I think paranoid ideologies present a good opportunity to describe the increasing influence and effects of a growing body of people moving in concert with a given coherent ideology, so I wanted to take a minute and look at that sort of thing, and perhaps try to come to terms with it somewhat.
In popular culture there is a lot of wariness and poking fun of the genuinely paranoid modes of thought and action, such as various flavors of conspiracy theory or general crankery.
As someone with a paranoid side and who has directly experienced the movements and consequences of those modes of thought, for the most part I'm fine with that in the context of a relatively stable society. At the extreme ends of that behavior and perception, paranoid people are searching for very specific signs and indications, and when they think they can confirm those signs and indications, regardless of whether those signs and indications mean what they do, paranoid individuals can act very suddenly and sometimes violently when triggered.
So having a bunch of people around on hair triggers that can lead to rapid and potentially vigorous action when exposed to certain stimuli is probably not the best thing for the stable functioning of a complex, stimulus-dense society. Better to tamp that down a bit if possible.
There is a catch though when your society is becoming increasingly unstable for various reasons. One of those reasons could be the greater proliferation of paranoid ideologies themselves: when you have a bunch of individuals on hair triggers who carry the same coherent set of beliefs and stimuli-triggers, the movements set in motion when those triggers get activated can get larger and more powerful as you add individuals in concert.
But at the same time a lot of the power of those ideologies is derived from their successful anticipation of and description of the realities they seek to navigate. Critics of the paranoid style in politics for example like to point out that when increasingly bad things are happening to increasing numbers of people, and the reigning government partially responsible for those bad things refuses to communicate a satisfactory accounting of those things, then a vacuum opens in the collective discourse and the conspiracy theories and fear mongering is able to rush in.
The mass paranoia itself creates a gravity of its own to contend with: it doesn't matter that the ideas themselves are wack and out of touch with reality, the instincts and behaviors nurturing those ideas generate volatile forces of their own, which annoyingly can require a paranoid perceptive element to analyze.
Because one signature of the paranoid perception is a hyperfixation on potentially destabilizing elements, and so a given individual might obsessively learn everything they can about a certain element to anticipate it and act accordingly.
Walking across a bridge, one may obsessively fixate on a pattern of supports, declaring that the bridge may fail at any moment. This behavior on a perfectly stable and sound bridge can be thought of as preposterous, but if the bridge is actually in danger of failing, well that behavior is something else entirely. And so how to properly judge all of these elements in relation to each other, while entertaining a healthy apprehension, without giving into the fear? Aha, very carefully perhaps.
It all brings to mind that hilarious adage which can be sometimes true: "you may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they're not out to get you."
