Conspiracism’s core political danger is its claim to own reality

Evidence

Future generations will judge us, no doubt, when it comes to democracy’s will and capacity to provide a modicum of security and prosperity, to mitigate entrenched inequality, and to avoid catastrophe—to pull survival of the human habitat out from our careless destruction of the environment. Conspiracism is incapacitating and leads to political dysfunction; that is one reason to strike out against it. But will future generations care about democracy itself? Only if we resist the core conspiracist claim to own reality and its obliteration of common sense and a common political world. Democracy will retain its meaning and value only if citizens see it as the way to build that common world, and see their part in this project. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 392

Categorization

• SEED: The idea that democracy survives only if citizens see it as a shared project of world-building could anchor an essay contrasting conspiracist reality-ownership with democratic common-world construction.
• XREF: connects to: Conspiracism aims to own and impose reality on everyone — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 232; Conspiracism’s core effect on bystanders is radical disorientation over who owns reality — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 277; New conspiracism dissolves shared perceptions of political reality — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 373 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• New conspiracism dissolves shared perceptions of political reality #corroborates (0.90) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 373
• New conspiracism weaponizes reality disputes as a demand for public assent #expands (0.80) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 306
• Conspiracism functions as a political explanation of hidden power #expands (0.75) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 1077