d . garcia on Thu, 11 Mar 2021 14:17:29 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> THE Q IN QONSPIRACY: QAnon as a Paradigm for Future Social-media-driven Conspiracism


Very much looking forward to this discussion...

The approach of Q's followers (along with myriad other conspiracy theorists) reflects the Ninth lesson from historian Timothy Snyder’s text ‘On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the 20th Century’ which begins with the sentence: ‘Investigate. Figure things out for yourself.’ Worryingly that is precisely
what Q's followers feel they are doing.

The epistemology of these movements could be characterised as a hermeneutics of un-quenchable suspicion in which “every official narrative and mainstream institution is suspect […] and in which real knowledge is produced by like-minded strangers working together on the internet “to do their own research”.”

These are potent grass roots research orientated sub-cultures who experience the sheer excitement of feeling that they are unmasking a world of lies and revealing through their own research efforts a network of hidden causes. This fact that makes it particularly hard terrain those on the left to contest.

Although not exactly an activist I find it useful to recall Roland Barthes's evolution thinker from the early days as an unmasker of 'mythologies' to a later understanding that you can’t get rid of a mythology by telling or demonstrating that it’s a 'myth'. It can only ever be replaced it with a better myth. Faith in evidence and exposure is not enough.
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