(2021-01-26) Rival Voices Conspiracy Theorism

Rival Voices: Conspiracy Theorism. My claim is two-fold: “Conspiracy theorist” is a fake concept; Fake concepts ought to be unmasked, not used.

*By a “fake concept” I mean a concept that exists for a reason other than because it usefully picks out a thing or relationship in reality.

Note that I’m not saying “false”. A proposition (as in, a relation between concepts) can be true or false. Concepts cannot.*

The function of ‘conspiracy theorist’ is to let you know, at a pre-conscious levels, what topics are absolutely behind the pale, thrown away far and beyond the overton window, those that no respectable member of society would ever believe. (conspiracy theory)

the king has power in virtue of being believed to have power by the relevant people. That is, the source of the king’s power is belief.

To unmask is to do what we have done above. We didn’t presuppose the concept by using it. We, instead, determined the function that the concept exercises. We did not presume ‘conspiracy theorists’ to be a valid category, of people who are generally correct or incorrect, but, instead, we questioned what work is being done by the existence of the concept of ‘conspiracy theorists’ itself.

In summary: you may not be invested into social reality, but social reality is invested into you.

I found myself dismissing Alex Jones before ever hearing him speak

Why would I dismiss him before literally hearing anything he said?

So I randomly heard his podcast with Joe Rogan on Spotify. Spotify people had their panties in a twist due to hosting a ‘conspiracy theorist’ (see how the concept is doing work? And doing precisely the work it is intended to? Shutting someone up before his case can be taken up by deplatforming him both from actual platforms and from the mental platform of your consideration?)

We may ask, next, what would the world that needs to generate this kind of concept in the first place be like?

One where Conspiracy Theorism abounds.

‘Conspiracy Theorism’ is a coinage for the reverse-but-same sibling of Scientism.

it tells you who to believe (Scientists) and what to believe (Science, as in, what Scientists say.)

Scientism, a structure that tells you what is permissible and encouraged to believe only forms half the bounds of what is acceptable. It requires an inverse structure telling you not what is permissible but what is actively discouraged from being believed. You thus get conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.

it eliminates from sight not just a group of theories but a group of people

Once you have many-to-many distribution then the idea of one of those different sources of truth being wrong is pretty trivial.

which is why we need the concept of ‘fake news’ to again show that some sources are fake whilst others aren’t.