Conspiracy theories are defined by a plausibility of truth. A plausibility theory of truth has to fulfill three major requirements
- Internal consistency
- Non verifiability
- Partial agreement on some facts with non conspiracy theories
The conspiracy theory (or story) needs to be internally consistent in order to be believable (after all, plausibility is ultimately a test of believability). Similarly, and crucially, it needs to be non-verifiable. If the conspiracy theory would be verifiable it would be possible to expose it as a lie or determine that it is the truth; in either case, it ceases to be a conspiracy theory. Lastly, the requirement of partial agreement is required to allow the theory some connection (and distinction) from a situation where no conspiracy is required to explain the same facts or situation.
We live in a time and place--call it the blogosphere or whatever--that conspiracy theories are more popular then ever and its interesting to wonder why.
One could postulate several things, such as that people feel they have less and less power over their lives (therefore feel the need to project some 'other' as the main responsible actor for their reality), yet for what it's worth my money is on information overload. Conspiracy theories then become a pathology of thinking that can only exist in a universe of babbling voices.
