The uses of conspiracy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This lesson offers students a way to analyze conspiracy theories while neither platforming dangerous ideas nor dismissing them as unworthy of academic study. Ideal for argument or rhetoric courses, first, the lesson advances conspiracy theories as a recognizable species of argument; second, the lesson uses a truncated version of Toulmin’s model of argument to equip students to engage the reasoning behind conspiratorial claims rather than the claim or its evidence. In so doing, students learn to isolate the most vulnerable part of an argument—what Toulmin calls its “warrant.” By the lesson’s end, students engage in an empathetic imagining of what makes conspiracy theories desirable in the first place, no matter their content, re-emphasizing rhetoric’s civic roots in a time of vitriol. Courses Argumentation and Debate, Rhetorical Criticism, Introduction to Communication, Political Communication, Persuasion. Objectives By the lesson’s end, students will be able to (1) identify the conspiracy theory as a form of public argument, (2) engage examples of the form with empathetic imagination, and (3) use the Toulmin model to evaluate arguments otherwise dismissed.