Pseudolaw is an alternative counter-law that has propagated worldwide post-2000. Pseudolaw’s core rules and concepts are surprisingly conserved despite this scheme’s adoption by diverse marginal dissident anti-authority populations and individuals. Pseudolaw and its users are frequently identified as a “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorists,” respectively. This article evaluates those designations. Pseudolaw’s “good law” versus “bad law” narrative and the Strawman Theory core concept clearly satisfy the criteria to classify pseudolaw as a conspiracy theory. However, whether persons who use pseudolaw should be identified as conspiracy theorists is more complex. At least some “mercenary” pseudolaw users are greed-based operators who have no interest in pseudolaw’s substance, including its conspiratorial aspects. Attempts to evaluate whether pseudolaw “believers” exhibit traits and characteristics identified by the recent broad academic investigation of conspiracy theorists are unfortunately frustrated by the uncooperative responses from pseudolaw users to social sciences investigators and our limited access to pseudolaw “insider” perspectives.Download the article from SSRN at the link.
January 29, 2025
Netolitzky on But My Ghosts Are So Hard to Hear: Pseudolaw and Conspiracy Culture @DNetolitzky @UAlberta
Donald Netolitzky, University of Alberta, has published But My Ghosts Are So Hard to Hear: Pseudolaw and Conspiracy Culture at 8 International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation 11 (2025).
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