The conspiracy theory of society

The 'conspiracy theory of society' is a passage written by Karl Popper in ???

Conjectures and refutations

Popper also discussed the topic in: Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1962). The book has 42 references to the term 'conspiracy'.

The title of this lecture ('On the source of knowledge and of ignorance') is likely, I fear, to offend some critical ears. For although 'Sources of Knowledge' is in order, and 'Sources of Error' would have been in order too, the phrase 'Sources of Ignorance' is another matter. 'Ignorance is something negative: it is the absence of knowledge. But how on earth can the absence of anything have sources?.' This question was put to me by a friend when I confided to him the title I had chosen for this lecture. I was a little shaken by this for I had been, I confess, quite pleased with the title. Hard pressed for a reply I found myself improvising a rationalization, and explaining to my friend that the curious linguistic effect of the title was actually intended. I told him that I hoped to direct attention, through the phrasing of this title, to a number of historically important although unrecorded philosophical doctrines and among them, especially, to a conspiracy theory of ignorance which interprets ignorance not as a mere lack of knowledge but as the work of some mischievous power, the source of impure and evil influences which pervert and poison our minds and instil in us the habit of resistance to knowledge.