The first post is the longest, baby I know…

The first post is the longest, baby I know…

Welcome to 'The Paranoid Style', a blog (yep – another one – that’s what you get for enabling amateurs to make their own media content, tech people) related to my academic and personal interests in conspiracy theories and associated culture.

My conception of this blog is as a virtual notebook, posting on whatever topic I might be musing on at a particular time in a short and sketchy fashion (work, kids, and other creative activities to attend to...)

In this absolutely riveting initial post, I’ll set out some background ideas, developed in the course of academic work on the topic, that form the basis for my thinking about conspiracy theories. 

A - General definition of conspiracy:

“a group of people working together in secret to exercise power in their own interests”

Key concepts here:

-conspiracy is a group activity;

- conspiracy is concerned with power in political, social and other forms;

- conspiracy is the opposite of transparency and other values of openness that are central to the worldview of liberal democratic societies.

B - Categories of conspiracy theory

Realpolitik conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories that are conceptualised in relation to the operation of existing systems of power, especially political and economic. In other words, the conspiracy can be understood as plausible within standard frames of political and social reference without recourse to explanatory frameworks outside of these, such as occultism.  

Note that I consider conspiracy to be a valid concept in the study of power, i.e. that conspiracies have happened and are occurring, in relation to this context of established political systems and the behaviour of people therein.  This does not mean that I consider particular conspiracy theories to be true (and certainly not the ones that fall under the next entries), but I disliked the tendency in some of the scholarship I've read to try and write off the notion of conspiracy altogether.

Some examples:

Watergate – conspiracy in which President Nixon and related personnel in the US executive abused the power of their station against their opponents. A conspiracy theory that was revealed to be conspiracy fact (e.g. All the President’s Men – book and film (1976)

2008 financial crisis – dominant narrative to explain this is a conspiratorial one: culture of Wall St finance industry one in which banks engaged in illegal financial practices in a manner kept hidden from regulators, investors, and the public. Again, large amounts of evidence validating this conspiratorial behaviour (e.g. the work of US investigative journalist Matt Taibbi)

JFK – if you don’t accept the ‘lone gunman’ explanation, then dominant theory a conspiracy in which Lee Harvey Oswald part of a convoluted conspiracy by various institutions of power in Cold War context (e.g. CIA and ‘military-industrial complex) to neutralise threat to their power posed by President Kennedy.  Evidence for this theory highly contentious (e.g.  Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK (the top image) presents an easy to digest synthesis of core theory elaborated on verbatim by gazillions of conspiracy theorists), but is plausible enough, given nature of coups/assassinations in modern political histories of nations around the world, to be true.

Classical conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories that form the dominant or ‘classic’ mode in which conspiracy is conceptualised within Western/Anglophone culture. These conspiracy theories are usually formulated by people whose identity is invested in specific belief systems, usually of an ideologically or scientifically extreme nature that renders them marginal to mainstream political and social values and systems. These theories are typified by logical implausibility, over-interpretation of content, and the construction of highly elaborate ‘imaginary realities’ related to the belief systems involved. 

I classify these into three main types:

 

1 - Fundamentalist conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories rooted in fundamentalist religious worldviews, in which perceived ‘threats’ to religious values and order, and the status of individuals therein, are demonised in form of conspiracy narratives. In a Western context, heavily associated with American Protestantism, but a universal tendency (e.g. Islamic anti-semitism).

The other: Catholics, Jews, Jesuits, Masons, New Age, secularists, occultists, etc.

Example: the Illuminati was a secret society set up in the 18^th century to challenge the epistemological and political authority of organised religion in contemporary Europe in relation to the emancipatory ethos of the Enlightenment. Conspiracy theorists of a fundamentalist bent (e.g. Robison/Webster/Marrs) have subsequently demonised the Illuminati as a massive secret society of an explicitly occult/satanic nature which is actively working against Christianity (or at least the Protestant variants)

2 - Nationalist conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories rooted in essentialist/extremist conceptions of national identity. The conspirators are perceived to be working to undermine the political, social and ideological integrity of the nation involved, as a means of replacing it with something totalitarian and dystopian. In a Western context, promulgated predominantly by American conspiracists in keeping with essentialist conceptions of American identity (e.g. the Constitution as a ‘sacred text’) and post-war anxieties about the perpetuation of American geo-political power. 

The other: Communists, Jews (again–poor sods), federal government, socialists, international political and economic institutions and organisations such as the UN, bankers etc.

Example:

President Obama is a Communist/Illuminatus/Islamist/Satanist etc. because his ethnicity is different from the WASP ideal that has been integral to essentialist conceptions of American-ness, and because his administration is implementing socially progressive legislation (e.g. health care) that is considered antithetical to an essentialist American ideology expressed through beliefs in the likes of free-market capitalism and individualism.

3 - New Age conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories predicated upon the belief systems of New Age spiritual movements that have developed over the 20^th century. The conspirators are considered to be embodiments of dark spiritual forces trying to thwart the spiritual development/evolution of humanity to a higher level. In keeping with the occult/esoteric dimensions of New Age thought, such conspiracies are often conceptualised as operating on the symbolic realm of culture as much as the ‘material’ systems of political and economic power. These theories are less overtly American than those from nationalist and fundamentalist perspectives. 

The other: occultists; aliens; beings from spiritual planes of existence; organised religions such as Christianity

Example:

David Icke’s reptilian shapeshifters: spiritually evil intra-dimensional beings are secretly manipulating and controlling the human race by taking on human form and operating most of the organised systems of power that constitute modern society (e.g. governments, finance industry). The conspirators are particularly skilled at controlling the populace through psycho-social conditioning, such as subliminal occult symbolism in popular culture texts.

    Most conspiracy theories are not pure in relation to these categories but combine ideas from across all of them. Given the close relationships between religion and nationalism it is not surprising that these perspectives are often combined in much conspiracy theorising, e.g. the Illuminati representing both fears about the decline of American democracy into a totalitarian state and fears about the threats posed by the likes of secularism, humanism, and New Age spirituality to American Protestantism.  

   Moreover, a lot of millennial conspiracism is typified by what Michael Barkun (2002) has labelled ‘superconspiracies’ – conspiracist ‘grand narratives’ that incorporate almost all prior and existing conspiracy ideas into one all-encompassing conspiracy worldview. Within both conspiracy and popular culture, the Illuminati has been articulated as the signifier du jour for this mode of conspiracist thinking.

C - core themes and perspectives

Conspiracy theory is a fascinating and frustrating melange of beliefs and behaviour, systems and structures. The following are some of the key perspectives from various subject areas which I consider as being important in thinking about conspiracy theory - what it is, how it works, what it means:

Politics – democracy and its principles and values: trust and transparency between the citizenry and institutions of power. Continuum in modern democratic societies between notions of the collective – political structures to help perpetuate and control large groups of people – and the individual – political structures to help develop and perpetuate ideals of individual liberty.

Psychology – ‘pathological’ forms of the self, notably paranoia and narcissism. Psycho-social approaches – social behaviour and beliefs reflecting significant psychological themes that may be universal and/or related to life in a particular era.

Paranormal – theories/beliefs that there are other aspects to physical reality beyond what current state of scientific knowledge recognises, and which sometimes manifest themselves in forms constituting scientific anomalies.

Occultism – mystical traditions of all cultures centred on belief that humans can train themselves to access other realms of existence that are normally hidden or unknown, and use the knowledge and attributes that might be gained from this for particular ends.

Religion – institutions that represent an organised and official approach to spiritual belief and knowledge, and which have historically become established as highly sophisticated systems of mass belief and control.

Economics – capitalism as economic system with inherent structural imbalances of social and political power (e.g. socio-economic class). Consumerism – agencies of capitalist power have developed elaborate systems of manipulation and persuasion in order to get individuals and groups to undertake financial behaviour which helps perpetuate such power.

Geopolitics – the Cold War between post-war capitalist and communist West, and the government-developed intelligence agencies that were integral to such warfare. The end of the Cold War and the elevation of America from global super-power to hyper-power. The perpetuation of Western imperialism through indirect means, such as trade.

Media – media technologies and the cultural systems which develop around them, are integral aspects of people’s personal and social identities and crucial in developing and perpetuating beliefs and worldviews through the dissemination of information, especially in the form of narratives.

Popular culture – ‘entertainment’ genres such as sci-fi, thrillers, and action as allegorical expressions of anxieties and beliefs central to late 20^th/early 21^st century life, such as ontological impacts of technology on human identity, and ethics of power in liberal capitalist democracies.

Imagination – humans able to use imagination to develop fictional and alternative models of physical and social reality, and to convey these to others in cultural forms, especially stories.

And that was a highly successful diversion of time away from some other pressing tasks!