문학과 지성사

From Korean Air Flight 858 bombing through the ROKS Cheonan sinking, the distributed denial of service attack, the fabrication of the Seoul City government official’s spying to the sinking of the MV Sewol, when a horrible disaster occurs, somehow it has been natural to raise conspiracy theories for quite some time. Even when a big celebrity’s scandal breaks at a specific point in time, it is not too strange to think of it as a conspiracy to distract the public interest from a sensitive political issue.

Conspiracy theories seem to have become a major reasonable way of explaining the world. It is often said that more people rely on conspiracy theories when authorities are not transparent about issue-related information or when public sphere does not properly function in its key role of criticism. Considering that there are so many conspiracy theories spread and that it often occurs to label someone as a conspiracy theorists, we can say that our society is faced with a serious crisis. This book shows an interesting yet careful interpretation of why our society has become so full of conspiracy theories, what social roles conspiracy theories carry out, and how a political power uses conspiracy. The author also shares his thoughts about how conspiracy theories can turn into constructive criticism instead of remaining as a simple entertainment or as easy blame shifting.