First of all, a conspiracy theory is a confirmation of a familiar, convenient picture of the world. What matters is not so much the picture itself, but the author’s emotional attitude toward the participants in the conspiratorial theory—the “good” guys and the “bad” guys. Here is a typical example of text born of conspiratorial thinking: a note in the Guardian whose author claims that “capitalism” is interested in the destruction of the family and the like. The whole point is that the author doesn’t like “capitalism.” If, say, there was a tendency toward larger families and more children, and this tendency didn’t appeal to the author, he would also blame “capitalism” for it—capitalism benefits from population growth and profits from being able to sell more children’s toys. In reality, “capitalism” extracts profit from any state of affairs; corporations always keep their nose to the wind, but they don’t create it.