Lee Basham asks how I define “conspiracy theory.”[1] I have a rather broad-church definition: I use the phrase to mean any theory that posits a conspiracy. I do not think a theory needs to be implausible, fringy, or false to… Read More ›
Search results for ‘Basham’
The Le Monde Declaration: Can Suppression of Conspiracy Theory be Conspiratorial? Lee Basham
Remarkably, with a dash of amusement, the answer to the question posed in the title is “yes”. The irony of the Le Monde declaration lives on. Let’s turn our thoughts to plagiarism. Of course, we need to take plagiarism and… Read More ›
Conspiracy Theory as Public Intelligence: A Reply to Keeley, Lee Basham
While passing through Grants, New Mexico, you will see haunting bumper stickers. The town is for the most part the picture of poverty. But there is a powerful back-story, the near-by Ambrosia Lake Uranium mines. The old, local restaurants, now… Read More ›
Walker and the Fiction of Conspiracy Theory as “Fringe”, Lee Basham
Jesse Walker is a prolific and accomplished writer with the Reason Foundation, a group associated with a certain Nozick-like political-economic libertarianism and a general impatience with skepticism about our underlying political and economic systems in the West. It’s encouraging to… Read More ›
Substantive Disagreement in the Le Monde Debate and Beyond: Replies to Duetz and Dentith, Basham, and Hewitt, Scott Hill
I agree with much of what J.C.M. Duetz and M R.X. Dentith have to say in “Reconciling Conceptual Confusions in the Le Monde Debate on Conspiracy Theories” (2022). They have given me a lot to think about and have caused… Read More ›
Creative Misreadings, Jesse Walker
Lee Basham’s article is wildly inaccurate.[1] I do not mean that he has marshaled poor arguments against my positions; I mean that the positions he is arguing against are not mine in the first place. He attributes opinions to me… Read More ›
Response to Hill: Conspiracy Theorizing, Ordinary Usage and Integrity, Lee Basham
Scott Hill’s most recent defense of the Le Monde declaration against conspiracy theory is welcome.[1] It’s an enjoyable and thoughtful piece with a high spirit to it. He also shares a disturbing revelation. Most important, it represents another opportunity to… Read More ›
Conspiracy Theory, Personal Epistemic Crisis and Epstein: Riggio on Trying, Lee Basham
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.[1]—Antonio Gramsci Society is a prison. Some of us are prisoners but most of us are guards.[2]—Robert Zimmerman … [please read below… Read More ›
Jesse Walker’s “Broad Church” of Conspiracy Theory: We’re all Paranoids, Lee Basham
Wish politicians looked out for miners instead of minors on some island somewhere. … They want to have total control, know what you think, know what you do. — Oliver Anthony Jesse Walker’s background premise is that we are paranoiacs…. Read More ›
“Hate Speech”, Vaccines and Censor-Mindset: Is SERRC Killing Children? Lee Basham
“Do Crimes, Save Lives.” —Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Wallenberg famously wrote, “I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I’d done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible.” He… Read More ›
