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ible to the people. However, this does not mean that people completely discard the official explanations. It merely inclines that people believe that the alternative explanations provided by the conspiracy theories seem imaginable.

 

Conspiracy Theories And The Paradigm Of Choice

In 2004, the American psychologist Barry Schwartz published the book “The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less”. In this book he argues that we have reached the height of a consumer society in which it might happen that choice “no longer liberates, but deliberates”. Schwartz describes the various areas of life in which we can choose these days, such as education, career, friendship and religion. On top of the field of religion one can place the general category of belief. In our society, people can choose what to believe in and what they find believable. Whereas some people believe that the earth and the species were created by god, others find this completely incredible and support Darwin's theory of evolution.

 

Choice is a crucial aspect of our lives. Schwartz points out that: “Choice is essential to autonomy, which is absolutely fundamental to well-being”. Although, not directly implied by Schwartz' book, it can be argued that conspiracy theories constitute another choice that we have in our society, namely a choice of truth. The issue of belief and what we believe in is vital to human choice. Schwartz explains that: “[…] we make the most of our freedoms by learning to make good choices about the things that matter, while at the same time unburdening ourselves from too much concern about things that don't”. Continuing in this line of thought, beliefs are essential to a person's existence and personality: “Existence, at least human existence, is defined by the choices people make”. In order to choose we need to be able to believe and we need to be able to assume that our choice will bring about a desired outcome.

 

When choosing our beliefs we have a choice between religions, political parties, movements of any kind and many more. However, the term belief also inclines that we have a belief in what is going on and how things work. When it comes to our own lives this is quite manageable and even if we feel that we do not know how we work we can go to a specialist who will clarify this for us. Nevertheless, when it comes to a more general truth, something that we cannot check or see for ourselves we need to rely on sources telling us the truth and making us believe. The field of ‘truth' however, seemed to be ruled by the monopoly of official explanations. Obviously alien involvements, for instance, in several earthly events often served as useful alternative theories for believers in superconspiracies but there was no real choice for people who did not believe in supernatural happenings. As outlined before, it is important for people to on the one hand have choices and on the other hand to be able to make choices about things that matter. Due to this, conspiracy theories offer a choice in truth to people or as Schwartz would put本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。