When conspiracists attach themselves to a position, argument about that position has ended, whatever its merits were.
The claim is about what an audience can now hear rather than about the position itself. Once the most credulous supporters are the most visible ones, every subsequent statement is received as belonging with theirs, and the reasonable version of the case has lost the ability to be stated separately. The effect works regardless of whether the original claim was sound, which is what makes it worth naming.
In practice
- A legitimate safety concern acquires a conspiratorial following and can no longer be raised in a meeting.
- A researcher whose finding is adopted by a fringe movement spends the rest of the decade disowning supporters rather than defending the work.
- Standing
- From Berg's numbered set, first codified on his blog in 2005.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- The folk laws of argument and attention