Conspiracism and the Shadows of Transparency

Following the approach of cultural studies, which views conspiracism as reflecting larger cultural and social anxieties and concerns, the paper argues that one of these anxieties is connected with the modern ideology of transparency. While at first sight a widely shared positive value, transparency can be shown to hide various tensions and paradoxes on closer inspection. This paper interprets conspiracy theories as imaginative attempts at capturing these tensions, at highlighting the inconspicuous opacity of the late modern transparent world and its institutions. Conspiracists are themselves entangled in the modern ideology of transparency, but at the same time, they knock against its boundaries, making explicit the unspoken premises of the entire system in all their paradoxicality. They draw attention to numerous inconsistencies and dark cracks in our late modern social and ideological system, symbolising them through various disturbing narratives that should not be taken literally but that are interesting precisely in that they offer an opportunity to reflect on the limitations of transparency