[lbo-talk] conspiracism, CIA, unions

[Mark Rupert]

Here's what cultural theorist Mark Fenster says about populist conspiracism as an ideological mis-recognition of historically real social power relations: "just because overarching conspiracy theories are wrong does not mean that they are not on to something." They are onto something in the sense that they are a real response to disempowerment through structures of domination: there IS something amiss. But they are wrong in the sense that they locate that something in the activities of secretive groups of corrupt or evil persons, a diagnosis which leads us to think about how to stop the "bad guys" (excuse the lapse into Pentagon-speak) rather than how to change our world and (crucially) ourselves.

 
It is not conspiracism to suggest that structured relations of inequality permeate our social world, and that those who are privileged by such relations may organize to frame common interests, construct political projects, and coordinate their activities. It is conspiracism if  this activity is understood in abstraction from those power relations, as if the activity and the individuals doing it were the problem and not the larger structures of power, as if the activities of some kinds of political agents is intrinsically conspiratoirial, secretive, nefarious. This is where the twin dangers of  conspiracism (reification of social relations on the one hand, tendencies toward scapegoating on the other) kick in. Since these dangers are antithetical to progressive political projects -- i.e., projects aiming at forging relations of social solidarity in order to transform structures of domination -- why bother to use the language of conspiracy at all? I can't see how that helps us, and there is an enormous potential downside. 

 

 

Mark

 

 
Mark Rupert
Political Science
Syracuse University
Syracuse NY 13244-1090
merupert at maxwell.syr.edu