Dispiracy Theory

Critical approaches to conspiracy theory aim at the clearly delimitable phenomenon from the edge of society, from the ‘lunatic fringe’ – the visitable other. Thus, conspirational influence on everyday thinking as well as the huge impact of conspirationism on the formulation of mass apealing ideologies is largely underestimated.

For the purpose of ‘dispiracy’, that is, the finding of efficacious answers and counter-strategies, it seems necessary to combine Critical Theory and factual falsification. Conspiracy theory needs to be seen as a much more general way of dramatizing and simplifying an unconcise world. Delimitation itself becomes problematic as conspirationism may always nest in the breaches of rationalist fact fetishism and may work as dialectical twin of all official ideology.

Working points thus are located in the hinge functions where conspiracy theories become plausible to individuals and where their encroaching of public discourse, mass media and state ideology is rooted.