First paragraph; Iranian society in the mirror of “conspiracy delusion”

First paragraph; Iranian society in the mirror of “conspiracy delusion”

🔸The release of the song “Conspiracy Delusion,” voiced by “Dariush,” has, more than being merely the publication of an artistic work, become a pretext for reopening one of the contentious debates surrounding Iranian society: our relationship with conspiracy-minded thinking.

🔸The wide-ranging, sometimes angry and contradictory reactions to this song in the public sphere and on social media confront the collective “we” with the question of whether Iranian society has truly moved past a conspiracy mindset. If so, why can raising this issue in the form of an artistic work trigger a wave of anger, defense, denial, and attack?

🔸On the radio program “First Paragraph,” Saeed Payvandi, a sociologist at the University of Lorraine, and Ramin Parham, a writer and researcher, both from France, have discussed this topic in the context of Iranians’ historical and cultural memory and in relation to contemporary social and political crises.