Conspiracy theories usually aim to name an enemy, not to build a coherent story.
Evidence
Hofstadter claimed that “the paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities.” But that’s not entirely true: very often, in practice, conspiracy theories don’t seek to forge a single coherent narrative and are content to leave much ambiguity, creating chaotic narrative threads that don’t quite add up or make sense. The point is more often to identify an enemy than outline precisely what they’ve done. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 64
Categorization
- XREF: Challenges Hofstadter’s canonical claim about paranoid coherence — sharpening a classic source rather than merely summarizing it, useful against the grain of the famous essay. — connects to: Conspiracy theories primarily assign blame rather than explain events — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 972; Conspiracy belief stems from universal human meaning-making rather than outsider pathology — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 32; For conspiracy believers, the conspiracy is an axiom, not a conclusion — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 812 (+11 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: Inverts a foundational attribution the field has repeated for six decades; the enemy-identifying function explains why contradictions are tolerated, a genuinely organizing insight.
Broader Connections
- For conspiracy believers, the conspiracy is an axiom, not a conclusion
#corroborates(0.85) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 812 - Conspiracy claims can float unattached to any settled belief system
#complicates(0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 93 - Conspiracy functions as an alternative epistemology when interpretation has no ground truth
#complicates(0.75) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 105