In the article Social Science’s Conspiracy-Theory Panic: Now They Want to Cure Everyone, Lee Basham and Matthew R. X. Dentith talk about the "quashing conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorising" [page 12] by the Le Monde newspaper. They state that any suspicion that the government is actively involved in a conspiracy, results in a governmental roadblock on conspiracy theorizing. The goal of Le Monde and the government is for conspiracy theorizing to never be used in Western culture as an explanation for an event.
Conspiracy theories as a concept are quoted as “…a problem that must be taken seriously” [13]. However Basham an Dentith disagree. They state that shedding a light on conspiracies as explanation is a practice of democracy. Any far-stretched outlandish conspiracies are likely to be ignored, and any that are investigated by journalists are likely to fail. So the attempt at blacklisting conspiracy theorizing is undemocratic. Le Monde states that we need a cure for CTs and the wrong cure could end up spreading the disease.
What Le Monde is trying to push us towards is a shady and unjust corruption of power. "They’re advocating disabling completely sensible questions about government conduct" [13] rather than targeting actual issues with extensions of free speech. We have the right to freedom of speech, we don't have freedom from consequences. If some right-wing American conservative is starting a movement of hate crimes against a minority group, we allow it to happen, but it is not without backlash and opposition. However what the article is suggesting is the silencing of conspiracy. If we are fighting to silence something before it becomes widespread, why aren't we silencing those creating harm and violence, rather than those seeking questions.
Basham and Dentith say that sometimes the act of cover-ups is necessary. If something has not yet been investigated or solved, it is understandable, even sometimes responsible to deny claims, however the act of silencing ideas that oppose you before they enter the public mind is not only undemocratic, it is an act of Tyranny. It is morally corrupt to refuse the existence of thoughts that paint you in a negative light.
The Holocaust, Stalin's Show Trials, The denials of a Vietnamese attack on the U.S., the hijacked planed on 9/11: All warranted conspiracies given the information available at the time. CTs help us to understand what scares us or what no one is explaining to us.They "saves lives, by the thousands, even millions, if we would let it. Its automatic dismissal leaves blood on our hands." [16]. We don't need to find a cure for conspiracy theorizing, we need respect of free speech and free thought. The existence of CTs is necessary to our democracy, the censorship of them would leave us vulnerable to tyranny.