Conspiracy Theories, a New Introduction, by Aufheben – 2020

New preface to Aufheben’s 2016 article “The rise of conspiracy theories: Reification of defeat as the basis of explanation“, published by Libcom in late 2020.

We published ‘The rise of conspiracy theories’ in Aufheben 24 in October 2016. At the time we were aware of an increase in popularity of conspiracy theories as anti-establishment narratives, and felt the urge to analyse their historical development, and their relation to class struggle. We argued that: Conspiracy theories… express a strong sense of grievance and of estrangement from the state and capital, although in distorted form… Through their appearance of being radical or subversive, they appeal to critical people who seek to attack and expose wrong-doing in the ruling class. But without praxis, they are theories cut off at important points from social reality. We did not imagine how relevant this article would become just a few months later, with the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency, and the diffusion in the US of the far right ‘Q-Anon’ movement supporting Trump against a conspiratorial liberal ‘elite’. The article is even more relevant now, four years on, with the emergence of conspiracy theories around the issue of Covid-19, and with the central role of anti-vaccine and anti-5G campaigners in promoting mass protests and social media misinformation against public health interventions to contain the pandemic….

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