Patricia Novidadfotos

A culture of conspiracy

This is something on the subject of conspiracy theories and conspiracy thinking that permeates our society. I've translated Archy, the blog of John J. McKay article "The intellectual dishonesty of Allan Quist." Links and emphasis are mine.

Too often, a little conspiracy thinking is a thin wedge that opens the door to a lot of conspiracy thinking. Michael Barkun

wrote about this phenomenon in his 2003 book, A Culture of Conspiracy ("A culture of conspiracy"). Barkun has written several books on American apocalyptic sects and religious beliefs of racist groups such as Aryan Nations . Investigating these groups was surprised to find that believers in a particular way of thinking often marginal hugged each other, unrelated, thought marginal. Timothy McVeigh was a crazy UFOs. militia groups [paramilitary] often prescribed natural foods and alternative medicine. Occultists become crusaders against vaccination. The key, he explains, is that all these groups deal with what he calls "knowledge stigmatized." The basics of the beliefs of each group have been rejected by the intellectual authorities. These authorities, as perceived from the place of the marginalized, are monolithic blocks use their power to suppress the truth as perceived marginal. A Once these marginal believers take the first step and reject the conventional authority in an area, they find it easier to reject it in other areas and eventually in all. Once you have come to see hidden forces working to suppress the truth in an area, it is easy to accept the claims of other marginal believers that hidden forces are suppressing their truths. The final step is to determine what all these hidden forces are actually a single all-encompassing conspiracy .

I think almost everyone knows at least one person who, at almost any significant event, automatically rejects the "official version" for adhering to a conspiratorial hypothesis, sometimes credible, usually complicated, never (by definition) verifiable. Do not mean to imply, to reproduce this text, which all who believe in some form of conspiracy theory are extremists or lunatics who only see conspiracies everywhere, but I found it interesting that you were able to verify, through investigation methodical, that there is indeed a common thread and a correlation between beliefs Conspiranoids.