Critical Theory, Conspiracy, and “Gullible Critique”

Abstract

There are important similarities between conspiracy theories and academic discourses referred to variously as ‘critique’, ‘critical theory’, ‘genealogy’, and ‘the hermeneutics of suspicion’. Like conspiracy theories, critical academic discourses have their passionate advocates. But these discourses also carry an air of disrepute in broader academic circles. In a trenchant 2004 essay Bruno Latour expressed a set of worries about the intellectual respectability of “critique” centered on the resemblance between critique and conspiracy theories. I develop this line of thinking by calling attention to formal features that examples of “critique” can share with conspiracy theories, positioning both types of discourse within the broader category of “suspicious explanation”. I conclude by offering an account of what might be meant by Latour’s reference to “gullible critique”.