Do I have your attention now? Uncovering dialogue and performance in ADHD conspiracy theories

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DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW?

Uncovering Dialogue and Performance in ADHD Conspiracy Theories

Winnie Hänschen

Amsterdam, 15 June 2016

Supervisor: Dr. Boris Noordenbos

Master Thesis Comparative Cultural Analysis

Faculty of Humanities

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Introduction

I often fidget with my pen during meetings. I doodle during class. As a kid, I loved to run through Ikea, the library or any other large unknown space. I was on the go. I have difficulty waiting for my turn. I get restless in the supermarket standing in queues. I also talk to others during my job. Excessively. I demand all eyes be put on me at the start of everyone's day; it’s a part of my work. When I think about it, I fit the minimum of 5 criteria of hyperactivity according to the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 60). I have never been diagnosed with ADHD. I am not an expert in diagnosing ADHD, nor am I demonstrating how I fit in the first list of criteria on inattention. Personally, I like to think I am rather good at focusing my attention somewhere, but then again, in writing this

introduction I have already diverted attention to several readings I want to refer to in the thesis and got engaged in an intense search for a quote I am certain I highlighted earlier. Then I realised I forgot the point I was trying to make with the reference and returned to my writing here. The question is not whether or not I have ADHD, nor do I concern it to be relevant to the reader. However, I was prompted to self-analysis by a remark in an article by Burton Norman Seitler, who proposes ADHD is not a neurological condition, but a collection of psychosocial symptomatic behaviours instead. He states “[…] most of us have exhibited one or more of the previous [referring to the DSM symptoms of ADHD he lists earlier] in our lives. Therefore, the terminology and description add nothing definitive that distinguishes ADHD from other behaviours” (116-17). Richard Saul, who describes himself as a “professor, clinician, and radio personality” (Saul n.p.) claims another truth about ADHD: it does not exist, but can instead be explained fully by other conditions that vary from bipolar disorders to vision problems (11).

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These examples are relatively recently published and written by medical professionals working in the field where ADHD is mostly diagnosed: pediatrics. In the same manner there are many more professionals who insist that ADHD is real and make cases to prove it. Russell Barkley for instance says in an interview with PBS: “there is no controversy among scientists who have devoted their careers to this disorder. No scientific meetings mention any controversies about the disorder, about its validity as a disorder, about the usefulness of using stimulant medications like Ritalin for it. There simply is no controversy.” (n.p.)

Controversy or not, there is a lively discussion going on at the very least. This discussion about ADHD does not exist within solely the medical field itself. Outside of it discussions are vibrantly alive as well, albeit in different forms. For instance, Michael Voris of Church Militant TV says in a video that ADHD is a conspiracy of feminist extremism, as a campaign of “authentic masculinity,” and says that “older boys and younger men dance to the music of feminist rage.” According to him ADHD is part of a “feminazi education system”, diagnosing ADHD and medicating boys simply for being boys (Church Militant n.p.). In terms of content, ADHD conspiracy theories are plenty and diverse in their narratives. Characteristically, almost all of them find agency outside of the medical realm to which blame is assigned for the existence or (over)diagnosis of the disorder. What they contest is always another element, besides the medical, that relates to ADHD or the medicalisation of behaviour. Broadly speaking, they refer to capitalism, ethics, normativity and diagnostics (and name giving) and speaking for those outside the law, or more

specifically: speaking for children. Some of these are easier to pinpoint than others; particularly the conflict of interest of the pharmaceutical industry and the normalisation of behaviour stand out. In relation to psychiatric disorders the past has already proven to us

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that ‘normal’ behaviour is subject to change over time. One can think of the abolishment of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder as an example, but also of the names ADHD has been given over the years, from hyperkinetic impulse disorder to ADD with hyperactivity, to ADHD. The fact that history has been proven 'wrong' before may prove why one would find more than comfort in positing a conspiracy theory on ADHD. That same normativity might be the reason for the so-called 'ADHD epidemic', that according to some is due to overdiagnosis of the disorder: you act different, you have a disorder. Normativity is also what prompts parents, teachers and caregivers of someone who is not yet legally competent to consult a specialist for analysis of behaviour. This specialist then gets to choose whether or not the child, without a voice of their own in the matter, needs medication for their behaviour. Besides the choice of the expert, it also pertains the difficulty of parents in having their child stigmatised and pressured to medicalise.

ADHD conspiracy theories that are based on accusations of 'Big Pharma' drugging the masses clarify the difficulty of thinking only in right and wrongs: although

pharmaceutical industries have a profit based business model, the product they offer is designed to make people better. Then again, when people are better, they would no longer need the product the pharmaceuticals designed for them. Viewed from a healthcare

perspective the pharmaceuticals would eventually make themselves redundant and go bankrupt as a result. Read through a capitalistic lens, they would make no one better, make a disease out of every form of non-normative behaviour or physicality and design

medication for it. Needless to say, conspiracy theories lean to the latter reading, arguing that the profit based business model creates a discrepancy that leads to overdiagnosing and medicalisation of behaviours that have more to do with money than with health, and that

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someone is using this to their own advantage by victimising others. The conspiracy theory is an explanation as to who that someone is.

Thus, the conspiracy theory is based upon the idea that there is a form of agency in control over for instance the unfolding of an event or a part of everyday life, but that this agency remains hidden. What the conspiracy theorist claims is that she knows the truth about these hidden conducts or intentions, and about who is really benefitting. Facts are re-arranged, placed in a new context that incorporate other facts or pseudo-facts that enable the theorist to relate the event to an agent that operates behind the scenes, invisible to most of us, but at the very heart of what is actually going on. Of particular importance for my research here is that one of the specific characteristics of this unproven theory is that it is not the most dominant explanation of the facts. It is a reinterpretation of the facts that deliberately differs from that dominant interpretation.

There are many different names you could give to the debates surrounding ADHD. I shall adhere to calling them all conspiracy theories here, in a very broad interpretation of the term, that includes both more outrageous theories of governments using Ritalin to control the population and more moderate challenges of medical experts that question the established pathology called ADHD. The elements they share are this recontextualising of the facts and deliberately looking for agency outside of the dominant mode of explanation.

Recontextualising allows conspirational thinking about ADHD to move between a medical discourse and the outside of that discourse. Through these conspiracy theories it becomes obvious that there are other power structures at work that are less visible, since they appear to be not inherent of the dominant structure; hence they operate ‘behind the scenes’. This interaction between the medical discourse and other, surrounding power structures is what Samuel Weber describes as a kind of demarcation of a professional field

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once it has been established by and through other institutions and disciplines, bordering its own field and thereby marking out what the 'other' is, without acknowledging its

indebtedness to that same other (30). Whatever the field is indebted to, it provides an entry way into the dominant power structure for those outside of it. Conspiracy theories on ADHD or those contesting the conspiracy theory and agreeing with the dominant power structure show us a particular relationship between the inside and the outside of the dominant. Conspiracy theories are deictic in that they point us to these surrounding power structures, which is their first move. Once aware of these surroundings, the theory can then be used as a way to dialogise the otherwise fixed power structure: as soon as one responds to a conspiracy theory a dialogue starts.

This entry way is an important trait of the conspiracy theory. In this particular case, some of these power structures have to do with what defines being a 'normal' human being and how much of the self is constructed. Although often far-fetched theories, conspiracy theories on ADHD create a space in which the interplay between dominant and

surrounding power structures can be discussed. In that space, we come to witness a dynamic that consists of two consecutive elements. The first step of a conspiracy theory is to reinterpret the facts differently to assign agency elsewhere, the deictic element, from which follows the second step and possibly the ultimate goal: empowerment. The

conspiracy theories resist narratives that define too much of a self through the medical lens and come up with a new story that explains the self in a different way, through dialogising the dominant structure. Using the surrounding power structures enables a theorist to find agency in the dominant structures’ surroundings. It provides an opportunity to explain the self with all of its peculiarities that through a medical lens might be defined as a disorder. Explaining ‘the same in a different way’ does not mean rejecting something entirely. What

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we are looking at is a dynamic that is more complex than that, and that does something rather than simply be it. And that, to me, is precisely what is important here.

So, what does it do? How does a wild theory, sometimes engaged only in narrating an alternative story about a surrounding power structure help create a shift within a claimed truth acknowledged by almost everyone not directly involved in the conspiracy theory? This is the main question I shall attempt to answer in this thesis. I want to look at the way the ADHD conspiracy theories function. To find these instances where a conspiracy theory is a productive component of culture and does rather than is something, I will set out to find a theoretical framework that will help me investigate this particular relationship between a dominant narrative and one that counters it. The ADHD conspiracy theories show us that even within these power constructions conspirational thinking and writing can exist, and not only has a profound effect on the credibility of professionals, but also on the narrative of ADHD itself, which is constantly changing through its need to respond to the accusations made by conspiracy theories and its contesters.

Conspiracy theories have gained attention in the past years, most notably for their outrageous assumptions and their spreading of unfounded facts, often related to political powers. Much effort has been made to debunk these theories and discredit them for what Umberto Eco calls 'overinterpretation' (144) and for their 'paranoid style' (Hofstadter 3). Recent research has shown a renewed interest in conspiracy theories as a cultural

phenomenon. Interestingly though, present theories are mostly occupied with finding out why conspiracy theories exist, who invents them and what the best way is to interpret them. Is it a nostalgia, a longing for an imagined history? Is it created by the oppressed? As relevant as these questions are, this thesis is not about getting any answers to such questions. What I want to look at here is how a dominant story is questioned by the

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conspiracy theory and how the conspiracy theory engages in a dialogue with the dominant narrative.

To see how this exactly happens I will investigate the ADHD conspiracy theories from the perspective of a cultural analyst. What sets my method apart from those of social and political science is that I'll close read some of the ADHD conspiracy theories in order to find out how they function in this dialogic relationship. Close readings and discourse analysis can shed light upon how conspiracy theories are embedded in society and in complex hierarchical structures. Since the conspiracy theory can be read as a rhetorical style these kinds of analysis can prove highly productive in gaining an insight to how conspiracy theories work and what they mean for society as a cultural product.

In order for a reading of conspiracy theory to be productive, it is necessary to consider it to be embedded in its social environment and acknowledge that it engages in a dialogue. A conspiracy is a counter-narrative; it needs to counter something. What's more, that something else will also need to reply to the validity claim of the conspiracy theory, however absurd that claim may be. My research aims to construct a theoretical framework through which I can look at the ADHD conspiracy without needing to find out who made them or why they were made, which appears to be the more dominant discussion in present literature. The who and the why are only relevant when you consider the theory as 'owned' by a subjectivity. Only when removing the subject as possessor from the theory does it become obvious that the theories occupy a position in a field on their own, one that is performative rather than content-relevant and that dialogises in an attempt at reconstructing a dominant narrative.

Before I begin though, it seems wise to make a disclaimer. Since the ADHD conspiracy theories originate and flourish in the United States, the theories and literature I

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look into here I use here are predominantly Western. While parts of the theory used here can be applicable in other contexts as well, I am well aware of having skipped a very large body of literature of conspiracy theories (and on the perception of mental disorders) in other cultures besides those of the global West. The first chapter focuses on this Western literature with the aim of building a theoretical frame for this thesis. My starting point will be Hofstadter and the afterword Mark Fenster wrote in his 2008 revision of Conspiracy

Theories. Secrecy and Power in American Culture. I specifically turn to this afterword since here Fenster opens up a comparison between himself and different theorists of conspiracy theory, which is an excellent starting ground for the frame I am building towards. The second paragraph of the first chapter is dedicated to notion of 'paranoid' deconstructions, on which Eve Sedgwick has written a very interesting view. Through her piece I try to argue a case for the analysis of conspiracy theories, and begin to look into what it might be that the conspiracy theory does. I will hope to have provided sufficient enough a field on conspiracy theories themselves after this and move on to the theoretical framework in the last two consecutive parts. The third paragraph is a look into Bhaktin's dialogic to review where the conspiracy theory stands in position to its surrounding culture and if and how it engages in a form of interaction with its surroundings. In the final paragraph of this chapter, I look at Bhabha's theory on the pedagogical and performative narrative which I use to pinpoint the specifics of the dialogic encounter, aided by the help of the metamodelisation of Deleuze and Guattari's of the machine as opposed to the structure. I deploy the latter deliberately, since it provides me with a way of thinking about the dynamic I am investigating in a way that actually is dynamic, rather than having to reason about it through an easily assumed metamodel based on the static power of structures and discourses. Together, the theoretical

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frame of both Bhaktin and Bhabha provide me with a solid base from which to analyse conspiracy theories.

The second chapter is devoted to object analysis of conspiracy theories on ADHD in four different paragraphs that demonstrate the different elements that I distinguish within the dynamics of a conspiracy theory. First, I turn to an online forum member's quotes to analyse what he says and what underlying meaning we could derive from that through the theoretical frame established earlier. We will see how the conspiracy theory's drive to look for agency outside of the dominant discourse is a strategy of empowerment. Second, I use the same forum member's quotes and those of a doctor to see where the difference in professional's and non-professional's conspiracy theories lie and if and how they relate to one another. Having done that, I am left to investigate the dynamic of the pedagogical narrative and the performative narrative, which I will do in the third and fourth paragraph. The third paragraph is a case study of an encounter between Scientology, a critical medical professional and Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. I will demonstrate how criticism on Prozac eventually becomes ammunition against those critical of ADHD medication. This particular example serves well to demonstrate exactly how the conspiracy theory's

relationship to the dominant power structure is dialogic and how it can be used as a strategy. Finally, I will look into the way in which the diagnostic criteria for ADHD were changed in the transition from the DSM-IV to the DSM-5. I'll look into how the study group in charge of re-evaluating the diagnostic criteria for ADHD has accounted for changes made, and how these are being criticised in current research for creating an obstacle in setting a diagnosis. This final paragraph demonstrates the way in which the changes in the DSM-5 are made can be read as responses to critiques of conspiracy theories on the DSM-IV's

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diagnostic criteria. The account of the re-evaluation contains what might be called parrying echoes of claims and statements that started in conspiracy theories.

All in all, by the end of this research, I hope to have made a case for the value of conspiracy theories as producers of culture and game-changers in the field of narratives.

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1. Theories of Advanced Exegetical Dubiety

Something about conspiracy theory attracts the interest of many people, including those within academia. Why is that? What is there so enticing about someone telling us Hillary Clinton is a shapeshifting alien reptile? It can hardly be that we want to investigate the 'truth' behind this claim. Hofstadter, one of the first to write about conspiracy theories, says he is most interested in the way their paranoid style permeates politics and how the style as a rhetoric is used to “attack” a (political) pathology (6). Though Hofstadter finds the paranoid style to be an extreme that mainly exists at the fringes of society, I believe that what makes Hofstadter's approach of conspiracy theories as a rhetorical style so productive is that it does not define a locus for the theory. In my view, it can exist either at the margins, or enter into mainstream discourse.

Hofstadter speaks of the paranoid style always in an undefined “they”, by which he means the paranoid himself, the one who finds the paranoid theory plausible (40). He notices that the “paranoid tendency is aroused by confrontation of opposed interests” (39), but never gives us an insight into those opposed interests and how they may or may not be the source of a conspiracy theory in the first place. Mark Fenster rightly notices that

By broadly labelling as pathological any challenge or resistance to consensus, the notion of the paranoid style serves as an excuse for neglecting, equating, and even repressing political protest and mass political action of all sorts, equating diverse moments and distorting out understanding of them in the process. (42)

Hence, Hofstadter’s approach of as a style may be productive, but we must be careful not to apply with it the same rigid qualifications Hofstadter himself applies, marginalising

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theories and theorists as extremes on the fringes of society. Fenster himself states that one of the main arguments of his work is precisely to show that conspiracies are not

“necessarily marginal or pathological” (281). He sees potential for “disruption, opposition, and empowerment” (281), but in his afterword he is careful to nuance his statements through the example of The Turner Diaries, that possibly demonstrates how the qualities of conspiracy theories might be used for the worst. Conspiracy theories hence cannot always be celebrated, but at the same time it is important to remain aware of their critical potential. While Fenster himself does not engage in qualifications such as Hofstadter's, and does not have a classification of conspiracy theories on the agenda, he eventually criticises conspiracy theories for not being an adequate opening from which to constructively engage in political action, stating that it fails “to provide a theoretical concept that can enable analysis of contemporary public discourse” (287). Of course, problematising conspiracy theories for not being able to provide us with a theoretical frame creates the impossibility of them being productive as such even when their problematisation starts with such

reasonable arguments. Also, both Fenster and Hofstadter note the responses political leaders must give to theories involving them, their policies or government, but while for instance Fenster notices how Hillary Clinton responds to theories (93-94), he does not get into the fact that Clinton needs to respond at all, and as such ignores this dialogic

relationship entirely, where I would say this is of the utmost importance.

In other words, Fenster does not support John Fiske's belief that the conspiracy theory is productive in that it provides us with counterknowledge, whether or not the content of it is true. In his afterword, Fenster criticises Fiske for offering a framework that supports conspiracy theory from minorities, but not the other way around: from the black

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American community about their white oppressors, but not from the extreme right white power movement about the black community, as in the Turner Diaries. Fenster steps over the fact that since Fiske's study is about gender and race in media (and thus indeed is not all-encompassing) it is understandable that he makes a case for minorities in that specific work. In criticising Fiske for it Fenster neglects the one thing that might make Fiske's theory more productive: reading Fiske's work the way Jack Bratich suggests, as a broader theory that does not prefer minorities over majorities, but rather as one that creates an opening from which dominant discourses can be challenged. Fenster makes a brief nod to Bratich in his afterword, but does not enter into a full analysis of the implications of approaching conspiracy theory as such, when that might exactly turn out to be the theoretical framework he is looking for. To me, Bratich's insight is exactly what makes Fiske's theory productive. Yet, where Fiske lacks is in his ability to see the process of the theory. He writes: “A degree of cultural diversity is available to us if we have the will to look for it, and the more often we find it, and the more often we take advantage of it, then the more we will help to secure its place” (253). Put another way, Fiske sees productivity in conspiracy theories, but does not note exactly how they operate and instead stays on a future oriented path of wanting to believe that someday they will become of value and advising us how we can make that happen. But what then, are we to make of the now?

Jovan Byford's argument, based around the works of Michael Billig, is founded on the idea that conspiracy theories are always acting against something else. Accordingly, they are never isolated historically, but are “a view of the world as not only as it is at present, but also as it always was.” Although Byford's offset is social psychology, he states that

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public domain, an ideological discourse on the basis of which movements are established, political projects forced and power relations challenged and sustained” (90). Byford argues for a greater engagement with the theory itself, less occupied with the position and

disposition of the theorist. Also, we must take into account that the past has as much an effect on the theory as the present, and that its future potential is much less important. To illustrate: Maurice Joly is long dead, his motifs for writing Dialogues of Hell were politically aimed at someone other than the Jewish Elders, and yet the Protocols of the Elders of Zion still exist and still occupy a position in contemporary society, and have made their mark upon the world in a past in which Joly and the political players Dialogues of Hell were already long gone. Now, it would be reasonable to argue that one needs to look at those who make it relevant now, in order to find the relevance of those Protocols today. However, in attaching a new subject to the same theory, we only replace. We still do not account for what the theory itself is producing. Byford is absolutely right: a conspiracy theory is always against something else. It exists only in relation to that Other whose truth it contends, but can be understood without needing to understand who believes the theory or why they do so. What all of this adds up to then is that we must investigate what conspiracy theories do, rather than what they are or who invents them.

Having established that a conspiracy counters something, the questions become: what does it counter? And how does it do that? Why would it need to counter anything at all? It would be easy to say that a conspiracy longs for a great unveiling in future times, which means that there are two elements that always matter: the content of the conspiracy theory and the unveiling as a predefined goal. The problem with such a reading is that it already accepts the conspiracy theory has that intrinsic attribute (a content which matters)

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and consider it an intrinsic goal of the theory to unveil something, someday. While those are certainly elements of a conspiracy theory, there is a problem with assuming those two to be its sole qualities: not unveiling the implied truth (the content) would mean the theory has no purpose and yet the grand unveiling would mean the end of its purpose all the same. The problem lies in not being able to get around this contradiction in the narrative, which “drives towards the end which would both be its destruction and its meaning […]” (Brooks, 58). While they might inherently possess the characteristics that relentlessly drive the conspiracy narrative towards an unveiling, I oppose the assumption that this is the only way in which they are productive components of culture, and that once the satisfaction of unveiling has arrived the conspiracy theory’s power is over. The example of the Protocols proves that this is not the case; they are still referred to, even though they have already been unveiled to be untrue and based upon Joly’s work. Hence, I would instead propose the idea that the conspiracy or any theory, does not stand alone from the moment of its conception, but that conspiracy theories have the ability to take a narrative further than its original meaning or the ‘author's’ intention at the moment of ‘writing’ the conspiracy narrative. Hence, the conspiracy theory has another temporal quality, beyond its content: it moves through time and engages in dialogue each time it is reiterated. The way they

operate is by continuously recontextualising current facts in the light of the conspiracy theory. As such, conspiracy theories alter the field of dominant narratives and counter-narratives through time. But how? Eve Sedgwick provides a nice entry way through which I can more closely investigate this ‘how’ of the countering.

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Sedgwick's scepticism and Birchall's academic

Segdwick starts her chapter on paranoid reading with the intent of investigating what knowledge does. “How, in short, is knowledge performative and how best does one move among its causes and effects?” she asks in her introduction. She is attempting to find a way to approach knowledge and knowledge-creation through other ways then deconstruction. While she sees some value in deconstructive analysis, she questions the amount of stress it gets within the academic community, as though some great truth is uncovered through deconstructing any object.

Sedgwick's chapter is highly enlightening as she starts from the premise that

paranoid reading is indeed a style, or a strategy, that is not solely focused on uncovering and she insists on trying “to hypothetically disentangle the question of truth value from the question of performative effect” (129).

She is plain right in her observation that we don't really learn anything new when we uncover the great truth behind a conspiracy theory (123). In essence, she is saying that the point I made in the introduction is quite a useless observation: if the ADHD conspiracy's value as a cultural product lies in that they point out that pharmaceutical companies make medicine to make us better and yet also have the goal to make a profit, what do we know that we don't already know? Suppose they exist to point out that children are outside of citizenship, that choices for children are being made by, what Donna Haraway would call “the most disinterested ventriloquist” (312), the (mainly professional) adult and that adults do not enjoy when children don't behave. What would we know that we do not already know? Nothing, of course, is the answer. At the same time, they are observations that are only blatantly obvious when you think about it, and that are not by definition connected to

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the pathologising of behaviour. Perhaps the reason for the paranoid reading is that you need it to even notice such structures?

Not for Sedgwick. She would rather offer a different kind of reading that accepts an element of possible surprise: reparative reading. Reparative reading, she suggests, is a style, or strategy, setting off from a depressive position, rather than a paranoid one, with the aim of affect, of healing and less interested in making truth claims. She suggests that next to the powerful truth claims of 'strong theories' such as paranoid readings, we might benefit from investigating the way that strong, dominant discourses interact with weaker ones in the 'ecology of knowing' (145). The strength of Sedgwick's suggestion lies in the attempt to open up a space for less paranoid readings; readings that are not defined by deconstruction and are always a counter-act to a dominant other.

Sedgwick’s critique on paranoid readings is absolutely valid, but it does rely on the premise that you accept that the kind of paranoid deconstruction she describes is a goal in itself, beginning only from a position of anger and suspicion, and of affect, in which the position from departure is the necessary conductor of the strategy. I would rather suggest that affective disposition as a starting point and necessary premise for paranoid reading is less important, since like Byford, I would argue that conspiracy theories can be read on their own, as a set of ideas that possess dynamic qualities and have a particular performative agenda. To me, it is not self-evident that conspiracy theories are approached as anything other than a cultural object in the tradition of cultural analysis. Like any cultural object analysed by humanities scholars they may have a political agenda in some ways, but the literal content does not matter. What matters is how they engage in a dialogue with the social and cultural reality they are embedded in. Only through its embeddedness in any sort of power/knowledge structure can we make any claims about its value as a cultural

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producer. Moreover, it is only because the self-evident truth, as Sedgwick poses, is right there, that the conspiracy theory exists; the theory itself only has value when considered in the light of surrounding power structures.

While Sedgwick’s doubts are substantial, she misses a point: it is never about the blatantly obvious, nor is it about the great unveiling of a secret that will prove those in power are out to get us. It is that the conspiracy theory locates itself right at the crossroads of dominant and minority narratives, and hence challenges all these notions. The work of the conspiracy theory is performative, and through this performativity it has the ability to dialogise. Allow me to borrow an example Sedgwick herself gives of the gender

deconstructions of Judith Butler in Gender Trouble and the conclusions Butler draws from them. For Butler, the drag queen or butch starts the dialogue on gender performativity. Butler's deconstruction, or paranoid reading as Sedgwick would have it, can be read as a dissecting of the obvious, the self-evident truth: yes, gender is performative and nurture rather than nature. However, in Butler's academic dissection this self-evident truth is at the same time renegotiated. As such, theorists on conspiracy theories further the political project of the theories themselves, by furthering their dialogue, even when they do not consider the conspiracy theory itself a viable, constructive means for a political goal in itself. The act of analysing is performative in its own, and in that sense is more than just a reading.

The position of the academic such as Butler, vis-à-vis the object of study can get messy however, for the institution does not always acknowledge the performative act of reading an object, and negotiates its own authoritative position by choosing to read certain objects and leave others out of the academy. To paraphrase Foucault: it is impossible to reason about knowledge outside of power relations (DP 27). Of course, pointing out and questioning hegemonic forms of knowledge and truth claims is exactly what a conspiracy

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theory does, and as such it opens up a space in which legitimised knowledge and truth can be renegotiated. This means accepting that you are engaging in a dialogue with the object, and as such contributing either in a helpful or an obstructive way the political project of the object you are analysing. This is where theory on conspiracy theories so far have waivered. First, in acknowledging the renegotiation of what legitimate knowledge is and how it is produced, and second, in how the work of the theorist on the object renegotiates the objects relationship to the culture it is embedded in.

Sedgwick doubts the productiveness of even the utterance of a theory and as such; the knowledge that it provides (or not) does not necessarily constitute political change, nor can it be affirmed to always be part of a political strategy. She is joined by Clare Birchall in noticing the parallels between cultural studies' and conspiracy theories' tendency to critically engage with every sort of knowledge presented. Birchall, who reflects on cultural studies, sees the value in this, unlike Segdwick, as she finds conspiracy theory the productive object through which cultural studies is forced to critically reflect upon itself (84). The very act in which Sedgwick already engages, but does not notice (at least not out loud). Birchall's reflection on popular knowledge, a broad banner under which knowledges such as

conspiracy theories and gossip fall, is a highly interesting one that asks for a more nuanced approach of that popular knowledge. One that accepts that any framework through which these knowledges are read are always in danger of being surpassed by these knowledges themselves (84). Where Sedgwick insists on conspiracy theories being unproductive for not being able to certainly constitute change, for Birchall the value of any conspiracy theory lies in that it suggests that the legitimacy of any knowledge cannot be decided before that knowledge is read in a certain way (86). While she is mainly speaking about cultural studies

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here, it is not a far leap to the more general notions of dominant and marginal knowledge and the way in which the latter can influence the former.

Sedgwick appears to be completely disinterested in legitimacy or illegitimacy, but at the same time insists on a predefined legitimacy; an obvious truth from which a conspiracy theory is derived (124), and then questions why we would go as far as to interpret or

deconstruct these legitimate knowledges since they would not change anything. Evidently, it is a paradox that makes conspiracy theories problematic as a productive component of culture. Birchall provides us with a different approach to reading them: “the idea is not to replicate the failures of conspiracy theory but to take on board the lessons to be learnt […] regarding authority, legitimacy, and how to approach cultural phenomena without silencing it, in order to reimagine cultural studies and what it is capable of becoming” (89). Her becoming is more open than that of Fiske; Fiske is certain of the positive value inherent in the knowledge conspiracy theories produce, while for Birchall, the value might precisely be that we are flawed in our view of what is legitimate and illegitimate knowledge, and that as such conspiracy theories questions our notions of legitimate knowledge. The conspiracy theory renegotiates how we think about what is and what is not legitimate: it is performative.

What is so interesting in all of these studies of paranoia, conspiracy theories and popular knowledges is the claim of truth the theories make. The danger is that we can start to confuse the content of the conspiracy theory with its deictic and dialogising, performative nature. With regards to the ADHD conspiracy there are many things that could be said about the content of several theories. On the subject of speaking for children, one might note for instance, as Jessica Kulynych does, that “the assignment of children to a protective, private sphere where they can exist as innocent, carefree and perhaps as a source of virtue,

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is reminiscent of the separate spheres ideology that disempowered women” (235), to which she later adds the similarities to the imaginary “carefree, happy slave” (236). This is a very valid point, and children represent a group of people who in humanities are largely neglected as a topic of study. Her argument is important and worth further pursuing, hopefully by renowned humanities scholars, so as to put the subject onto the agenda. The actual ADHD conspiracy theories on their own, however, do have the ability to push a subject on the academic or political agenda. Yet, I would argue that the fact that the ADHD conspiracy touches upon the marginalisation of children as a social group means that there is something less than unequivocal to be said about that subject. Herein lies the value of the conspiracy theory. The ADHD conspiracy theories function as a deictic signifier; an index, that, to borrow some more semiotics, must not be mistaken for an icon: we are not speaking of the literal content. Rather, that literal content is pointing something else out to us, something which it challenges and questions, whether or not they are right in doing so.

The power structures surrounding the conspiracy theory's object of critique are what they are often really about. They are looking for agency outside of hegemonic structures. Whether or not the content-claim of the conspiracy theory is true, what is much more important is that the conspiracy theory's searchlight is directing our view to the less

immediate. This deictic function, the directing of the view towards agency in surroundings is a very important attribute of the conspiracy theory, and it proves that the conspiracy theory's value consists of more than the aforementioned elements of content and unveiling. Being an index, a pointer in the direction of surrounding power structures is something that must not be overlooked in studying conspiracy theories. Acknowledging this drive towards

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finding agency in these power structures can have a profound impact on what we conclude in our readings of them. While at first glance they appear to be about a dominant

knowledge, on second glance it becomes clear that they point out the embeddedness of the hegemonic in a structure of agents that help define that hegemonic, that it then lures into a dialogue.

Towards a Bakhtinian dialogue

So far I have tried to show how other scholars have engaged in the problematic of reading conspiracy theories as a cultural product. I have attempted to show how the dynamic of outrageous theories that differ from the dominant discourse are difficult to analyse. Also, there are many choices to make regarding the inclusion or exclusion of the inventor of the theory, their state of mind, the style or strategy of the theory and the literal content of it. After all this it might bear repeating that my aim here is to look into the way conspiracy theories are productive, in and of themselves, and to look at what they do. That necessarily means that the inventor of the theory does not enter into it, and neither does their state of mind. Furthermore, the literal content is far less important than it is made out to be: it is relevant in so far as that it refers to a surrounding structure; in that they possess a deictic element, not in their specific wording.

In literature on so far, yes, conspiracy theories are studied, they are approached as cultural objects and they are reflected on, but only from a certain historicisation: the theory is considered to be embedded in a power/knowledge discourse, but that discourse is only the source of the theory, and from that the theory stands alone as a “poor person's

cognitive mapping” (Jameson, 356). Even in the instances where value is acknowledged, the impact conspiracy theories have on contemporary culture and society is largely neglected,

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and rarely talked about. When it is, it is with Fiske's not-yet-existent ideal or from the affective speaking positions of Sedgwick. Birchall for her part, does make a case for the productiveness of conspiracy theories, but only in so far as it can be used as a reflection of cultural studies. In relation to other objects, cultural studies make no mistake about

accepting how dialogic the relationship is between society and its cultural product, and how it is embedded in time as well as in culture. A conspiracy theory is not to be read as an event, but as an object that is able to supersede linear, temporal logic and replace history as we know it with a dialogic relationship of transversalities that show us how each encounter of a conspiracy theory with its surroundings is different each time an encounter takes place.

To focus on the dialogic relationship of the conspiracy theory and its surroundings would enable us to read the theory as an object whilst at the same time acknowledge its performative nature within the culture that produced it. Particularly since the conspiracy theory is complex in its tying together different elements and different theories and its placement amidst a myriad of social constructs and discursive forces more powerful than itself. A conspiracy theory cannot be separated from the specifics of its time and place, neither at the moment of conception, nor each time it is referred to, echoed, mocked etc. The conspiracy theory itself too, mocks, reiterates, echoes and these dynamics create a dialogue. To more closely understand the type of dialogue we are talking about here, the work of Mikhail Bhaktin proves very productive. Michael Holquist, in his description of Bhaktin’s dialogic, describes this dialogue as one that “at the highest level of abstraction […] is between the two tendencies that energize language's power to mean” (Holquist 66). When applied to a conspiracy theory, we come to see that its countering nature means that it necessarily is dialogic and that it is always living a double-life; one within the theory itself,

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with all its peculiarities of style, strategy and political agenda that determine how the content of the conspiracy theory is put together and one outside of the theory, determined by its relationship to everything outside of it. The life inside the theory itself has already been extensively studied. Focusing on the external relationships, and through it overemphasising conspiracy theory's performative qualities allows me to see the conspiracy theory in a different way, bearing resemblance to what Mikhail Bakhtin describes when speaking of heteroglossia in lower socio-ideological levels: “[It] was a heteroglossia consciously opposed to this literary language. It was parodic, and aimed sharply and polemically against the official language of its given time. It was heteroglossia that had been dialogized” (273). Though heteroglossia is about social status and words, the dynamic of deliberate contestation that is responsive and dialogic towards its social embeddedness as Bakhtin describes is the dynamic I want to argue for when reading conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories can be read as a site of contestation that is primarily identified through its

difference from the dominant power structures, and changes the dominant structure’s meaning:

Dialogizing [the word] opens up fresh aspects in the word (semantic aspects, in the broadest sense), which, since they were revealed by dialogic means, become more immediate to perception. Every step forward in our knowledge of the word is preceded by a “stage of genius” - a sharpened dialogic relationship to the word – that in turn uncovers fresh aspects within the word. (Bakhtin 352, emphasis in original)

The word in Bakhtin is not the word-object, consisting only of meaning, but the word filled with meaning through the social relation it bears to the one who uttered it, its relationship

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to other words: to the speaker and his discourse. Although social class plays a great part in Bakhtin’s theory and not in mine, the same reasoning still applies: the conspiracy theory is shaped by its dialogic relationship to the world it lives in. Rather than bearing potential of an exposing event, its future orientation lies in that in that very dialogue “is directly, blatantly, oriented towards a future answer-word: it provokes an answer, anticipates it and structures itself in the answer's direction. Forming itself in an atmosphere of the already spoken, the word is at the same time determined by that which has not been said but which is needed and in fact anticipated by the answering word” (Bakhtin 280).

The conspiracy theory necessitates a dialogue, it brings it within itself and is shaped by its anticipation of an answer, whilst at the same time being the force that demands that answer. Read as such the conspiracy theory is a rhetorical style, made for the listener, and expecting the listener to respond. What we have yet to account for then is how exactly the dialogic dynamic works, since in an ordinary, everyday dialogue the fact that one responds to another is not the same as a dialogue on the level of narratives and counter-narratives. In order to reason about this, it is required that we place the conspiracy theory in relation to its dominant counterpart.

Performing the Narrative, Narrating the Rupture

It now becomes necessary to rethink how to think about conspiracy theories at all and particularly their dialogic relationship with the dominant discourses they challenge. What is their position? How do they provoke a response when their content can appear so

ludicrous at first glance? As we have seen, focusing specifically on the dialogic relationship creates a new space for the conspiracy theories to be read. To properly be able to analyse the ADHD conspiracy theory itself, but even more so the transversal encounters it has with

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its surroundings, another type of framework is necessary, for which Homi Bhabha's work on narratives and counter-narratives is a great starting point. Not only does Bhabha's work provide a positionality of dominant- and counter-narratives, but since the counter-narrative with Bhabha is called the performative narrative, and he attributes many of the same performative qualities to it as I do to conspiracy theories.

In the essay DissemiNation in Nation and Narration Bhabha sets himself the task to formulate “the complex strategies of cultural identification and discursive address” (NN 292). He reads a nation as a construct of narratives, constantly under change, being told and retold and in that sense instable. Though he is talking about national narratives I find his essay very useful in its attempt to “displace historicism” (NN 292), since he, too, notes that there is no horizontal, linear space through which these narratives are analysed and interpreted, but that they can be understood fully only when one understands that they pertain a kind of 'doubleness', which he describes as “a temporality of representation that moves between cultural formations and social processes without a 'centered' causal

logic”(NN 293). This doubleness shows itself in instances where a difference arises between what Bhabha calls the pedagogical narrative and the performative narrative, where the instability is at its most productive: “It is from this instability of cultural signification that the national culture comes to be articulated as a dialectic of various temporalities […] that cannot be a knowledge that is stabilized in its enunciation: 'it is always contemporaneous with the act of recitation.'”1_{(NN 303). First, let me point out the word temporalities}

Bhabha uses. Where the pedagogical narrative alone would be the story of how it was, how it is, and how it will forevermore be, the performative is always a contemporary utterance.

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As we saw in the example of the Protocols of Zion they are reiterated still and in their new iteration come to mean different things, always in relation to the pedagogical and the now. The performative has the ability to travel through time, but its relation to the time it is uttered in is different every time. Hence, it is contemporaneous, as is the instability that occurs when the pedagogical and the performative have their transversal encounter. Furthermore, we see here what Sedgwick does not note in her critique of paranoid

thinking, but that J.F. Lyotard notes quite accurately: “the question of the social bond […] is […] a game of inquiry. It immediately positions the person who asks, as well as the

addressee and the referent asked about: it already is the social bond” (15). Hence, instead of noting the affective positions from which a theory departs, we must be aware of this particular dynamic that is the social bond that is articulated and then renegotiated through the recitation of these narratives. To cite Lyotard again: “[…] a collectivity that takes narrative as its key form of competence has no need to remember its past. It finds the raw material for its social bond not only in the meaning of the narratives it recounts, but also in the act of reciting them” (22). What the difference between the pedagogical (the 'official') and the performative (the counter) narrative constitutes then is argumentative, agonistic. As David Huddart writes in his study of the work of Bhabha: “There is a pedagogical

dimension that foregrounds total sociological facts, and there is a performative dimension reminding us that those total facts are always open, and in fact are being subtly altered everyday” (81). The existence of the performative narrative, which in my case would be the conspiracy theory, forces the pedagogical narrative to retell itself, since “their [the

pedagogical and the performative] excessive cultural temporalities are in contention but their difference cannot be negated or sublated” (Bhabha, NN 304). The official story must be retold in order to take into account the counter-narrative. The pedagogical is constantly

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challenged by the performative that claims to be stable and true. The word performative adds value here, since it immediately shows that indeed the narrative is performed and performative in its very nature; the performative narrative has a double quality that is inherent to it and needs to be taken into account in order to fully understand its value. The performative narrative is not merely a story, but an action that makes demands on the pedagogical and, if there ever is a great unveiling in a conspiracy theory this would be it: it unveils the pedagogical as deliberately imagined and constructed rather than self-evident as the apparent stable truth. Bhabha uses the term 'hybridity' to denote the transversal

moment of performative and pedagogical narratives, noting that “the frontiers of cultural difference are always belated or secondary in the sense that their hybridity is never simply a question of the admixture of pre-given identities or essences. Hybridity is the perplexity of the living as it interrupts the representation” (314). I mention his notion of hybridity here since this is where for Bhabha the 'new' narrative is created that erupts from the clash between the performative and the pedagogical narrative, which is parallel to what Felix Guattari notes when speaking about 'a-signifying ruptures'. Where they differ though, is that Bhabha's notion of hybridity can be employed as a strategy, as a counter-narrative, whereas Guattari's a-signifying ruptures are always the result of an encounter, that, as the name tells us, does not have meaning yet in the moment of its happening. Likewise, the examples in my introduction serve to show not that there is a conclusive 'new' formed after the positing of a conspiracy theory, but rather that they open up a space in which something new emerges that has yet to be given meaning and needs to be renegotiated in order to be sufficiently meaningful. The result of a conspiracy theory then is the a-signifying rupture, and the theory itself the strategy (which may or may not be a form of hybridity). Here, I depart from Bhabha's theory in so far as that the conspiracy is a performative narrative that

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differs from its pedagogical counterpart rather than reiterating it as a form of mimicry and as such becoming performative. The conspiracy theory is always already performative, because its style, like that of a fool or a clown allows it to be “other” (since the pedagogical narrative does not suit the one iterating its counter-narrative). Its utterance is not an attempt to mime, or even to closely resemble the pedagogical, but to deliberately point out the surrounding power structures, the falseness or presumptuousness, whether or not factually right. Even if the conspiracy theory is not ‘right’, it still bears the power to open the

dialogue with its surroundings through its difference from the pedagogical. The pedagogical narrative is challenged precisely because the performative narrative is different from it. Were it a precise reiteration it would become a continuation of the pedagogical. Bhabha's framework is productive in reading conspiracy theories in that it acknowledges the

presence of two different narratives that are tied together. His mimicry and reiteration are less useful though. Rather it is helpful to think about the performative and the pedagogical narrative in the way Bakhtin speaks of parody: “the presence of parody is in general very difficult to identify […], without knowing the background of alien discourse against which it is projected, that is, without knowing its second context” (374). Thus, instead of mimicking the pedagogical, a conspiracy theory is a “translation, reworking, conceptualizing, re-accenting” (377). The conspiracy theory's language, like that of the clown, has the right to be in “otherwise unacceptable languages and has the right to maliciously distort languages that are acceptable” (405, emphasis in original).

After all this, what is left is the problem of entering into a dialogue that changes both parties, whilst same time reason about polarised, fixed narratives. In other words: how does change in a pedagogical narrative come about? As Geoff R. Webb noted:

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“Authoritative or absolute discourse does not permit dialogisation” (19). How can we think about the dynamic of the pedagogical and performative narratives' encounters when using such a fixed identity as the pedagogical narrative? Bhabha himself has acknowledged this problem, and states that the performative narrative can displace the pedagogical (LC 137). What he refers to is not only the necessary response to the performative narrative, which requires a reiteration of the pedagogical, but also the power of the performative over the pedagogical. The ivory tower of the pedagogical is broken down and must be rebuilt in order to sustain itself. As a metamodel, it might be helpful to think of conspiracy theories more as machines in the way that Deleuze and Guattari do rather than as rigid, binary identities with fixed positions, so that the dynamic of the encounter between the

pedagogical and the performative can be articulated without needing to define fixed power relations.

This subject [the narrative] itself is not at the center, which is occupied by the machine, but on the periphery, with no fixed identity, forever discentered, defined by the states through which it passes...the subject is born of each state in the series, is continually reborn of the following state that determines him at a given moment, consuming-consummating all these states that cause him to be born and reborn (the lived state emerges first in relation to the subject who lives it.) (Deleuze and

Guattari, 20.)

In other words, the performative narrative encounters the pedagogical narrative and through this encounter both of them change. Machines allow us to think of the encounter as a process of resingularisation; a reiterating of the pedagogical narrative that is configured by the event of the encounter with its binary opposed.

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2. ADHD is everywhere, aided by the fact that it doesn't exist

In opposition to the pedagogical narrative in de DSM, ADHD conspiracy theories offer a performative narrative as a counterweight in an attempt to create a shift, and eventually an a-signifying rupture with an entirely new narrative. The pedagogical narrative provides a story that unifies those who perform normative, acceptable behaviour and creates a relatively safe space (from the perspective of the mentally healthy) in which unwanted behaviour is named and the identities of those demonstrating unwanted behaviour connected to mental disorders. I will repeat myself to make absolutely clear that I am not speaking of the existence of mental disorders, or specifically ADHD itself.In all of these close readings I focus upon the dynamics that the performative narrative has in terms of their dialogical nature, the laying bare of structures of power and re-evaluating the pedagogical narrative. Truth or untruth of a disorder or a disease does not enter into it; much more than anything the transversal encounter and the dynamical interaction between the pedagogical and the performative narrative have the ability to create an a-signifying rupture in which the narrative on the disorder is retold. Not just by the pedagogical narrative, but by the performative as well. The latter we will see most notably in the third paragraph of this chapter.

Besides the performative quality, there are particular characteristics of conspiracy theories, as we have seen. I deliberately choose to neglect some dimensions that could arguably also be seen as always present in these conspiracy theories, because they are not relevant for my project here, and including them would clutter rather than clarify my point. What is relevant here is that the conspiracy theory is on the lookout for agency in

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Furthermore, they are never the most dominant explanation of the facts; they

recontextualise the facts to assign this agency, and through they (re-)empower the ‘victims’ of the hegemonic power structures; those who are labelled or marginalised by the

pedagogical. Giving a different explanation of the same facts means two things that seem worth pointing out again: first, the facts are not rejected all together, but they are retold into a different narrative, and second, they are retold from a different perspective. Through leaning on the pedagogical’s embeddedness in surrounding structures the conspiracy theory asks questions (whatever they say literally is often a paraphrase of the Latin Cui Bono? (Who benefits?)); they ask for an answer and as such open up a space for dialogue.

This chapter is devoted to readings of conspiracy theories on ADHD. First I will look into the way in which a conspiracy theory can be used to soothe oneself. A conspiracy theory coined by a member of an online forum demonstrates how a conspiracy theory itself may appear radical or perhaps even ridiculous, but that it is used as an empowerment strategy and a deictic signifier. We will see that the conspiracy theory is not always an entirely new narrative, but instead is a first step in opening up the dialogue. The second paragraph investigates utterances by the same forum member, and those of a doctor to see if and how they differ in what they are saying and the strategies they employ in creating the dialogic encounters of the performative and pedagogical. The third paragraph is devoted to the investigation of a direct dialogue of the performative and the pedagogical. Using a story that starts somewhere unrelated to ADHD, the dialogical encounters the conspiracy theories have with the pedagogical are taken through time and used by both parties to renegotiate a status quo. The final paragraph in this chapter is an investigation in the

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in which the study group responsible for the changes has incorporated some of the

criticisms on the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, but in doing so has made it difficult for adults in need of diagnosis to get a diagnosis at all. I will look into how this renegotiation of these narratives has culminated in this impossibility and how the willingness to be have a

diagnosis be reparative may be a player in the choices made.

The empowering conspiracy

ADHDsux4me, a forum member of an online community called Above Top Secret has a theory of his own (I shall address ADHDsux4me as male here, since gender is unknown but ADHD is diagnosed mostly in men and boys) on the reasons and origins of ADHD, that begin with the conviction of a grand conspiracy:

I just had a profound realization! If in fact there is such a thing as a grand

conspiracy for governments to slowly be conditioning their citizens to mind control I feel that ADHD gives people a natural immunity. With our inability to focus for long periods of time, our mind is naturally too chaotic to be made rigid for any kind of post hypnotic suggestion. (n.p.)

The first response in reading this might be that it is a ridiculous theory that comes with no evidence either on the theory that governments want to supress their citizen's own opinions or that a mind with ADHD is in any way resistant to such practices. Since we do not know how these practices are conducted we can never know whether or not ADHD brains are incapable of resisting them. On first glance then, it's a theory that can be dismissed as 'out there' and unfounded at the very least. But what happens when we take a closer look? First, what stands out is that ADHDsux4me does not completely disregard ADHD as a disease. In fact, he acknowledges its existence. He does not posit another truth, but instead his

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theory functions to configure a new way of looking at the same perceived truth, which is ADHD. ADHDsux4me writes: “Now here is the conspiracy, we of the adhd

generation/indigo children are being surpressed [sic] emotionally with drugs such as; ritalin/concerta/adderall/stratera and wellbutrin. We are an unexpected anomaly that needs to be controlled to conform” (n.p.). In terms of speaking positions, ADHD conspiracy theories are uttered both by those with an authoritative speaking position within the medical field, and those with no medical background. In referring to himself as a part of that 'adhd generation' or the anomaly that the government wants repressed it is impossible to read his conspiracy theory as a full on contestation of the dominant ADHD narrative. What this conspiracy theory demonstrates is a different reading of the same facts;

behaviour that deviates from the norm. Rather than rejecting everything about ADHD, the facts are recontextualised through pointing out the surrounding discourses on normative behaviour and by assigning agency to governments through answering the question who benefits? It is not simply an act of contestation, but also of acceptance. ADHDsux4me accepts that he and those with ADHD are 'different' from 'other people', however different that is, and to whomever the other is they measure themselves against. He assigns those diagnosed with ADHD a position of unicity in an attempt of self-definition that at the same time acknowledges the self in what it wants to be and leaves room for the particular

'speciality' that in the dominant discourse would be called ADHD. The conspirational narrative creates dynamic that is more than just resistant to the dominant: it is a first step towards a renegotiation of that dominant narrative that takes into account what is already established as a truth in the medical discourse. It is important here to note the particular strategy employed by the very nature of the conspiracy theory: rather than aiming at the heart of the discourse, which is medical, it instead seeks out the surrounding power

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structures to open the renegotiation. What ADHDsux4me is attempting to do is to find a place in which he can acknowledge himself as a full human being rather than one with a defect and thus he recontextualises the facts: “Personally, conformity I feel is the greatest oppressor to personal greatness” (n.p.). In that sense, I would argue, a conspiracy theory is a strategy of empowerment. Its content does not make sense of the pieces around it without interpreting (or overinterpreting) them. Rather, by recontextualising these pieces of fact it creates a narrative that regains power. By assigning agency outside of the pedagogical, the theory creates a new narrative that is more empowering than the pedagogical narrative ever was.

Rejecting the pedagogical narrative as ADHDsux4me does is an act of self-empowerment. In this specific case the conspiracy theory even accepts these elements of the pedagogical which it at the same time is trying to renegotiate. ADHDsux4me accepts the deviating behaviour but assigns it a status of asset rather than defect. The reiteration of the narrative on ADHD leaves ADHD itself untouched and moves around the fringes of it, in the realm of surrounding structures to position an ADHD diagnosis in a place where it is a quality rather than a disorder and empowers rather than depresses.

In a broader sense the productive nature of the ADHD conspiracy theory is productive in that it demands a retelling of the narrative on ADHD by radically opposing the pedagogical narrative. That the performative narrative initially might be 'paranoid' or far-fetched is of little importance when compared to its performative quality: the ADHD conspiracy, in its transversal encounter with the pedagogical narrative on ADHD, does not become or even attempts to become a new, all-encompassing truth, but disrupts the pedagogical narrative, and calls into question its self-claimed truth by referring to the

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structures that surround the pedagogical. Being aware of the structures surrounding a medical diagnosis and speaking about them speaks to and about more than just the self. In that sense, the conspiracy theory is a strategy for opening up spaces in which these

structures and powers can be discussed, precisely because it recontextualises the facts of the matter into a narrative that deliberately includes the hegemonic discourse’s surroundings. Reassigning agency from the pedagogical to its surroundings is a form of asking questions and entering into a debate with the pedagogical. Let us look at how a conspiracy theory attains that next.

Articulating incommensurability

It is safe to assume that everyone can relate to the idea that there is a certain stigmatisation related to the diagnosis of a mental illness. Besides a conspiracy theory being reparative, in the act of challenging it for the sake of one's own, it also acts on behalf of the grander scheme of the social, political and even economical. After all, the pedagogical narrative of mental disorders is a social construction, and diagnosis a social act, with consequences. Historical shifts in the narrative show that the classification of a mental disorder is reflects wider shifts in what is considered normative behaviour. Are there any serious such dimensions to ADHDsux4me's particular conspiracy theory? ADHDsux4me sees a

parallel between the suppression of personal opinions, the resistance of ADHD against that and governmental decisions. He relates his feeling that “ADHD gives people natural immunity” (n.p.) to the idea of medicine as a form of mind control to world politics: “Let me ask you this question: how many of us would have agreed for America to go to Iraq, if we had to do our own independent research and find out why we “desperately need to disarm Saddam Hussein”? Things that make you go hmmm...” (n.p.) Interestingly, what

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ADHDsux4me never speaks of is the medical dimension of the ADHD narrative. His rejection of the pedagogical narrative happens through surrounding power structures that the medical allegedly is indebted to. He sees being drugged on account of having an ADHD diagnosis not as a medical act, but as a political one. Doctors in that world view become puppets of the government, designed to act out the government's evil will. Thus, rejecting the pedagogical narrative is indeed a political, social and economic act. But where does that leave the critical medical professionals? How does something so far on the fringes enter into a professional debate? This next example might shed some light on that.

Gregory Lawton, a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has written a blog called My Own Private A.D.H.D. Conspiracy Theory. Lawton furthers ADHDsux4me's dialogue by entering it into the realm of medical professionals, even if his is a more temperate, less radical theory, perhaps not even a full-fledged conspiracy theory. Before I cite his blog, let me draw attention to the title. Lawton's echo of the term

'conspiracy theory' here is the first sign that the conspiracy theory has entered into the realm of professionals. Although the dialogue is obviously not an actual dialogue in which Lawton replies to conspiracy theorists, by simply giving this title to his blog the dialogue is furthered. In his blog, Lawton refers to two articles in the New York Times about ADHD and its treatment and medication controversy.

Then, he himself states that he has

several levels of uneasiness about A.D.H.D. starting with myself. […] Am I over diagnosing it or missing other diagnoses? […] In a phrase, I am worried about the A.D.H.D. Epidemic. […] There is too much money (pharmaceutical) in treating A.D.H.D. There is too much money (federal, state, and local) tied up in improving

Do I have your attention now? Uncovering dialogue and performance in ADHD conspiracy theories