, dismantle beliefs that we find are socially unacceptable, we don’t always realize that you can’t just do that with no other thing to help replace them or help people interpret the world.” (Matheson, 48:36)

• No Optimism for Top-Down Solutions:
  Real resilience lies in building the skills to accept the messiness of modern life, not in seeking or imposing artificial consensus or clarity (49:45).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Fantasy of Unity:

  “What’s changed isn’t so much that we are less united than we used to be. What’s changed is that we’re less willing to tell a story about how united we are.” (Matheson, 06:59)

• On Matheson’s Law:

  “For every subjugated group that finds space for self expression online, another find space to advocate the extermination of that group.” (Hendricks, referencing Matheson, 11:01)

• Desire as the Core Driver:

  “Desire is the mortar of community.” (Matheson, paraphrasing book, 20:18)

• On the Limitations of Evidence in Belief:

  “Desire perhaps more important than the underlying evidence.” (Hendricks, 26:26)

• On Accepting Uncertainty:

  “We have to kind of inculcate a new attitude towards our own symbolic worlds and learn to accept ambiguity and uncertainty and so on. Which does not mean not trying to make things better. It means sort of, I think, a different expectation about what that is.” (Matheson, 49:01)

Major Timestamps for Segments

• 00:12 – 04:49: Introduction to psychoanalysis, rhetoric, and the unconscious
• 05:55 – 10:15: Fragmentation, collective fantasy, symbolic efficiency
• 11:01 – 13:57: Technology critique and Matheson’s Law
• 14:56 – 20:51: Sandy Hook denialism and the evolution of conspiracy online
• 20:51 – 26:26: The mortar of desire in sustaining community beyond just evidence
• 27:23 – 31:53: Media artifacts, “seeing is believing,” and the distrust of mediation
• 31:53 – 38:15: The serpent handler community and exclusion as a force for belonging
• 38:52 – 44:15: Fringe pseudoscience, true believers, and the “mainstreaming” of anti-science
• 44:15 – 50:43: Limits of tech/policy solutions, the value of rhetoric, and embracing uncertainty

Conclusion

Matheson’s work and this conversation push listeners to reconsider the roots of belief, belonging, and community in the digital age. The episode provocatively challenges the myth of a lost mainstream consensus and urges a renewed humility toward ambiguity and collective interpretation, warning against simple fixes as solutions to deep-seated social, psychological, and rhetorical fractures. Instead, Matheson suggests a shift toward fostering acceptance of doubt and pluralism, both in individual expectations and in cultural imagination.

Book Mentioned:
Post Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream (Rutgers University Press, 2025) – Callum Lister Matheson

Host Closing (50:43):
“This book's called Post Weird Fragmentation, Community, and the Decline of the Mainstream by Callum Lister Matheson. It's from Rutgers University Press. Thank you very much, Callum.” (Hendricks, 50:43)