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Chad Brunswick

Professor Vaughn

ENGL2089-008

22 November 2017

It’s No Game: Authority, Values and the Costs of Affiliation in

a Discredited Discourse Community

“In the Middle Ages people believed that the [E]arth was flat, for which they had at least

the evidence of their senses: we believe it to be round… because modern science has convinced

us that nothing that is obvious is true…

I must not, by the way, be taken as implying that the [E]arth is flat”

—Bernard Shaw, 1924

“The Earth can be any shape you want it

Any shape at all”

—Thomas Dolby, 1984

“It’s true. The Earth is flat… I drive from coast to coast and this shit is flat to me”

—Shaquille O’Neil, 2017

Many historians consider Pythagoras the first scientist to propose that the Earth was a

sphere rather than a flat plane, around roughly 500 B.C.; Aristotle reinforced this argument with

his own observations that the position of particular stars changed as one travelled south and that

the Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse (Al-Khatib). Nevertheless, a

growing number of individuals are spitting in the face of millennia of scientific thought and

claiming that the Earth is, in fact, flat. The entirety of the mainstream scientific community
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continues to categorically reject any at all notions that the Earth is not spherical, but in this era of

political distrust and fake news the Flat Earth Movement continues to accrete.

While the first International Flat Earth Society was founded in 1964 by Samuel Shenton,

the group gradually collapsed following his death and a housefire which destroyed much of its

paperwork. Daniel Shenton (no relation) revived the Flat Earth Society in 2004 with an official

online discussion forum and wiki (“Flat Earth Society”). Since then, this online organization has

grown from an isolated collection of conspiracy theorists to a full-fledge discourse community

with members around the globe. However, this forum is no longer essential to this new Flat Earth

Movement, and is simply one facet of the larger movement. A multitude of individuals have

taken to YouTube and other forms of social media to share their beliefs with the world and

attempt to convince others of the flatness of the Earth. Just this month, this expanded community

of believers banded together in North Carolina for the world’s first Flat Earth International

Conference. One of the keynote speakers at this conference, Mark Sargent, was interviewed for

this essay, and additional information came from examining dozens of Flat Earth YouTube

videos, forum posts, and wiki pages—freely available at tfes.org.

The term discourse community broadly refers to a particular set of individuals with

common beliefs and goals who communicate with one another, and limitless research has been

done on various academic or scientific discourse communities (Gee; John; Swales; Wardle) as

well as conspiracy theorists and the psychosocial influences contributing to conspiracy theories

(Abalakina-Paap et al.; Cichocka et al.); however, no research has attempted to examine

conspiracy theorists, more specifically Flat Earthers, as a discourse community. University of

Michigan linguist professor John Swales, in his essay “The Concept of Discourse Community,”
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offers six criteria that are “necessary and sufficient” for labelling a collection of individuals as a

discourse community. He states:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals…

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its

members…

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide

information and feedback…

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the

communicative furtherance of its aims…

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific

lexis…

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of

relevant content and discoursal expertise (Swales 25-27).

After a cursory glance, the Flat Earth Movement might not appear as much more than a loose

collection of conspiracy theorists desperate for media attention, but, in fact, the group meets all

six of Swales’ criteria for a discourse community.

The common goals of the movement are evident immediately: to share and expand upon

the belief that the Earth is flat rather than spherical and to promote increased skepticism of

mainstream media outlets and the world’s governments. Naturally, intercommunication exists

within this community of like-minded individuals and is primarily used to provide information—

new “evidence” possibly hinting at the flatness of the Earth, for example—to other groupmates.

However, this intercommunication does not take the form of traditional, peer-reviewed scientific

papers or even group emails but rather that of YouTube videos or social media postings. Mark
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has over 900 videos on his YouTube channel (markksargent), every single one of them dedicated

to either discussing facets of the group’s beliefs or sharing new mentions of the movement by in

the news, thus fulfilling Swales’ criteria two, three, and four. The fifth criterion, pertaining to a

group’s lexis of unique terms and phrases, is also easily met by the Flat Earth Movement, as a

definite lexis exists within this community. FET, for example, stands for Flat Earth Theory;

likewise, RET means Round Earth Theory. Universal Acceleration (UA) is a term used in many

of the different theories to describe the phenomenon Newton knew as gravity. For the final

criterion, the “reasonable ratio between novices and experts” that Swales speaks of is readily

apparent within the Flat Earth Movement. Those with more expertise in the matter, including

video creators such as Mark, are eager to explain their theories and beliefs to the novices just

beginning to research the subject, just now falling into the rabbit hole of research. This visible

difference in expertise gives the more experienced members a certain level of authority over new

recruits.

Director of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University Elizabeth

Wardle discusses, in her essay “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,”

that authority “is an intangible quality granted to persons through institutions, which renders

their pronouncements as accepted by those in that institution’s communities of practice, but

which must be maintained” (Wardle 413). This is true largely of traditional academic circles in

which some sort of governing body appoints individuals to positions with fairly tangible levels of

authority (deans reign over professors who have authority over associate professors, a rank itself

higher than adjunct professor, etc.) the Flat Earth Movement eschews this trend of appointing

academic aristocrats and instead draws authority largely from popularity. During the interview,

Mark mentioned that “[authority] all comes down to merit. Sub[scriber] count has a lot to do
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with it, sure. But it’s not the end-all be-all… I’ve only got 45,000 subscribers… [compared to]

guys with bigger channels… I do more interviews than other people mostly because of my

content” (Sargent). While the number of YouTube subscribers a content producer has is far-and-

away the easiest measure of his or her popularity, it doesn’t directly lead to more interviews with

the mainstream media or more publicity, both of which are among the easiest ways to become

more recognized and command more authority. While the Flat Earth Movement values quality

content and analysis, it seems less concerned than mainstream science with uncovering the

absolute truth of the universe.

Individual Flat Earth theories can vary widely from one member to another. The obvious

common ground is that the Earth is flat instead of spherical, but beyond this point some deviance

arises. Many of these popular Flat Earth advocates, like Mark, have their own models for the Flat

Earth; typically, the North Pole is placed in the center of this plane and West and East simply

represent clockwise and counterclockwise (Figure 1).

Figure 1: One popular Flat

Earth model.
Note the Southern Ice
Wall.
(Flat Earth)
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Some believe that the Flat Earth extends forever in all directions, and thus will never collapse

into a sphere due to gravity because of its infinite length. Others postulate that the gravity of

modern physics is a hoax, and that the disc-shaped Earth simply accelerates forever at 9.8m/s2

upwards, explaining any apparent gravitational acceleration (“Universal Acceleration”).

However, whereas mainstream scientists repeatedly devise and conduct elaborate experiments to

discern the world around them, most Flat Earthers are content to believe that “knowing the true

dimensions of the [E]arth is something which will forever be unknowable by man (“The Ice

Wall”). Furthermore, in not one of the dozens of videos viewed during research for this essay did

one Flat Earther attempt to disprove another’s model or Flat Earth Theory; the consensus seemed

to be that each believer was entitled to their own opinion or flat Earth model. Even in the

interview with Mark, he stated that, “it’s pretty wide open… we get to kind of express ourselves.

There’s no rulebook, there’s no bible, there’s no church” (Sargent). The discourse within this

community consists primarily of attacks on mainstream conventional knowledge regarding

Earth’s shape and the movement of the celestial bodies. There are still discussions about others’

theories and beliefs, but never is there an attempt to prove or disprove another’s model of the flat

Earth—beyond trying to prove it flat it in the first place. Furthermore, Flat Earthers seem

generally content with this discrepancy in views; despite their universal dislike for NASA,

mainstream media outlets, and nearly all conventional science, they freely accept just about

anyone who “[does] their own research… and [doesn’t] believe everything the media says is

completely true” (Sargent). One possible explanation for this openness and variance in beliefs

could be on account of most modern flat Earth theories being relatively young and not

particularly well-rounded; whereas Aristotle had to simply fit the Greek models of the tides and

the planets into his round Earth theory, modern Flat Earthers need to accommodate for countless,
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empirically supported truths of physics and ecology (besides those deemed entirely bogus, such

as Newton’s law of universal gravitation) when devising their belief systems. Another

explanation for this amicable attitude towards discrepancies in individual models could be fear of

exile from the community.

Despite growing news coverage and membership counts in recent years, the Flat Earth

Movement remains a widely ridiculed and mocked endeavor. Linguist Ann Johns refers to the

“cost of affiliation” of joining a discourse community: the diminished importance of former

ways of life through loss of home culture, changes in language and values, and other “major

trade-offs that: can create personal and social distance between [the participants] and their

families and [other] communities” (511). Given that disputing one of the major conventions of

all modern science constitutes an astronomical shift in beliefs and values, joining the Flat Earth

Movement has significant costs of affiliation. Mark stated that:

I took a direct comparison to Flat Earth [from the film Fight Club] and I called it Flat

Club, [in] which the first rule of Flat Club is you do not talk about Flat Club… people are

so polarized when it comes to this and people have that kneejerk reaction so quickly

against this… it is the most polarizing topic I’ve ever seen. Family members have gotten

into huge squabbles about it. Marriages fall apart. Relationships fall apart. (Sargent)

Such significant costs of affiliation can be attributed to the values of community being largely at

odds with general society. Literacy Studies professor James Paul Gee states, “what is important

is not language, and surely not grammar, but saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing

combinations… Discourse [communities] are ways of being in the world” (278). Thus, truly

belonging to this discourse community entails not only believing the Earth is flat and discussing

said belief with fellow members, but also accepting and internalizing the values of the group.
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These values include general distrust of the news and scientific spheres, an emphasis on one’s

own experiences as the basis of scientific thought, and the importance of questioning information

from outside sources. These are at odds with the values of conventional science, primarily the

desire to uncover the absolute truth and unravel the mysteries of the universe. Although the Flat

Earth Movement is growing, likely because of a substantial social media presence and recent

comments made by celebrities, these costs of affiliation are still significant enough to deter many

individuals from joining.

The costs associated with joining the Flat Earth Movement understandably lead to some

hesitation in potential new recruits; Mark mentions, “I’ve had closet cousins that have said, ‘Oh

yeah, I’m with you, but my wife doesn’t want me to talk about it…’ treat it like anything you

would be in the closet for” (Sargent). This recount of a specific episode demonstrates how one

might share the belief, or be willing to consider, that the Earth is flat, but not fully join the

community due to its significant costs of affiliation, taking the form of social disapproval.

Therefore, once an individual is fully integrated into the Flat Earth Movement, it would make

sense to abstain from making potentially discourteous denials of another’s belief system out of

fear of rocking the boat or being ejected from the community. Abalakina-Paap et al. noted that

“beliefs in conspiracies are related to feelings of alienation, powerlessness, hostility, and being

disadvantaged” (637). It is possible that Flat Earthers bond, either consciously or subconsciously,

over these shared feelings of alienation and powerlessness and thus direct their ideological

attacks towards those believing in a round Earth rather than at fellow Flat Earthers. In many

ways, the Flat Earth Movement is as emotional as it is pseudoscientific.

With its first ever international conference, the Flat Earth Movement is certainly

accelerating upwards, but it is unlikely to ever become a group respected by outsiders. However,
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because of its widely discredited position, this group provides an opportunity to examine a

unique discourse community that differs from traditional academic discourse communities in

several fundamental ways. Authority is derived directly from content and activity, rather than

any governing body, at least presently. An official Flat Earth Society exists, but it simply serves

as a forum and source of information within the community; some individuals even go so far as

to say, “we don’t need them… because you can instantly put [information] out there on

YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook” (Sargent). The values of this pseudoscientific society,

likewise, differ from those of traditional communities dedicated to learning about the natural

world. Rather, this group of individuals seems content to simply propose differing models and

are content with the almost religious explanation of such information being simply impossible to

obtain. Additionally, since public opinion of this community remains almost universally

negatively, its costs of affiliation are substantially higher than that of a standard, especially

academic-focused, discourse community. In an academic discourse community, these costs

typically manifest as changes to the internalizations of new values and thought processes; these

are present in new members of the Flat Earth Movement but are alongside the overwhelming

social stigma, as well. Despite meeting all of Swales’ criteria of discourse communities, the Flat

Earth Movement still contains unique elements, demonstrating that while these criteria may

manifest in all discourse communities, similar phenomena such as authority and costs of

affiliation can present themselves in radically diverse ways between discourse communities.
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Works Cited

Abalakina-Paap, Marina, et al. “Beliefs in Conspiracies.” Political Psychology, 20.3. 1999.

637–647. Online Library, Wiley. Web.

Al-Khatib, Talal. "No, Earth Isn't Flat: Here's How Ancients Proved It." Discovery. N.p., 28 Jan.

2016. Web.

Cichocka, Aleksandra, et al. “Does Self-Love or Self-Hate Predict Conspiracy Beliefs?

Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories.” Social

Psychological and Personality Science, 7.2. 2015. 157-166. Sage Journals. Web.

Dolby, Thomas. "The Flat Earth." The Flat Earth. Thomas Dolby. Thomas Dolby, 1984. MP3.

Flat Earth. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia, 14 Nov. 2008. Web.

"Flat Earth Society." The Flat Earth Wiki. The Flat Earth Society, 19 June 2014. Web.

Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics.” Writing About Writing: A College

Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2017. 276-

294. Print.

"The Ice Wall." The Flat Earth Wiki. The Flat Earth Society, 2 Dec. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2017.

Johns, Ann. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and

Diversity." Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug

Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2017. 319-338. Print

O’Neil, Shaquille. “Shaquille O'Neal talks about his LaVar Ball diss track, LeBron and Kyrie's

issues in Cleveland and some great Borderline.” Audio blog post. The Big Podcast with

Shaq. Podbay.fm, 7 Aug. 2017. Web.

Sargent, Mark. Personal Interview. 18 Nov. 2017.

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Shaw, Bernard. Saint Joan. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Saint Joan. Project Gutenberg Australia, Oct. 2002.

Web. 21 Nov. 2017.

Swales, John. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in Academic

and Research Settings. Boston: Cambridge UP, 1990. 21-32. Print.

"Universal Acceleration." The Flat Earth Wiki. The Flat Earth Society, 9 Aug. 2017. Web.

Wardle, Elizabeth. “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces.” Writing

About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins, 2017. 407-424. Print.