Dormant historical memory, not active fear, makes a conspiracy theory credible.

Evidence

It would be absurd to say that present-day European politics is shaped by a conscious fear that Turkish legions will storm Vienna, or that pirates from Algiers will abduct holiday~ makers on the beaches of the Cote d’Azur. The point instead is that the Eurabia scenario is not without deep cultural underpinnings, and these contribute to its reception in Europe. It is Widely received, in part because it resonates with old, perhaps only vaguely articulated, ideas about the European relation to the Muslim world. — Michael A. Reynolds and Thomas D. Grant, The Future of Europe and Its Muslims, 223

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the mechanism by which a scenario can be ‘widely received’ without anyone consciously believing its literal claims — latent cultural resonance rather than explicit fear.
• DEEPTHINKING: The distinction between conscious belief and vague cultural resonance is a genuinely transferable frame for explaining why any implausible narrative travels; it deserves lingering over.