The timing was unsettling.
On November 21, 1963, Richard Hofstadter presented the annual Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford University. Hofstadter was a historian of American history at Columbia University who enjoyed employing social psychology to elucidate political history, as a means to defend liberalism against extremism on all fronts. His latest lecture was titled “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”
“I term it the paranoid style,” he commenced, “merely because no other term sufficiently captures the attributes of intense exaggeration, distrust, and conspiratorial fantasy that I am envisioning.”
Then, less than 24 hours later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. This profound event, along with the ensuing attempts to rationalize it, brought into popular use a term that is evidently central to Hofstadter’s discussion even though it is not found in the text: “conspiracy theory.”
This narrative is part of MIT Technology Review’s series “The New Conspiracy Age,” focusing on how the current surge in conspiracy theories is transforming science and technology.
Hofstadter’s lecture was later modified into what remains a crucial essay today, even after decades of research on conspiracy theories, because it clearly delineates, with both thoroughness and clarity, a historical thread of conspiracist politics. “The paranoid style is an enduring and repetitive phenomenon in our public life which has often been associated with movements of skeptical discontent,” he asserts, tracing the phenomenon back to the foundation years of the republic. While every rise in conspiracy theories appears alarmingly fresh—new tales propagated through new technologies on an unprecedented scale—they all adhere to a recognizable framework. As Hofstadter established, the specifics may alter, yet the basic structure persists.
His psychological perspective on politics has sparked debate, yet it is psychology, rather than economics or other external elements, that best clarifies the proliferation of conspiracy theories. Research has indeed shown that we have a tendency to detect intent and patterns where none exist—and that this helps us feel significant. To uncover and expose a secret agenda is to feel valiant and gain an illusion of mastery over the perplexing chaos of existence.
Like numerous groundbreaking theories subjected to the chilling scrutiny of hindsight, Hofstadter’s has imperfections and shortcomings. His major oversight was his minimization of the paranoid style’s influence in mainstream politics up to that time and the underestimation of its capacity to proliferate in the future.
In 1963, conspiracy theories were still largely marginal, not due to any inherent oddity but because they were limited in scope and looked down upon by those in authority. Now that neither of those conditions applies, the infectious nature of these theories is rather evident. Hofstadter could not possibly have foreseen the information technologies that have become interwoven into our daily existence, nor the fragmented media landscape of the present day, both of which have propelled conspiratorial thinking to reach a broader audience—to adapt, and to flourish like fungus. Additionally, he could not have predicted that a repetitive conspiracy theorist would ascend to the presidency, twice, and that he would populate his second administration with other advocates of the paranoid style.
However, Hofstadter’s notion of the paranoid style continues to be valuable—and increasingly relevant—because it also describes a manner of interpreting the world. As he expressed, “The hallmark of the paranoid style is not that its proponents identify conspiracies or schemes here and there throughout history, but they perceive a ‘vast’ or ‘immense’ conspiracy as the primary driving force behind historical occurrences. History is a conspiracy, propelled by sinister forces of nearly supernatural magnitude, and what is perceived as necessary to conquer it is not the typical methods of political negotiation, but a full-fledged crusade.”
It goes without saying that this mystically unifying interpretation of history is not merely false but also unfeasible. It lacks sensibility at any level. So, why has it remained so captivating for an extended time—and why does it appear to gain popularity day by day?
What constitutes a conspiracy theory, anyway?
The first individual to define the “conspiracy theory” as a prevalent phenomenon was the Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper, in his 1948 lecture “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition.” He was not discussing a theory concerning a specific conspiracy. He was focused on “the conspiracy theory of society”: a distinct method of interpreting unfolding events.
He later characterized it as “the perspective that an explanation of a social occurrence lies in the identification of the individuals or groups who have stakes in the realization of this occurrence (sometimes a concealed interest that must first be uncovered), and who have conspired to bring it to fruition.”
Consider an unforeseen disaster that incites dread, rage, and suffering—a financial collapse, a catastrophic fire, a terrorist strike, a conflict. The typical historian will endeavor to unravel a web of various factors, one of which may be malice, but one that could also be overshadowed by sheer chance.
The conspiracist, on the other hand, will recognize only calculated malevolence behind these dreadful occurrences—a meticulously devised scheme conceived and executed flawlessly. Intent is paramount. Popper’s insight resonates with Hofstadter’s: “The paranoid’s interpretation of history is … strikingly subjective: pivotal events are not perceived as part of historical continuity, but rather as outcomes of someone’s volition.”
Michael Barkun
According to Michael Barkun in the 2003 book A Culture of Conspiracy, the conspiratorial interpretation of events is based on three fundamental assumptions: Everything is interlinked, everything is intentional, and nothing is as it appears. Following the third principle means that widely accepted and documented history is, by definition, suspect, and alternative explanations, however implausible, are deemed more likely to be accurate. As Hannah Arendt noted in The Origins of Totalitarianism, the function of conspiracy theories in 20th-century totalitarian regimes “was consistently to expose official history as a farce, demonstrating a realm of secret influences in which the visible, traceable, and known historical reality was merely the superficial façade constructed to deceive the populace.” (Those dictators, of course, were conspirators themselves, projecting their own obsession with secret agendas onto others.)
Yet, it’s crucial to recognize that “conspiracy theory” can signify various concepts. Barkun delineates three types, nested like Russian dolls.
The “event conspiracy theory” pertains to a specific, contained disaster, like the Reichstag fire of 1933 or the origins of covid-19. These theories are relatively credible, even if they cannot be substantiated.
The “systemic conspiracy theory” is far more ambitious, claiming to elucidate numerous incidents as the nefarious product of a covert international scheme. Although they may seem far-fetched, they at least focus on identifiable groups, whether the Illuminati or the World Economic Forum.
It is increasingly apparent that “conspiracy theory” is a misnomer, and what we are truly confronting is conspiracy belief.
Lastly, the “superconspiracy theory” constitutes that implausible fantasy in which the entirety of history itself is a conspiracy, orchestrated by unseen powers of nearly supernatural intensity and malignance. The most extreme versions of QAnon posit such a universal conspiracy. It endeavors to encompass and elucidate nothing less than the entirety of existence.
These represent distinctly different genres of storytelling. If the first resembles a mystery tale, then the latter two are more akin to fables. However, one can transition into the other. Consider the theories connected to the Kennedy assassination. The initial wave of amateur sleuths generated event conspiracy theories—relatively self-contained schemes implicating believable perpetrators such as Cubans or the Mafia.
However, as time progressed, event conspiracy theories appeared to become parochial. By the time of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, once-popular narratives had been overshadowed by intricate fictions of extensive, ongoing conspiracies where the presidential murder was merely one aspect. One of Stone’s principal sources was the journalist Jim Marrs, who subsequently authored works on the Freemasons and UFOs.
Why limit oneself to a painstakingly researched theory regarding a single occurrence when one enormous, dramatic narrative can elucidate them all?
The theory of everything
In every systemic or superconspiracy theory, the world is portrayed as corrupt and unjust, and continuing its decline. An elite assembly of improbably omnipotent individuals, driven by pure malevolence, is blamed for most of humanity’s woes. Only through the revelation of concealed truths and deciphering of mysteries by a virtuous minority can the wrongdoers be unveiled and vanquished. The morality is as simplistic as the narrative is intricate: It evolves into a conflict between good and evil.
Notice anything? This is not the rhetoric of democratic politics but rather that of mythology and religion. Indeed, it reflects the core message of the Book of Revelation. Conspiratorial reasoning can be perceived as a derivative, often secularized, extension of apocalyptic Christianity, with its enticing tapestry of prophecies, signs, and secrets alongside its anticipation of violent resolution. Following his examination of several millenarian sects for his 1957 book The Pursuit of the Millennium, historian Norman Cohn listed some recurring characteristics, including “the megalomaniacal perception of oneself as the Elect, entirely righteous, cruelly persecuted yet assured of eventual victory; the attribution of enormous and demonic power to adversaries; the refusal to acknowledge the unavoidable constraints and imperfections of human existence.”
Popper likewise deemed the conspiracy theory of society “a typical outcome of the secularization of religious superstition,” adding: “The deities are forsaken. However, their void is filled by influential men or groups… whose malevolence is accountable for all the misfortunes we suffer.”
The transformation of QAnon from a conspiracy theory on an internet message board into a movement resembling a cult clearly illustrates the affinity between conspiracy theories and apocalyptic faith.
This mode of reasoning enables the production of dehumanized scapegoats—one of the most enduring features of conspiracy theories. Across the Middle Ages and beyond, political and religious figures frequently labeled their opponents as “Antichrist.” During the Crusades, Christians falsely accused Europe’s Jewish communities of colluding with Islam or poisoning wells, subjecting them to persecution. Witch-hunters implicated tens of thousands of innocent women in a supposed demonic conspiracy said to account for everything from ailments to agricultural failures. “Conspiracy theories are ultimately not so much an interpretation of events as an endeavor to attribute blame,” writes Anna Merlan in the 2019 book Republic of Lies.
Anna Merlan
However, the systemic conspiracy theory—that is, the seemingly secular variety—was established three centuries later, and it did so with impressive speed. Some alarmed opponents of the French Revolution struggled to accept that such a upheaval could merely be a popular uprising and needed to attribute it to sinister, unseen forces. They settled on the Illuminati, a secretive Bavarian society of Enlightenment thinkers influenced partly by the rites and structures of Freemasonry.
The group was initiated by a young law instructor named Adam Weishaupt, who adopted the alias Brother Spartacus. In truth, the Illuminati were few in number, fractious, powerless, and, by the time of the revolution in 1789, disbanded. However, in the fantasies of two notable authors who published “exposés” of the Illuminati in 1797—Scotland’s John Robison and France’s Augustin Barruel—they were ubiquitous. Each constructed a shaky edifice of wild conjectures and fevered nonsense upon a base of plausible assertions and verifiable truths. Robison claimed that the revolution was merely part of “one grand and nefarious scheme” whose ultimate goal was to “abolish all religion, overturn every government, and reduce the world to chaos and devastation.”
The scarecrow status of the Illuminati diminished during the 19th century, yet the fundamental narrative endured and served as the foundation for the infamous hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first issued in a Russian publication in 1903. The anonymous author of the document reinvented antisemitism by intertwining it with the tale of the one grand plot and positing Jews as the clandestine rulers of the globe. In this narrative, the Elders orchestrate every conflict, economic downturn, and so forth to destabilize the planet sufficiently to impose tyranny.
You may ask why, if they possess such world-altering power already, they would need a dictatorship. You might also question how a single group could be held accountable for both communism and monopoly capitalism, anarchism and democracy, the theory of evolution, among many others. Yet, the sprawling, self-contradictory absurdity of the narrative is what rendered it impossible to disprove. Nothing was excluded, thus any occurrence could potentially serve as evidence of the Elders in action.
In 1921, the Protocols were revealed to be what the London Times dubbed a “clumsy forgery,” plagiarized from two obscure 19th-century novels, yet they continued to be the fundamental text of European antisemitism—essentially “true” despite being unequivocally false. “I believe in the inner, but not the factual, truth of the Protocols,” stated Joseph Goebbels, who later became Hitler’s head of propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler asserted that attempts to refute the Protocols were actually “proof of their authenticity.” He contended that Jews, if left unchecked, would “ultimately consume the other nations and become the lords of the planet.” Both Popper and Hofstadter utilized the Holocaust as an illustration of the consequences when a conspiracy theorist obtains power and applies the paranoid style as a guiding principle.
The prominent involvement of Jewish Bolsheviks like Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev in the Russian Revolution of 1917 facilitated a fusion of antisemitism and anticommunism that endured through the fascist period. Cold War red-baiters such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the John Birch Society attributed to communists uncanny levels of malevolence and pervasiveness, far exceeding the actual threat posed by Soviet espionage. They presented this perspective as the sole logical interpretation. McCarthy posited that a series of national security setbacks could only be rationalized if George C. Marshall, the Secretary of Defense and former Secretary of State, was literally a Soviet agent. “How can we account for our current situation unless we assert that influential figures within this government are conspiring to deliver us to catastrophe?” he queried in 1951. “This must be the product of a colossal conspiracy dwarfed by no previous endeavor in humanity’s history.”
This continuity between antisemitism, anticommunism, and 18th-century paranoia regarding secret societies is readily apparent. General Francisco Franco, Spain’s right-leaning dictator, proclaimed he was battling a “Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik” conspiracy. The Nazis persecuted Freemasons alongside Jews and communists. Nesta Webster, the British fascist sympathizer who disseminated the Protocols through the British press, revitalized interest in Robison and Barruel’s works on the Illuminati, which the pro-Nazi Baptist preacher Gerald Winrod subsequently promoted in the US. Even Winston Churchill was momentarily swayed by Webster’s arguments, citing them in his claims of a “worldwide conspiracy to overthrow civilization … tracing from the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx.”
To further follow the chain, the concoction of anticommunism, antisemitism, and anti-Illuminati conspiracy theories influenced the John Birch Society, whose publications would later ignite a fervor in the early 21st century with Infowars founder Alex Jones, arguably one of the most impactful conspiracy theorists of the time.
The antagonists behind the one grand plot may be the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, the communists, or the New World Order, but they invariably represent the same individuals, aiming to officially govern a world they already secretly dominate. The labels can be exchanged with ease. While Winrod asserted that “the actual conspirators behind the Illuminati were Jews,” the anticommunist William Guy Carr conversely contended that antisemitic paranoia “serves to benefit the Illuminati.” Today, it could be the World Economic Forum or George Soros; liberal internationalists with aspirations for global change are quickly portrayed as the new Illuminati, striving to establish a singular world government.
Identifying connections
The primary reason conspiracy theorists have moved away from the labor-intensive work of micro-conspiracies in favor of grander schemes is that it has become significantly simpler to draw lines between objectively unrelated individuals and occurrences. Information technology, after all, also serves as misinformation technology. This is not a new phenomenon.
The witch hysteria could not have extended as far or endured as long without the printing press. Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of the Witches), a 1486 treatise by the German witch hunter Heinrich Kramer, transformed into the foremost witch-hunter’s guide, going through 28 editions by 1600. Similarly, it was the literature and pamphlets “uncovering” the Illuminati that enabled those notions to proliferate widely after the French Revolution. In the early 20th century, the advent of radio facilitated fascist propaganda. In the 1930s, the Nazi-sympathizing Catholic priest and radio broadcaster Charles Coughlin disseminated his antisemitic conspiracy notions to millions of Americans across numerous stations.
The internet has, of course, significantly accelerated and expanded the dissemination of conspiracy theories. It’s hard to remember now, but in its early phases, it was naively assumed that the internet would enhance the world by democratizing access to information. While this initial optimism persists in resilient enclaves such as Wikipedia, most of us woefully underestimated the human appetite for false information that aligns with personal biases.
Also, politicians were slow to grasp the corrosive influence of unchecked conspiracy theories. For a prolonged period, the more outlandish claims made by McCarthy and the Birchers were maintained at a distance from the political mainstream; this distance began to rapidly diminish in the 1990s as right-wing activists forged an industry of outrageous allegations regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton, advancing the narrative that they were not merely corrupt or dishonest, but actively evil or even satanic. This narrative became a dogma within the information ecosystem of internet forums and talk radio, which broadened over time to incorporate Fox News, blogs, and social media. Hence, when the Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton in 2016, a substantial segment of the American populace perceived her as a monster at the core of an organized crime syndicate involved in human trafficking and murder.
No one could make the same error concerning misinformation today. One could hardly devise a more opportune breeding ground for conspiracy theories than social media. The algorithms of YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and X, which function on the premise that rage is compelling, have transformed into radicalization engines. When these platforms surged in popularity during the latter half of the 2010s, they established a seamless mechanism in which individuals could encounter thrilling new information, share it, link it to other misinformation streams, and weave them into self-contained, self-reinforcing communities, all from the comfort of their homes.
It’s easy to see how this issue will only magnify as AI integrates deeper into our daily lives. Elon Musk has adjusted the AI chatbot Grok to generate information that aligns with his personal beliefs rather than factual truths. This result need not be intentional. Chatbots have been demonstrated to affirm and amplify some users’ perceptions, even when they’re anchored in paranoia or arrogance. If one perceives themselves as the protagonist in an epic conflict between righteousness and malevolence, then their chatbot is inclined to concur.
It’s this digital din that has led to the near demise of the event conspiracy theory. The industry generated by the JFK assassination may have been pseudo-academic, but at least scholars went through the motions of examining documents, gathering evidence, and proposing a somewhat coherent hypothesis. Regardless of how misguided the deductions were, that type of conspiracy theory necessitated genuine effort and dedication.
Contemporary online conspiracy theorists, in contrast, exhibit a brazen lack of rigor. Incidents such as the assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in October 2022, or the slayings of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her spouse Mark in June 2025, or even more recently the killing of Charlie Kirk, have spawned theories immediately, which then dissolve just as quickly. The objective of such narratives, if they even deserve that label, is not to uncover truth but to malign political adversaries and transform victims into villains.
Before he even entered the political arena, Trump was infamous for propagating false narratives about Barack Obama’s birthplace or vaccine safety. Heir to Joseph McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, and the John Birch Society, he represents the vivid embodiment of the paranoid style. He routinely condemns his adversaries as “evil” or “very bad people” and discusses America’s future in apocalyptic terms. Consequently, it’s hardly surprising that every member of the administration must endorse Trump’s false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, or that celebrity conspiracy theorists now influence national intelligence, public health, and the FBI. Former Democrats occupying such positions, like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have entered Trump’s sphere through the portals of conspiracy theories. They exemplify how this mentality can forge counterintuitive alliances that dissolve ordinary political barriers and confuse traditional conceptions of right and left.
The antidemocratic implications of the current situation are clear. “Since what is at stake is invariably a struggle between absolute good and absolute evil, the required quality is not a readiness to negotiate, but the resolve to carry conflicts through to completion,” Hofstadter articulated. “Only total victory is acceptable.”
Confronting the moment
It’s natural to feel powerless amidst this epistemic turmoil. Because another fundamental characteristic of religious prophecy is that it can be refuted without being invalidated: Perhaps the world does not reach its end on the anticipated date, but that great day is still forthcoming. The prophet is never incorrect—he is simply not substantiated yet.
The same adaptability is afforded to systemic conspiracy theories. The conspirators never genuinely triumph, nor are they ever definitively unmasked, yet the theory remains unaffected. Recently, assertions that covid-19 was either exaggerated or completely fabricated to constrict civil liberties did not dissolve once lockdown measures were lifted. Surely, the so-called “plandemic” was an utter failure? It hardly matters. This type of conspiracy theory is not required to make rational sense.
Academics who have endeavored to systematically disprove conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks or the JFK assassination have discovered that even after all the supporting elements have been dismantled, the structure remains intact. It is increasingly evident that “conspiracy theory” is a mislabeling and what we are genuinely confronting is conspiracy belief—as Hofstadter proposed, a worldview reinforced by numerous cognitive biases and resistant to refutation. As Goebbels intimated, the “factual truth” is overshadowed by the “internal truth,” which is whatever someone believes it to be.
However, at the very least, what we can achieve is identifying the entirely distinct realities constructed by believers and acknowledging and internalizing their shared origins, motifs, and motives.
Those disparate realities, after all, have proven remarkably consistent in form if not in their specifics. What transpired then, we witness now. The Illuminati were Enlightenment idealists whose liberal agenda to “disperse the clouds of superstition and prejudice,” in Weishaupt’s words, was demonized as wicked and detrimental. If it could be demonstrated they had incited the French Revolution, then the entire revolution was a deception. In the same vein, today’s radical right reinterprets every element of progressive policy as an anti-American conspiracy. The far-right Great Replacement Theory, for example, claims that immigration policies are a deliberate endeavor by elites to supplant the native populace with outsiders. This all derives directly from what thinkers like Hofstadter, Popper, and Arendt diagnosed over sixty years ago.
What is perilously novel, at least in democracies, is the omnipresence, scope, and power of conspiracy theories to influence the lives of ordinary people. Thus, comprehending the paranoid style better prepares us to counteract it in our daily lives. At a minimum, this understanding empowers us to recognize biases and errors in our own reasoning and prevent ourselves from descending into perilous rabbit holes.
Richard Hofstadter
On November 18, 1961, President Kennedy—almost precisely two years prior to Hofstadter’s lecture and his own assassination—offered his own interpretation of the paranoid style in a speech to the Democratic Party of California. “There have always existed those at the fringes of our society who have sought to evade their own accountability by discovering a simple solution, an appealing slogan, or a suitable scapegoat,” he stated. “Occasionally these extremists have attained fleeting success among those who lack the resolve or the insight to confront uncomfortable truths or unresolved issues. However, over time, the intrinsic wisdom and stability of the great American consensus has consistently triumphed.”
We can only hope that the consensus begins to view the ongoing chaos and overt aggression of Trump’s two administrations as significant evidence against the conspiracy theory of society. The idea that any group could effectively navigate the larger disorder of this moment in time, let alone steer the course of history over decades, without detection, is palpably ludicrous. The critical aspect is not that the specifics of this or that conspiracy theory are incorrect; it is that the entire foundation of this worldview is erroneous.
Not everything is interconnected, not all is premeditated, and many aspects are indeed just as they appear.
Dorian Lynskey is the author of several works, including The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 and Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World. He cohosts the podcast Origin Story and collaborates on the Origin Story books with Ian Dunt.
