They also suggested that colonial leaders set those suspicious habitual tendencies on track even before Independence. Historians have typified a 'paranoid style' in American politics (Hofstadter 2008). Scholars have indeed pointed that conspiracy theories have a strong grip on the American mind. Buy one, get one free!ġThis, in a nutshell, is the 'conspiracist strategy.' It is effective, popular, and typically American. Fight back for your happiness and health. You must fight back for your constitutional rights of liberty. They b (.)Īre you aware the Government wants you sick? Did you know that officials hold cheap and natural cures for cancer in secret? Have you realized the CIA used viruses for preserving White supremacy? How many doctors would Big Pharma 1 murder until you realize they are only interested in your money? Have you heard about advocates for alternative solutions for illness? Did you know that those people and organizations risk their life for you? Well, it is about time. 1 Entrepreneurs often use the term 'Big Pharma' in referencing large pharmaceutical companies.In contemporary America, for example, politicians and media outlets employ conspiracist strategies to raise fears from the 'deep state.' They succeed doing so because those conspiracist strategies and the suspicious habitus they manipulate spring from the same democratic source. The paper discusses the general theoretical implications for studying conspiracy theories while calling for a comparative approach for observing local habitual predispositions on the one hand, and the culturally adapted conspiracist strategies for manipulating them, on the other hand. By manipulating fears and conspiratorial suspicions, entrepreneurs promise suffering 'patriots' that by choosing their alternative cures they would win back their liberty and health.

Their graphics and apocalyptic narratives necessitate patients to take swift actions.

While doing so they employ a series of means to seem professional yet persecuted scientific though in clandestine. They first raise fears of government collusion with 'Big Pharma.' They then call citizens-cum-patients to protect their liberties from hidden machinations by buying 'hidden' or 'censured' cures. It shows that publishers of such commercials often use a 'conspiracist strategy' in two interrelated steps. The present paper adds to those studies by providing a cultural interpretation of commercials for alternative cures. Hofstadter's classic essay 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics' opened a floodgate of analyses of fear and conspiracy theories in American culture.

Dr. allan spreen md