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On Conspiracy Thinking: Conspiracist Ideology as a Modern Phenomenon
Article
Christoph, Stefan (2022) On Conspiracy Thinking: Conspiracist Ideology as a Modern Phenomenon. Politics and Governance 10 (4), pp. 135-145.DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.53784
Abstract
Conspiracism is a well-known topos in the history of humankind. Cassius Dio wrote about it as did anti-Judaic authors in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, from the dawn of modernity until today, we have faced the rise of a new phenomenon. Pretty much on the eve of the French Revolution, conspiracists began to tell anti-Catholic and anti-masonic narratives down to the last detail. Jews, later on, ...
Conspiracism is a well-known topos in the history of humankind. Cassius Dio wrote about it as did anti-Judaic authors in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, from the dawn of modernity until today, we have faced the rise of a new phenomenon. Pretty much on the eve of the French Revolution, conspiracists began to tell anti-Catholic and anti-masonic narratives down to the last detail. Jews, later on, became a recurring foe in those anti-modernist narratives. Conspiracism managed successfully to incorporate other forms of anti-modernism to form a fairly new form of thinking that I call "conspiracist ideology." While Enlightenment was the setting in which this amalgamation could take place, conspiracist ideology and its intellectual roots were characterized by a deep rejection of enlightenment thinking. The dialectical nature of conspiracist ideology is what makes it interesting from a historical perspective, in particular for the history of ideas.
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| Item type | Article | ||||
| Journal or Publication Title | Politics and Governance | ||||
| Publisher | COGITATIO PRESS | ||||
| Open Access Type | Gold (with APC) | ||||
| Place of Publication | LISBON | ||||
| Volume | 10 | ||||
| Number of Issue or Book Chapter | 4 | ||||
| Page Range | pp. 135-145 | ||||
| Date | 24 November 2022 | ||||
| Date of publication | 15 Feb 2023 12:59 | ||||
| Institutions | Philosophy, Art History, History, and Humanities > Institut für Politikwissenschaft | ||||
| Identification Number |
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| Keywords | ; anti-modernism; conspiracism; conspiracy thinking; Enlightenment; history of ideas; intellectual history | ||||
| Dewey Decimal Classification | 300 Social sciences > 320 Political science 300 Social sciences > 360 Social services; association | ||||
| Status | Published | ||||
| Refereed | Yes, this version has been refereed | ||||
| Created at the University of Regensburg | Yes | ||||
| URN of the UB Regensburg | urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-537842 | ||||
| Item ID | 53784 |
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