LA DIALECTIQUE GÉNÉRÉE PAR LE DISCOURS CONSPIRATIONNISTE : LE SENS DE L'IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSION DES CONTRAIRES EN CONTEXTE AFRICAIN

The driving force behind any conspiracy theory is the sum total of the contradictions it provokes and feeds on. The dialectic generated by conspiracism is essentially that two or more ‘explanations’ for the same object of information or communication contradict or irreconcilably exclude each other, thus creating doubt and confusion in the minds of the receivers of these discourses. The reason for this state of affairs can be found in the very definition of conspiracism as ‘the belief in the existence of an illegal plan deliberately organised by ill-intentioned individuals, and the use of this belief to explain certain facts or the course of history’ (J. Jamin, 2009: 44). Conspiracism thus operates on the basis of suspicion or mistrust between one pole of ‘conspirators, known or otherwise’ and another assumed by conspiracists, or, if we can put it another way, on the basis of ‘a dualism of the “us versus them” type and a dynamic of the “good and bad” type which, together, make it possible to eliminate all nuance and complexity. In the African context, the dialectic created and maintained by conspiracy theorists generally has more to do with rumour, accusations of intent, defamation, etc. than with logical, reasoned and dispassionate contradiction, with the ‘they say that...’ or one of its expressive variants as its proven genetic source. Here again, ‘conspiratorial thinking is alien to the principle of non-contradiction’ (M. Angenot, 2010 : 35) and that is why, faced with the impossible synthesis of opposites, which is nonetheless the expected outcome of any dialectical process, we are led to wonder what point there is in a conspiratorial explanation taking the radical opposite view to official information or communication that is supposed to be objective, credible or truthful and, as such, enlightened and enlightening.