The Tell with Christine Axsmith

The Tell with Christine Axsmith

Share this post

The Tell with Christine Axsmith
The Tell with Christine Axsmith
The Sliding Scale of Conspiracies

The Sliding Scale of Conspiracies

Christine Axsmith's avatar
Christine Axsmith
Aug 30, 2023
∙ Paid
2

Share this post

The Tell with Christine Axsmith
The Tell with Christine Axsmith
The Sliding Scale of Conspiracies
3
Share

text
Photo by Tom Carnegie on Unsplash

In 1962, Walter Wilcox created a system to categorize conspiracy theories on a continuum from mild to bonkers in what he called a “commitment to conspiracy.” That was “a measure of the extent to which a given article in a press publication of the radical right was devoted to a conspiracy theory.” See Escaping The Rabbit Hole by Mick West.

The idea was to place these theories in a row from not-so-weird to batshit crazy. From Big Pharma conspires to sell drugs we don’t need for profits, to chemtrails that are attempts to kill people by releasing poison gases out of the back of airplanes.

And every one of us falls on that spectrum.

Share The Tell with Christine Axsmith

He included a “non-rationality scale” to go with it that went from 0 (no clear evidence of non-rationality) to 7 (paranoic overtones, confused, few or no credible facts).

The thing is that wherever a person falls on the conspiracy spectrum, they are offended by conspiracy theories that are even a little more extreme than the…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Tell with Christine Axsmith to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Christine Axsmith
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share