Conspiracy Theories as Critical Thinking?
• Synarchy
From an article on the Iranian peoples distrust of media within and without:
Milani, for one, is not surprised by the paranoia. “Conspiracy theories are the natural result when there’s no sense of social agency,” he says. “There’s no other way to make events cohere.”
Still, one Iranian journalist who preferred to remain anonymous suggested that the Iranian approach to news had advantages over the Western attitude. “Europeans are complacent,” he says. “They’ve forgotten how to think for themselves and so elites control public opinion.”
Censorship, Scepticism and Conspiracy Theories
I think that if you talk to enough people you’ll see that “elites” foster all sorts of nutty conflicting views about reality. Particularly given the cartoonish nature of political perception fostered by polarization in American popular media.