| Publication |
2007.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Normally conspiracy theories remain at the margins of a culture. But when conspiracism moves from the margins to the center, and from passive responses to active ones-Nazis and communists in the twentieth century-it can produce convulsions of paranoia and violence that leave tens of millions dead. After World War II, Western culture appeared to have definitively marginalized conspiracy theory. And yet, at the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been an aggressive rise in (traditional) Muslim conspiracism, and a remarkable vulnerability to conspiracy theory in the West. In response to 9/11, a "postmodern" and politically-correct conspiracism has developed that reverses the normal pattern: it accuses "us" and exonerates "them." Thus highly self-critical Westerners acknowledge the accusations of paranoid jihadists. As always with modern conspiracy thinking, the Jews, especially the Zionists, stand at the center of the storm
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