„Conspiracy theories are socially contagious, just like a virus. And they are hard to stop once set in motion. We must understand how they work and what they do to us.“

A training for ambiguity tolerance and de-conspiracy

Elisabeth Fast, who works in the field of civic education, and her longtime friend, the cultural activist Heike Bröckerhoff, founded a reading group during the first lockdown in 2020. Disturbed by the current situation and supposedly left-wing liberal authors who rebel against political decisions, bring dubios statements to the public space presenting themselves as resistance movement, Heike picked up the phone. Regular phone calls ensue, during which the two of them read and share newspaper articles and other texts about conspiracy myths in the wake of the Corona pandemic. The list of questions is long: What happens to our society when anti-democratic attitudes suddenly take on a ”bourgeois guise“? And what to do about that? What are the psychological needs behind conspiracy? What role does ambiguity tolerance, the ability to deal with contradictions, play in determining whether we are susceptible to conspiracy theories? And can this be trained?
For the radio play episode, Elisabeth Fast, who works at the Amadeu-Antonio Foundation in the field of conspiracy ideologies and anti-Semitism, and Heike Bröckerhoff develop an auditory de-conspiracy training.

The production of this episode is planned for 2023.

Credits:

Conspiracy is a research initiated by Heike Bröckerhoff in collaboration with Elisabeth Fast.