From the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the view of Dealey Plaza is ordinary. Cars shuttle past the grassy knoll. Tourists pose on the large X painted on Elm Street. In the museum, the glassed-off corner where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired at President Kennedy is a crime scene frozen in time—rifle replicas, book boxes, and grainy footage looping on screens tell its story.
There may be no better place in America to feel just how fragile reality can be.
Dealey Plaza hasn’t changed much since 1963, but the narrative surrounding Kennedy’s assassination has been historical whiplash. In 1964, the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy from that window. [1] In 1975, the Church Committee determined that the FBI had withheld information. [2] And in the decades since, the assassination has become the founding myth of modern conspiracy culture. [3] Subsequent investigations, like the House Select Committee on Assassinations, suggested there was “probably” a conspiracy without naming who was involved. Polls now show that large majorities of Americans doubt the lone-gunman story. More than a thousand books, countless films, and endless YouTube channels promise to reveal what “really” happened. [4]
But what really happened?
At some level, we may never get an answer that satisfies everyone. Those charged with investigating it made mistakes, and that single fact captures the dilemma that haunts Dealey Plaza to this day. Even though the official story is largely accurate, a pattern of error, omission, and small lies poisoned public confidence. And once that trust collapsed, citizens did what humans always do in the midst of uncertainty: they filled in the gaps.
That is where the Kennedy assassination ceases to be a historical argument and starts to become a historical warning.
Modern conspiracy culture is rarely backed by ironclad evidence. It is powered by a willingness to tell or accept “good enough” stories based on inferences that flatter our instincts. That is, at least, the central claim of the 2015 documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies. Drawing from Dan Ariely’s behavioral research, the documentary argues that most people don’t lie like cartoon villains. We “fib,” bending the truth just enough to benefit from it, while still convincing ourselves that our “mostly good” behavior justified the means. [5] This kind of moral licensing is shown throughout Ariely’s experiments in the film, alongside real-world stories. They demonstrate how even minor fibs can have serious consequences. [6]
In 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch entered Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C., with an assault-style rifle and fired shots inside the restaurant. He had decided to personally investigate “Pizzagate,” an internet conspiracy theory connecting high-ranking Democrats to a child sex ring operating out of Washington D.C. Although no one died that day, Welch pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to 4 years in prison. Still, many lauded his actions, declaring him a hero for acting against what they still believed was a deeply entrenched sex-trafficking scandal. The Comet Ping Pong episode is a case study in how quickly small fibs can lead to dangerous realities when enough people decide to hit like and share. [7]
Conspiracy theories almost always begin with small insinuations shared by people who often believe they’re doing the right thing, just like Edgar Welch. Each share can feel small enough to fit inside Ariely’s “fib factor.” You don’t have the time to verify, but it feels important so you raise awareness. Moral licensing makes us especially susceptible to weak arguments from fringe influencers, simply because they align with our gut feeling. But the cumulative effect is a public square that has been flooded with unvetted claims, a world in which bold assertions and loud personalities far outpace strong evidence.
This is why civic responsibility, especially in the digital age, includes information literacy. It’s almost never possible to get the whole story. This means that each citizen plays a crucial role in deciding what is ultimately true. In the information space, we are fed what we want. The talk shows we watch, the podcasts we listen to, and the articles we read are a reflection of our information needs and desires. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should stop listening to your favorite influencer. It means slowing down before you share, choosing primary sources over secondary commentary, and not treating virality as an indicator of credibility. It means asking questions. What is the best evidence for this claim? Is this coming from an accountable source? Am I passing this along because it’s well supported, or because it’s emotionally satisfying?
Dealey Plaza teaches a very important lesson: uncertainty and ambiguity are not excuses for credulity. A free society can survive unanswered questions about the past. What it cannot survive is a citizenry that stops discriminating between fact and inference in the present. If we want less political violence, less paranoia, less partisanship, and more sanity, we need more than better fact-checkers. We need citizens with better habits. Intellectual humility, careful attention to evidence, and a refusal to outsource a rigorous analysis and judgment to whichever podcaster makes our side feel more righteous.
From that sixth-floor window at Dealey Plaza, everything looks normal. The real danger begins after we leave the museum, open our phones, and decide what story we will believe.
