Conspiracy Thinking as Psychological Relief

Something has shifted dramatically in the last few years. The institutions and information structures we were trained to trust have failed in ways that are now difficult to ignore, producing a kind of generalized mistrust that makes it hard to think, hard to act, and hard to know what a good life even looks like anymore.

In this episode, Kelly sits down with philosopher and author James Madden to examine what it means to navigate belief and meaning when the ground beneath shared reality has already given way. Jim is the author of Unidentified Flying Hyper-Object: UFOs, Philosophy, and the End of the World and Thinking About Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism, the cohost of The Great Dangerous Books Podcast, and a longtime thinking partner whose refusal to offer easy answers has made him a favorite among listeners of Kelly's previous work.

They talk about the complacent indifference that has settled over people in the wake of seemingly endless waves of institutional scandal and revelation. They talk about conspiracy thinking as a cognitive response to the collapse of trusted authority—and why the fact that some conspiracies turn out to be real makes the situation harder to navigate, not easier. They talk about why generalized epistemic mistrust is such an effective mechanism for preventing meaningful action. And they talk about what it means to keep trying to live well when you can no longer trust the information you would need to do it.

Topics explored: epistemological collapse | conspiracy thinking as cognitive response | institutional trust failure | the "big other" | generalized skepticism as paralysis | information warfare | the psychology of indifference | epistemic mistrust and political action | radical self-reliance | faith and probability | living well under uncertainty | Žižek | Lacan | Plato's Republic

Inquiry with Kelly Chase is brought to you by SpectreVision Radio.Produced in partnership with Voltage.fm. 

Referenced In This Episode

• Unidentified Flying Hyperobject: UFOs, Philosophy, and the End of the World, James Madden

• Thinking about Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism, James Madden

• Republic, Plato

• The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint, Sandra Menssen & Thomas D. Sullivan

Check Out James Madden's Podcast

The Great Dangerous Books Podcast

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TIMESTAMPS

04:50 Indifference and Partisan Filters

06:03 Frozen by Mistrust

07:41 Ontological vs Epistemic

09:33 Medical Trust Breakdown

13:13 Sheep Bandits Skepticism

18:23 Conspiracy Comfort Trap

22:07 Secrecy and Leaks

26:00 How Conspiracies Operate

28:32 Black Budgets Disinfo

30:57 UFO Skepticism In Principle

34:34 Portal Claims and Psyops

35:56 Trading Obscurity for Obscurity

38:43 Counting Humans Knowledge Limits

41:32 Good Life in Uncertainty

44:09 Moron Idiot Imbecile Framework

46:14 Radical Self Reliance and Trust

50:16 Skepticism Without Denial

55:29 Faith, Doubt, and Jesus

01:01:09 Keep Seeking Do Good

01:02:17 Credits and Where to Listen

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