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Christoph, Stefan

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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Details

Item typeArticle
Journal or Publication TitlePolitics and Governance
PublisherCOGITATIO PRESS
Open Access TypeGold (with APC)
Place of PublicationLISBON
Volume10
Number of Issue or Book Chapter4
Page Rangepp. 135-145
Date24 November 2022
Date of publication15 Feb 2023 12:59
InstitutionsPhilosophy, Art History, History, and Humanities > Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Identification Number
ValueType
10.17645/pag.v10i4.5724DOI
Keywords; anti-modernism; conspiracism; conspiracy thinking; Enlightenment; history of ideas; intellectual history
Dewey Decimal Classification300 Social sciences > 320 Political science
300 Social sciences > 360 Social services; association
StatusPublished
RefereedYes, this version has been refereed
Created at the University of RegensburgYes
URN of the UB Regensburgurn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-537842
Item ID53784

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