"Conspire" means "breathe together" in Latin. Conspiracy is intimate. The conspirators are vulnerable to each other, open with their thoughts because they have common interests. The conspiracy must remain secret because it only serves those interests.
From this point of view conspiracies, and by extension conspiracy theories, are as natural as communication. Why then are people reluctant to say, "I have a conspiracy theory"?
Perhaps the rumors are true, that the CIA promoted a negative connotation for the phrase "conspiracy theory" to embarrass people who doubted the Warren Report on President Kennedy's assassination. If that conspiracy theory is true, it was stunningly successful. Today, if you say you have a conspiracy theory, you are immediately labelled a nut.
It's interesting too that the word "paranoia" is understood by almost everyone, while its opposite, "pronoia" (referring to denial that there are people conspiring against one when in fact there are) is mostly unknown.
Of course, even if someone overcomes the stigma of vocalizing a conspiracy theory, and even if everyone who hears the theory thinks it's true, you still face the question: What are you going to do about it? You can't take legal action because a conspiracy theory is a theory; it is not designed to be a formal allegation, as there is generally little or no evidence to back it up.
For instance, I have a conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is behind the move away from attributing significance to dreams, which are referred to in many medical journals as "neural trash." My theory is that the downgrade occurred because there is no money in dreams, as there is in drugs. If dreams have meaning and are studied, as was the fashion in Freudian times (e.g. Beverly Hills, circa 1960), and if people are able to assuage life's problems by talking about dreams- as believed not only by Freud but by numerous human cultures- that's not good for an industry in which mental health is addressed with drugs, which means it's not good for stockholders.
The term “depression,” too-in my conspiracy theory-has been co-opted. In the past, a state of depression (previously melancholia) indicated that a person was “sad,” a term that is avoided by Big Pharma because we understand that sadness can be caused by the world outside the sad person, and there’s no Rx for that. Today, the person is affected not by the outside world, but by chemical imbalances within. That’s where the money is.
But what can I do with my conspiracy theory other than blog about it? There's no legal action to be taken since I have no evidence, and since the pills can do their intended job, there's little hope of inspiring a pro-dream movement against Big Pharma.
Maybe the most productive goal would be to reattach a neutral connotation to the phrase "conspiracy theory," so that if you laugh at my theory about Big Pharma nixing dreams, it will have to be because you can prove it isn't true, not because I can't prove it is true.
[Update, 11/10/26 - My latest conspiracy theory: The push to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a gambit intended to remove the perception that President Trump is responsible for the US-Iran War. Cleary Hegseth, whatever his title, is not responsible for the war; Trump is. Hegseth is a sacrificial lamb whose purpose is to get Trump off the hook for the disastrous war so he can continue his ruinous presidency for another 2 years. Prediction: If Hegseth is impeached after the newly elected Democrats take over the House in January, he can look forward to a life of ease and privilege for services rendered.]
