"David Gerard" wrote
I think even strong supporters of [[David Icke]] would have a hard time seriously arguing the point, for example.
It was once pointed out to me that, pedantically speaking, pejorative implies position B in an A/B pair, where the denotation is roughly the same but the connotation is that B is worse. Or something. Well, it wasn't explained like that, but 'pejorative' once was like a worse type of comparative.
In that light, anyway, I think 'conspiracy theorist' is not necessarily a pejorative. It applies to anyone who postulates a (successful, hidden) conspiracy. Would 'cartel theorist' be a bad thing to call someone who postulates cartels? All those non-Stratfordian Shakespeare theorists postulate unlikely, hidden things; but accept labels saying that they think conventional literary history is just wrong.
I think the pejorative forms of 'conspiracy theorist' include 'barking conspiracy theorist', 'anti-Masonic nutter and conspiracy theorist' and so on.
Charles
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