Recognition of prospiracy or inspiracy theory

Inspiration, Conspiration, Transpiration, Expiration (Part #3)

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As implied above, there is an obvious tendency to frame the opponents of any strategy as motivated and driven by a "hidden agenda", readily labelled as a conspiracy. Reference to "conspiracy" necessarily implies a secret or undeclared agenda, potentially only known to a few -- readily interpreted as inspired by false belief, even one to be recognized as fundamentally "evil" (whatever that is held to mean).

Potentially more intriguing is any understanding of a hidden intent which is held to be beneficial. This may indeed be termed, perhaps misleadingly as a "conspiracy", as with the articulation of Marilyn Ferguson (The Aquarian Conspiracy: personal and social transformation in our time, 1980), or that promoted by Amnesty International (A Conspiracy of Hope, 1986).

In contrast with the conspiracies held to be associated with doom-mongering, these could be seen as complemented by those associated with "hope-mongering" -- potentially exemplified by the recent exhortation of a report to the Club of Rome (Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman, Come On!: Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, Springer; 2018) or other optimistic presentations by such as Thomas Homer-Dixon (Commanding Hope: the power we have to renew a world in peril, 2020).

Less evident is when and how an inspiration for the few may indeed be held to be a conspiration by the many, as with the early Christians (in the Roman Empire), or freedom-fighters faced with a dominant regime (as variously evident in the history of colonialism).

Curiously the missing complementary terms currently only take the form of little-known neologisms, as with current proposals and usage for:

• prospiracy: Namely the opposite of a conspiracy -- as it is regularly recoined to be in quest of an antonym. Originally proposed to indicate a secret plan by a group of people to do something good for another person or group of people (Stuart Hansman, Guilty Parties, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 March 1989). It has been proposed as the name for massive multiplayer online game. Used experimentally in an exploration of debunking conspiracy theories and true beliefs (Scott Alexander, Prospiracy Theories, Slate Star Codex, 4 March 2019). For some Christians the term is readily associated with prosperity theology.
• inspiracy: Currently used for a "festival of imagination and hope", and adopted by a propietary game design group. Defined in urban jargon as the publication of a potential controversy by a lover in order to inspire there other half into action.

The distinction between prospiracy and conspiracy has been insightfully explored in one blog (Eric S. Raymond, Conspiracy and Prospiracy, Armed and Dangerous, 14 November 2002):

What distinguishes prospiracies from conspiracies is that the members don't necessarily know they are members, nor are they fully conscious of what binds them together. Prospiracies are not created through oaths sworn by guttering torchlight, but by shared ideology or institutional culture. In many cases, members accept the prospiracy's goals and values without thinking through their consequences as fully as they might if the process of joining were formal and initiatory.

What makes a prospiracy like a conspiracy and distinguishes it from a mere subcultural group? The presence of a “secret doctrine” or shared goals which its core members admit among themselves but not to perceived outsiders; commonly, a goal which is stronger than the publicly declared purpose of the group, or irrelevant to that declared purpose but associated with it in some contingent (usually historical) way.

On the other hand, a prospiracy is unlike a conspiracy in that it lacks well-defined lines of authority. Its leaders wield influence over the other members, but seldom actual power. It also lacks a clear-cut distinction between “ins” and “outs”.

A later reflection explores a somewhat different angle (Prospiracy Theory, Skip's Testiong Range, 21 February, 2015):

Another thing about conspiracies: we always seem to assume that they're nefarious, up to no good, plotting to control or torment or exploit, and probably quite a few of them are. But couldn't there also be benevolent conspiracies? I don't mean groups that justify terrible means by lofty ends, like promoting the advancement of humanity by culling the population, or enforcing some ideal system of utopian governance that only they understand. No, I'm thinking shadowy groups of crafty and clever individuals who lurk around, unnoticed, finding opportunities to secretly do nice stuff for other people.

Let's not even call such a thing a conspiracy. Let's call it a prospiracy. And let's call the participants delightists – the opposite of terrorists. These would be folks who, in Anne Herbert's marvelous phrase, go around practicing “random kindness and acts of senseless beauty.” Such folks might also, unlike their conspiratorial counterparts, eschew any ambition for trying to control or orchestrate events, but instead would recognize the utterly illusory nature of such attempts, and become experts at body-surfing the waves of change.

Further clarification is offered in another blog (Prospiracy, Enriching the English Dictionary, 8 August 2013):

A public plan or agreement that often excludes one or more individuals. Some people think of a hypothetical scenario where everyone in the world is a part of a conspiracy to trick them somehow. This thought is incorrect as the majority of the population that interact with the person is a part of the “conspiracy” it would technically be a prospiracy. The belief in said scenario would make someone a prospiracy theorist.

For Daniel Pinchbeck (Conspiranoia versus Prospiracy, Exposing the Truth, 16 July 2013::

Where conspiracies are secret and nefarious, prospiracies are transparent and open. They are efforts to transform society in a direction that serves the greater good. According to this narrative, we are part of a vast ancient prospiracy to awaken humanity to its spiritual greatness and create a movement of solidarity that brings about a next age of conscious evolution. When we study the potentially ravaging effects of accelerating climate change and peak oil, what we need to do now is get creative by developing new social, political, and economic arrangements that can take over as the empire of control continues its slow-motion breakdown and collapse.

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