PREVIEW: The Friday Edition. - Conspiracy theories are getting dumber.
About this episode
Isaac Saul discusses the evolution and perception of conspiracy theories in society.
Generally speaking, I hate the expression “conspiracy theory.” It’s an overused and unhelpful descriptor for what often amounts to a minority or controversial view. I’ve begged writers to stop calling everything they don’t like a conspiracy theory, and I’ve written regularly about my open-mindedness to all manner of ideas that have at some point been called conspiracy theories. But it’s also an expression with a definition. The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers two: “A theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators,” or “a theory asserting that a secret of great importance is being kept from the public.” These are both good, workable definitions. They both aptly describe a lot of the ideas I encounter on social media on a regular basis. And neither suggests judgment on whether the theory itself is true, which I think is important. Conspiracy theories, obviously, are not new. Examples go back centuries , not decades, to the Illuminati panic of the 1700s , or the Salem Witch trials, or blood libels targeting Jews in medieval Europe. I assume there were…
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