Lee Hyun-sang
The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.
Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco built his novel “Foucault's Pendulum” (1988) around the mechanics of conspiracy theories. Three intellectuals working at a publishing house invent, as a game, a story about a secret plot carried on by the medieval Knights Templar. According to their fabricated narrative, the order survived royal persecution, discovered hidden sources of earthly power and manipulated world events from the shadows for centuries.
Members of 146 civic organizations, including the National Action for Democracy and People’s Livelihoods, stage a performance during a press conference announcing a nationwide boycott of Starbucks and condemning Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin at Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, Seoul, on May 27. [NEWS1]
To make the tale convincing, they weave together fragments of history, ancient documents, numbers and symbols. What begins as an intellectual joke gradually takes on a life of its own. People start believing the story. Eventually, even the creators become trapped by the fiction they invented. Fanatics demand access to the supposed secret, threaten the protagonists and ultimately commit murder. Fiction consumes reality.
