Fictional narratives and conspiracy theories are rather similar in that they usually involve clear causes and effects. In other words, there is a reason for everything and if the reason is not immediately apparent, it is because someone or a number of "someones" are deliberately hiding the truth for their own evil purposes and this is part of the conspiracy.
It seems to me that "real" life includes a huge number of "accidents," confusion and even chaos, not to mention murkiness and dirty dealings. But conspiracy theories usually involve dirty dealings initiated by a group of evildoers intent on destroying, or taking over, the world or, at very best, threatening society in some terrible way.
But why are so many people drawn to conspiracy theories in the first place? Is it, perhaps, worldwide events fostering emotions that encourage people to believe preposterous theories? Does anxiety make people think conspiratorially? If you combine anxiety with a feeling of disenfranchisement, do conspiracy theories offer a sense of comfort by identifying causes and, therefore, offer a sense of control over the uncontrollable? This suggests a need for the simple belief that there are good people and bad people out there and that if we get rid of the bad people, everything would be just fine. In other words, if these bad people did not exist, we would need to create them because without them, everyday life might appear simply random and out of control.
Corona virus theories fit neatly into the idea of controlling the uncontrollable. Theories vary from the idea that drinking bleach can kill the corona virus to a theory that the virus was created in a lab as a bioweapon. Some online groups and websites have even claimed that the virus doesn’t exist, or that it was created by pharmaceutical companies to create business for vaccines. There have even been suggestions that 5G networks somehow cause illness.
Conspiracy theories are, of course, grist to the writer's mill. Think of The Trial by Franz Kafka, 2666 by Roberto Bolano, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco or The Plot against America by Philip Roth. And we can be as sure as sure can be that a host of writers are currently hard at work on the corona virus conspiracy novel.
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