>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> 01/13/00 12:11PM >>>
At 10:47 AM 1/13/00 -0500, Charles Brown wrote:
>I was reading an article in the bourgeois media yesterday and it made some
mocking reference to a "conspiracy theory" as an explanation for some media
event. With that it is fully dawning on me that the bourgeois propagandists
have succeeded in selling some of the U.S. left, such as it is and
reflected on this list, on the idea that there are too many conspiracy
theories circulating around as explanations of various public events and
incidents. This came up recently here with all the ostrichlike responses to
the idea that John F. Kennedy was assassinated according to a conspiracy by
the rightwing in the federal government, probably J. Edgar Hoover, etc.
Below is another brief, valid analysis of an actual and important political
conspiracy and assassination right under the noses of the naive "left".
Wojtek says: everything depends how you define "conspiracy." If it means any concerted action that is not totally transparent to th epublic - then yes, the world is nothing but conspiracy, but the term simply becomes meaningless - it means most conceivable human action, but none in particular.
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CB: No , it is perfectly normal word in this regard. Most words have a sort of range of meanings, and if used in a certain way "become meaningless" , but if not they are helpful. In this case, I only use "conspiracy" , because that is the way it is coming at me from what is now dawning on me as a whole big group of "anti conspiracy theorists" on the "left". I am just realizing that there are a whole bunch of people on this list who are energetically trying to squash thinking of the normal and regular operations of the U.S. government , corporations and institutions as saturated with plots that if widely known would undermine the average person's confidence and belief in the reasonable fairness and honesty of the system. In other words, would go a long way to undermining legitimacy and its use in hegemony.
The remarkable thing to me is that skepticism about normal honesty of the government and the regime was the ordinary consciousness of the left 20 years ago. Now you have "lefts" who think, I guess based on some warped version of Lenin's idea that it is a system not a plot, that they are doing a service to the movement by discouraging reference to plots for building skepticism about the system.
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Even if you narrow your definition to planning and executing actions that are illegal, you still have a problem. Is planning bankrupty in case of adverse business conditions a conspiratorial act? Is planning an unlawful demonstration? Would not revealing important material facts about a product qualify?
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CB: Amazing. No there is no problem whatsoever. What are you talking about ? As a matter of fact that idea that a given business would commit fraud IS well accepted by the average person. Who cares what you call it ! The average person is already that skeptical about the system. You seem to want to confuse that by talking about whether it fits the defintion of a "conspiracy". I don't care what you call it.
But even more, we are talking about events that have more political significance. Like switching the president based on coup d'etat rather than elections. You do realize that a major foundation in the faith in the righteousness and "freedom" and "democracy" of the U.S. system is that "We have elections and commies and dictators don't' , don' you ? If "we"have coup d'etats, how do you justify bombing the Viet Namese into the stone age because they "don't " ? This is like A,B, C. Am I in the leftwing Twilight zone. This is truly bizarre.
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It seems that outside the areas clearly and unambiguously identified as criminal, such as assassination or subversion of a legally elected government, the application of the term "conpiracy" is not at all clear. Moreover, the term has a strong emotive component that often obscures its meaning - people may reject your argument because of that emotive component without even considering its substance. For example, if I hear phrases like "Jewish or UN conspiracy" or "world government" I simply stop listening, regardless of what the speaker has to say, because the chances are that it's bullshit.
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CB: The other amazing part of this ( see post to Daniel) is treating rightwing claims of plots as the same as leftwing claims of plots !! This is truly bizarre. The rightwing is the exact opposite of the leftwing , politically. That's pretty basic. Why would you stop being skeptical about the ruling class, the heart of the rightwing, because some rightwing stories are lies !!!???
The Elders of Zion was out there from the rightwing 100 years ago. That doesn' t make you lose your skepticism about the idea that the U.S government rightwing assassinated JFK. It's like you can't tell your left from your right. You have no basic political orientation.
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Adorno et al. identified propensity toward accepting consipratorial views of the world as a typical element of "authoritarian personality." They link authoritarian personality to the person's tendency to see the world in terms of personal volition rather than objective principles. They attribute that to authoritarian practices in child rearing e.g. when the child's treatment in the family depends on the whimses of the parents rather than established principles (i.e. "because I say so" instead of "because it is the right thing to do.") I would add that such views are enforced by charismatic leadership, personality and celebrity cults -often perpeptrated by the media, especially those targeting the audiences with lower levels of eductaion (cf. National Enquirer).
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CB: I have to tell you , I operate on Brown's, not Adorno's, theory of psychology. But even if Adorno is correct about authoritarain personality, it doesn't at all mean that there are not conspriacies and plots carried out by authoritarian personalities. In fact, that fits with Adorno's theory. If J Edgar Hoover and all the other U.S. rightwingers in ther period we are talking aoubt, the number one authoritarian personalities of the 20th Century, were prone to see conspiracies, then you can be sure that they hatched "counter"plots. Ergo. The authoritarian U.S. government has hatched a lot of plots. Adorno's theory helps to imply the authoritarian nature of these U.S. plotters, more reasons that the average American should not have confidence in the system in which they live.
But in general, I do not follow Adorno for my analysis of U.S. politics. I certainly have no need for reference to an abstract psychological theory to explain all the evidence that JFK was assassinated by the U.S. rightwing in its paranoia about JFK having a test ban treaty with the Soviets and losing the Cuban missile crisis standoff.. It is like analyzing a whodunnit, more of a detective analysis than a psychologist.
>From that standpoint, conspiratorial beliefs tend to be a part of petty
bourgeois mentality.
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CB: No, the street smarts of the working class are not so naive as disbelief in the ongoing dirty tricks of the system. Petit bourgeois mentality tends to the naivete of disbelief in plots. Adorno was petit bourgeois and his theory is petit bourgeois.
CB