Psychology of Conspiracism
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While the first impulse is to laugh at conspiracy theories, the increasing popularity of zany, hateful explanations for major events and political changes is a form of social poison.
Although [David Voodoo Histories] Aaronovitch deploys a dark wit and extraordinary patience as he lays bare the psychology of conspiracism, he is no doubt that the "idea of conspiracies" has more power to cause harm than actual conspiracies. In September, Francis Wheen will release Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia (Fourth Estate), which holds up the crisis of the 1970s as a mirror for our frightened times. Early next year sees Anthony Julius's study of British anti-Semitism, a work of impressive scholarship, which ends with an account of how the traditional conspiracy theory of the far-Right crashed through the central-reservation barrier to deform the thinking of the Left.