Leaving consensus reality
The effect of conspiracy culture is the opposite of calm; it is to spread panic.
Naomi Klein • Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
"When one's concern for ideas, no matter how dedicated and sincere, reduces them to the service of some central limited preconception or some wholly external end, intellect gets swallowed by fanaticism. If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to... See more
People think conspiracy theory is a way of thinking, but it's really an argumentation defect where people get greedy with evidence, having to find a route, however ridiculous, from any new phenomenon to a core belief they are invested in defending.
Bluesky
"For legends attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average, and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst." (Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism)
"Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear." — Hannah Arendt
This is a crucial point: conspiracy culture does not challenge the hyper-individualism that is at the heart of so many crises reaching their breaking points. Instead, it mirrors it, putting all the blame for society’s ills on singularly powerful individuals: Fauci. Gates. Schwab. Soros.
Naomi Klein • Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Ideas related to this collection