‘Everything is connected’. Naar een sociologie van paranoia en complottheorieën

Samenvatting

‘Everything is connected’: Towards a sociology of paranoia and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories flourish on the internet and are popularized in postwar literature, films and tv-series like ‘Millennium’ and the ‘X- files’. This review article discusses three books on ‘the culture of conspiracy’ and tries to develop a sociological approach on this phenomenon. It is argued that conspiracy theories can no longer be simply dismissed as irrational, pathological illusions, like Freud did and contemporary scientists still do. The typical modern distinction these authors make between rational / irrational, truth / fantasy and normal / pathological is problematized. Moreover, the interest in conspiracy theories can be seen as the logical result of a widespread suspicion against scientific authorities and the autonomization and globalization of social, economic and technological systems. These developments lead to the ‘normalization’ of paranoia and conspiracy theories. In the conclusion it is argued that the erosion of ‘trust’ in the ‘risk society’ Beck and Giddens write about, creates a fertile ground for conspiracy theories.