Disorienting targets, not explaining truth, is the conspiracists’ intended payoff

Evidence

Part of the appeal is performative aggression. The new conspiracism delivers dark claims, though the fabrications are erratic, vague, and undeveloped—more angry assertion than revelatory narrative. For angry minds it offers the immediate gratification of lashing out, of throwing verbal stones. It is a particularly gratifying form of vilification precisely because the more unfathomable the accusation, the greater the degree of disorientation, incredulity, and rage it provokes in its targets. Conspiracist accusations leave the rest of us, officials and citizens alike, baffled, our sense of reality threatened, our responses tentative and, it feels, inadequate. Disorientation is one of the dangerous effects of conspiracism, and producing this reaction is one of the new conspiracists’ declared pleasures. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 94

Categorization

• XREF: Aligns with the harassment literature on DARVO and with trolling dynamics online. — connects to: White conspiracists amplify black-targeting narratives to recruit black audiences to their cause — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 176; Conspiracy theories function mainly to identify enemies, not narrate coherent plots — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 64; Conspiracism’s purpose is delegitimizing opponents, not correcting error — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 16 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Conspiracism offers greater coherence than reality by excluding chance and ambiguity #complicates (0.78) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 117
• Countering conspiracism requires reaching open minds only #qualifies (0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 348