The Emotional Appeal of Conspiracy Theories: A Whiteheadian Interpretation
Beginning with Othello
"The propensity to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects or ideas most closely links psychosis to creativity. Indeed.., apophenia and creativity may even be conceived of as two sides of the same coin."
P. Brugger in J. Houran & R. Lange, Hauntings & Poltergeists ix. 205/1
In Shakespeare’s Othello, we see how a man can be destroyed by the patterns he perceives. Othello, under the manipulation of Iago, begins to interpret isolated signs—a handkerchief, a casual conversation, a change in mood—as threads in a larger tapestry of betrayal. What makes Iago’s deception so effective is that he doesn’t fully invent the conspiracy; he creates just enough ambiguity to let Othello form it for himself. And once Othello sees the hidden truth, it becomes emotionally irreversible. He is gripped by a sense of meaning, by a story that explains everything and renders his pain not only understandable but righteous.
This is the emotional and aesthetic power of apophenia—the tendency to perceive connections between seemingly unrelated events. It is a fundamental feature of both the human psyche and of Whitehead's metaphysics of experience.
In Process and Reality, Whitehead teaches that each moment of experience—each actual entity—is a process of synthesizing the past into a meaningful unity. This process, called concrescence, involves the creation of contrasts—one of Whitehead’s eight categories of existence. Contrasts are not merely comparisons; they are the aesthetic heart of experience, where diversity is felt together in a way that generates richness, intensity, and emotional depth.
Conspiracy theories provide a particular kind of aesthetic satisfaction by generating two kinds of contrast. First, they bring together disparate elements within the theory itself—fragments of information, symbols, coincidences, public events—and weave them into a unified story. This creative synthesis, however misguided, feels like revelation. Second, they create a sharp contrast between the supposed hidden truth and the perceived blindness of the public. The believer is cast as one who sees what others cannot or will not see, often imagining themselves as part of an awakened few. This contrast between ignorance and secret knowledge is not only intellectually appealing but emotionally charged—it gives the believer a sense of identity, importance, and even moral superiority.
In Whiteheadian terms, conspiracy theories are often malformed acts of concrescence. The contrasts they construct are real in feeling, but false in reference. They offer emotional intensity, but not truth. Still, the underlying impulse is deeply human: the desire to make sense of a fragmented world, to turn confusion into coherence. This is not so different from the impulse behind philosophy, religion, or art. The difference lies in the quality of discernment and in the fidelity to reality.
Thus, the appeal of conspiracy theories lies in their creative misuse of contrast, and in the way they meet a deep metaphysical hunger: the hunger for meaning. As Whitehead suggests, we are not merely thinking beings—we are feeling beings, aesthetic beings, meaning-makers. And even when we are wrong, we are often wrong in ways that speak to what we most deeply desire: pattern, purpose, and belonging in a universe that otherwise feels indifferent.