Greg’s Reviews > Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America > Status Update

The growth of a conspiratorial framework has made it more likely that any health controversy will be plunged into mistrust, paranoia, and conspiracism.

The disembodied ‘they’ has long been a popular identifying trait of conspiracisim.

The menace of psychology rejuvenated what had become a relatively moribund area of conspiratorial interest: the public schools…mind control fears loomed large…it was not only the campaign of desegregation that led some to advocate the abandonment of public education but what the students were forced to learn as well… Sex education in schools was, to some of its opponents, part of a larger conspiracy against morality.

…conspiracism as a belief system is…’self-sealing’…This gives every conspiracy theory the distinctive common feature that any evidence against it can be explained a part of the conspiracy…Thus conspiracy theories have ‘built-in protection against empirical failure and hostile criticism from outsiders [to] always have some way of explaining away difficulties.’