A culture of conspiracy and paranoia

Introduction
Popular conspiracy theories, like those about John F Kennedy, September 11 attacks or the swine flu
vaccination, are by and large portrayed in social sciences as obsessive, irrational and, basically, antimodern. In this paper, it is contended that conspiracy culture is a summed up expression of suspicion that is
implanted in the cultural rationale of modernity and,finally created by processes of modernization.
Specifically, epistemological doubts about the legitimacy of scientific claims, ontological unreliability
about rationalized social frameworks, and a constant 'will to accept' in a disenchanted world effectively
recognized by Adorno, Marx and Weber nowadays stimulate an enormous swing to conspiracy culture.
In 2009 the spread of the swine flu in different parts of Europe came with wild theories about its causes in
the media. H1N1 was allegedly designed by the US government to lessen the world's population and
stimulate a New World Order; vaccines were held to be poisoned or to contain undetectable 'nano-chips'
that, once infused, could give a definitive means to the state to control it's people' bodies and brains. The
case doesn't remain solitary: conspiracy theories about the 'genuine truth' behind AIDS,the demise of
Princess Diana, the homicide of JFK, Osama Bin Laden, the 9/11 attacks and innumerable other happenings
have become a part of the popular culture in western nations and these days constitute a veritable 'culture of
conspiracy.
Generally, the social sciences have had a tendency to either disregard or ethically condemn conspiracy
culture. Informed by the traditional reading of the 'paranoid personality' as pathological, Hofstadter (1965)
and Pipes (1997) unambiguously reject the'paranoid style' in American politics as mutilated and completely
dangerous. A conspiracy theory, Jameson contends, 'is the poor person's intellectual mapping in the
postmodern age' and a 'desperate endeavor to represent. . . system' (1991: 356). Such records point towards
'moral panic'(Knight, 2000: 8) and it is enticing to say that they are, indeed, conspiracy theories about such
theorists. Nevertheless, because of their ethical flavor they hinder an unbiased experimental study of
conspiracy culture as a culture in its own particular right. Figuring out what is "sound" and what is not;
what is normal and inane, after all,cannot and shouldn't assume a part in the study of cultural meaning (e.g.
Weber, 1948 [1919]). In this specific case, such disapproval of con-spiracy hypotheses in the scholarly
world can be clarified from an essentialized concept of modernity. Under the placard of factual science, yet
in reality guided by the ideology of modern Enlightenment, these researchers expose conspiracy theories as
an and exotic abberance and depict it as a threat to present-day rationality and scientific objectivit. These
rigid differences between awful "unreasonable" para-noia and good "rational" science are an excellent
illustration of 'professional boundary work' in the modern sciences and embodies, what Bruno Latour calls
a modern'practice of purification': it fortifies the 'modern separation' between "rational" science and its
alleged "irrational" counter parts by effectively soft-peddling the similarities and destroying the contrasts
between both discourses.In this article I contend instead that conspiracy culture is not the antidote to
modernity. Quite the opposite: it is a radical and summed up expression of distrust that is deeply implanted
in the cultural rationale of modernity and is, eventually, delivered by ongoing processes of modernization in
contemporary society. Specifically, I exhibit that modern media play a critical part in its expansion in the
West.

Transforming Paranoia
'Paranoia is no more essentially an analytic label used by psychologists and psychiatrists but has has
become a veritable sociological wonder. More than 50% of US citi-zens, for example, believe that there
was an official concealment or conspiracy involved in the cases of JFK and 9/11, and around 80% think
that the administration knows more about extraterrestrials than it concedes (Knight, 2000: 78, 27).
Likewise, stories of conspiracy pervade popular culture subsequently stimulating a constant feedback
between reality and fiction (Barkun, 2003): genuine scandals, like Watergate or black-budget operations of
the CIA, inspired a genre of "paranoiat hrillers" in the 1970s, as The Parallax View(1974) and All the
President's Men(1967), which, thus, propelled a sensibility for conspiracy theories among the populace.
Movies like the Da Vinci Code and The Matrix and poplar serials X-File play with the para-noid
presumption that social reality is a deception, a corridor of mirrors and smokescreens built to conceal the
secret power that shape history.
This multiplication of conspiracy thinking in the West is both reason and result of its standardization: in

contemporary society, trusting authorities and believing 'official' stories devised by the state, political bigwigs or the media are effortlessly rejected as an indication of naivety. Conspiracies do after all exist and the
uncovering real conspiracies since the 1970s has reinforced the believability and validity of even the most
unconvincing theory Especially Watergate, in 1972, built up a general distrust against the administration
and planted the seeds of a developing paranoid wordl view in the West. From a social point of view, then,
conspiracy theorzing can't just be rejected as "unreasonable" or "preposterous" since it is backed by
genuine historical events and exemplifies a radical type of reflexivity, criticism and wariness about every
truth claim (Knight, 2000)
Conspiracy culture therefore developed throughout the last decades from a twisted, fascinating
phenomenon to a standard account that has spread through the media and is progressively standardized,
organized and commercialized (Goldberg, 2001).From a historical viewpoint, however, conspiracy theories
have been a part of western society for a really long time and can be followed back to the Christian
campaigns in the Early Middle Ages and speculations about Jews and secret socities of Templars, Illuminati
and Freemasons (Pipes, 1997). Most critical for this article, however, is the case made by different
researchers that the discourse of conspiracy has been changed in the course of last decades it has moved
from paranoia regarding an extraordinary 'outside' society to distrustfulness about mordern society itself.
Conventional conspiracy theories, formed around 1950s, typically disparaged Jews, Muslims and
communists as the conspirators bunches that were presumed to debilitate society or disturb the boundaries
"Us" and 'Them'. This type of suspicion around an extraordinary 'Other', paradoixcally, reinforced
individual and national identity and gave some type of social catharsis.
Contemporary conspiracy culture is less about victimizing a real or envisioned "Other" yet can be
characterized as distrustfulness about the human-made foundations of the modern social order itself. It is
contradictory to the traditional type since its ideologies are about 'the enemy within' (Goldberg, 2001) the
unknown and noxious forces that work within the modern corporations, politics and the state. Knight
(2000) writes about a noteworthy shift from 'secure paranoia' to 'insecure paranoia': 'For the post-1960s
generation,paranoia has become more of a manifestation of never-ending suspicion and ambiguity than a
overbearing form of scaremongering' (2000: 75) and 'popular conspiracism has changed from a fixation
with a fixed adversary to a general suspicion about conspiring powers to a significantly more unstable
rendition of conspiracy imbued uneasiness which dives everything into an unending relapse of suspicion
(2000: 4). Since the truth is tenaciously equivocal in present conspiracy culture, it is not astounding that
scholars tirelessly weave new, constantly extending thousand stories about conceivable associations which
uncover this truth. As Jackson's Conspiranoia (2000), for instance, offers: 'Figure out the genuine story
behind the IRS, Nazis, JFK, Jerry Garcia, Freemasons, Bill Gates,the FBI, Mad Cow illness, NASAand
how they are all joined.
The question remains how the conspicuousness of this unpredictable type of theorizing can be clarified. In
general, I argue that such apparently anti-modern beliefs and sentiments are actually implanted in and
inspired by processes of modernization. They are triggered by social discontents of modernity that have
been talked about by social researchers from the beginning of the discipline and that have become prevalent
during the last half century.

What is real?
'Nothing is what it appears to be' is a typicalcommon expression in conspiracy culture. The truth is always
an arranged reality that covers reality that unacknowledged, abhorrent agents are controlling our lives. In
the motion picture The Matrix a hacker named Neo figures out that reality as we experience it is a figment
truly a virtual reality embedded in our brains by pernicious Artificial Intelligent computers. Having
uncovered this terrible truth, Neo embarks to free mankind from its condition of virtual alienating.
The example proposes that ontological unreliability is at the heart of conspiracy culture.It features digital
technology, might as well be a suspicious story about the state, capitalist enterpirses, multinationals,
administrations or media presenting a fake reality.
It furnishes modern humanity with probably the best method for administration in history but, from a
humanistic viewpoint, its expansion in bureaucracy, science, and technology becomes preposterous. Once
institutionalized, Weber believes, these subsystems follow their own rational laws. In view of this, cutting
edge people encounter these frameworks more as self-ruling outside strengths on which they have no
influence. This autonomization of justified social frameworks is the reason why Weber desribed western
culture as an estranging 'stahlhartes Gehuse' or choking "ironcage" (1996 [1930]).

Conspiracy theories are social reactions to these developments they are methodologies to defend tensions
by creating reasonable records for apparently incomprehensible forces. The development of social
frameworks turning more misty and independent has,if anything, just radicalized in the last 50 years.
Affected by globalization, social frameworks are dis-implanted from time and space and present themselves
as more and more equivocal (Giddens, 1992).
Tradition, Anthony Giddens contends, gave a reliable sense of reality since it conveyed that 'the world is
the way it is because that is how ought to be' (1992: 48). In modern socities, this ontological security is
undermined by the ascent and expansion of abstract,rationalized social frameworks. Karl Marx (1988
[1932]) mentioned that modern capitalism estranged workers from the products, their labor and their co
workers. Emile Durkheim (2002 [1897]), thus, bemoaned the elevated power of a distant country that
undermined social attachment and spurred emotions of anomie. Max Weber (1996 [1930]) introduced an
expansive, historical- sociological viewpoint: the disintegration of tradition and elevated predominance of
utilitarian or goal-oriented rationality in different social domains since the 16th century, he contended,is a
Faustian deal. It gives modern humanity probably the best method for administration in history but, from a
humanistic point of view, its multiplication in bureaucracy, science, and technology becomes unreasonable.
Once institutionalized, Weber says, these subsystems follow their own rationl laws. Due to this, present day
individuals encounter these frameworks as increasingly independent external forces on which they have no
influence.This autonomization of justified social frameworks is the reason behind why Weber described
western culture as an alienating 'stahlhartes Gehuse' or choking "ironcage" (1996 [1930]).
Conspiracy theories are social reactions to these developments they are strategies to rationalize tensions
by creating explainable records for apparently unexplainable forces. The development of social frameworks
turning more opaque and self-governing has,if anything, just radicalized in the last 50 years. Affected by
globalization, social frameworks are disembedded from time and space and present themselves as more and
more devious (Giddens, 1992).
Constantly expanding bureaucracies, to give one example, are sometimes even depicted as 'rationalizationgone-mad' and make you wonder 'who is truly in control?'. The workings of the worldwide economy, to
give another illustration, can't just be evaluated in terms of cause and effect- let alone be predicted since
local happenings have global consequences. Digital technology, to give the last example, is considered by
some as 'out of control','disturbingly lively, 'nontransparent', and is sometimes experienced as a powerful
force.
The ubiquity of these opaque frameworks in the life world of present day individuals does not simply raise
uncertainity about 'what is real' and 'what is not' in the outside world, but even about the geniunity of one's
own subjective awareness. The media assumes an important part in this: TV, film and advertising are no
more understood in terms of representation, but more and more in terms of imitating and manipulation the
individual life world. The 'culture industry,Horkheimer and Adorno contended'can do as it wishes to with
the needs of the consumers delivering, controlling, restraining them' (2002 [1944]: 115).Ironically, then,
such radical claims about social control, formed in the social sciences,are these days popularized by
conspiracy theorists. Melley alludes to this ontological uncertainity about self-identity as 'agency panic'
(2000: 12) since it brings up questions like 'am I truly myself? or am I brainwahedd, inculcated or
programmed by the framework?
Cyberpunk books like William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), sci-fi films like Blade Runner(1982),
Strange Days (1995) Total Recall (1990),feature similar anxities about the self. As expressions of
'technopara-noia' (Jameson, 1991), these writings deal with totalitarian states applying mind control;
multinationals embedding 'chips' in buyers' minds and 'false recollections' in human awareness. other
stories invloving robots,cyborgs and androids show life as a total'simulacrum' or "hyperreality"
(Baudrillard, 2000 [1981]) and talk about the turn towards a trans-human,or post-evolutionary future (e.g.
Dinello, 2005). In the movie The Truman Show(1999), at last, the protaginist finds that his entire life
including his wife, children, house, neighbors and the rural town he lives in is staged in a massive studio
and that he is a part of a prominent 'reality show'and has been since birth. Interestingly, it inspired
psychiatrists to name a new medical condition as the 'Truman-complex' a neurotic discernment that all
that you think, see, listen, feel or smell is really staged by the media. Modern theories of social science
have come a long way in satisfactorily outlining and explaining such developments however they neither
recognize nor foresee that reified social frameworks trigger the collective imagination and spur new, rising
cultures. Alienation from economic, technological and bureaucratic frameworks, snowballing under the
influence of rationalization-cum-globalization, clearly triggers ontological frailty, which adds to the
credibility of conspiracy theories about what is truly going on behind the screens. Such theories thus work
as'cognitive maps' to represent frameworks that have become way too complicated to represent,or even to

'think the impossible entirety of the contemporary world framework'.

I want to believe
It is an axiom that belief has become absolutely puzzling and and disputable in modern social orders
(Bruce,2002). Max Weber wrote about 'disillusionment of the world' a lasting process in the West that
undermined mysterious accounts of nature,magic and, finally, the faith in every metaphysical "Hinterwelt"
that once gave the western world firm meaning. This is the tragic aspect of modernity:science explains the
world'as it is' but can't explain what the world's processes truly mean and what the significance of life really
is. The intellectual imperative reality adds to a world lacking existential significance a world in which
'forms . . . essentially "are" and "happen" however don't really connote anything', as Weber (1978 [1921]:
506) writes. Peter Berger (1973: 82)commented on the existential ramifications of this development:
'Modern man has suffered from growing condition of "vagrancy".Weber and contemporary supporters of
secularization, on the other hand, prove to have a genuine blind spot for the way that precisely these issues
of significance invoke the ascent of new forms of religion and spirituality(Aupers and Houtman,
2010).During Weber's time, a number of his fellow scholars took shelter in alternative religions like
Steiner's anthroposophy, Blavatsky's new theosophy or spiritism and this pattern just increased over the
last century: in many nations in Western Europe the Christian churches are diminishing, but inclination for
esotericism, occultism and New Age spirituality is swiftly growing.
The connection between the conspirational and a religious-spiritual perspective of the world is analogical as
well as empirical. Numerous scholars in the milieu unequivocally combine both the discourses and are
engaged in 'New Age conspiracism' (Barkun, 2003) or "conspirituality" (Ward and Voas, 2011). Probably,
spiritual educators who can be called righteous and chaste like Eckhart Tolle, Louise Hay or James
Redfield, will rebuke conspiracy theorists for being excessively negative and cynical. And vice versa:
conspiracy theorists will feel the former is positive to a fault, guileless and ignorant about the dark
underside of the world. The developing mid-ground stance of 'conspirituality', Ward and Voas
explain,however, 'seems to be a way by which political pessimism is tempered with spiritual
optimism'(2011:108). David Icke who is 'uncovering the dreamworld we think is real', is again a
remarkable example.On the one hand, his theories delve into dark and suspicious issues like 'the Death of
Bin Laden and different untruths','global conspiracies','mass hypnosis', 'the fascist bloodline network' and
'mind programming' while it taps, on the other hand,into quintessential New Age themes like 'astrology',
"recuperating" , 'spiritual arousing' and 'infinite love'. Eventually, when theorists like Icke say that
'everything is conncedted' this can imply that all things in nature are basically an all encompassing whole or
that all elites in the public arena are actually forming perilous secret leagues . Despite these distinctions,
both implications tap into a mysterious domain and fulfill the persistent 'want to believe' in a disenchanted
modern world.

Conclusion
In the field of social science, Conspiratorial thinking is frequently depicted as an unreasonable, pathological
and perilous attack on the state, politics and present day society at large(Pipes, 1997: 173). Despite such
critical contentions of academics and the often undermining, anti modern rhetoric of those who are active in
the milieu of conspiracy culture, the evaluation indicated that the ascent of conspiracy society is a part of
modernity and growing modernization in fact motivates the appeal and prevelance of paranoid narratives.
Quintessentially modern sentiments of epistemological and existential instability broadly talked about and
deplored in the social sciences since the 19th century have ended up being developmental in the social
creation of contemporary culture.
Putting aside essentialist questions about the rationality of conspiracy theories questions that are in the
end informed by moral-political angles we may evaluate that this development and standardization of
conspiracy theories are not an indication of abdication, as critical modernists would have it, however of
social change in the West of 'social rationalization' (Weber, 1978 [1921]). It is a mainstay that numerous
present day institutions and social structures have lost quite a bit of their credibility for ordianry peope
specifically since the 1960 and 1970s (Berger et al., 1973).Inspired by this, conspiracy theorists effectively
deliver and reconstruct cultural definition by mixing a high level of rationalism with an intense feel for the
metaphysical. From a cultural viewpoint it is quite difficult to categorize participants of this culture as
either rationalistic pessimists or spiritual believers: they are both and in at the same time applying these
epistemological methodologies to discover 'reality out there', it is illustrated, they resist the typical
difference between cynicism and conviction; the disenchantment and re-enchantment on which a modern
culture is based(Latour, 1993 [1991]). In doing as such, they get away from the modern problems
connected with both, i.e. the disillusionment brought about by rationalism and the "unreasonability" of

belief, and combine the the best of both the worlds. Conspiracy culture,then, is mainly about the
construction of ultimate meaning that is impervious to forces o modernity which undermine it.

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