Although
the last few posts have been about current affairs of some relevance to
conspiracy studies – the Trump administration and Hager and Stephenson’s ‘Hit
and Run’ book – I’ve also accrued a bit of a back catalogue of local conspiracy
culture-related topics that I intended to write about. Time to get stuck into
the first of these (too late for my self-imposed April deadline - oh well...)
On
the evening of Monday the 8th of April 2013 I was one of the hundred
or so souls sitting in one of the
University of Waikato’s management school lecture theatres, listening to high
profile UK global warming denier Lord Christopher Monckton ‘perform’ as part of
his international ‘Climate of Freedom’ speaking tour. Monckton’s denialism is
rooted in a standard-issue conspiracist worldview in which global warming is a
‘scam’, a system of political and economic control foisted upon the world by
scientists and politicians who are implicated with sinister globalist/NWO
agendas (Monckton wasn’t that prescriptive about what exactly these agendas
entailed, but I was left with the impression is something in the general
ballpark of a totalitarian system related to a communistic worldview). The specious, pseudo-scientific nature of his
arguments against global warming science have been extensively debunked and
pilloried by scientists and critics, so my interest here is not in those areas,
but rather some observations about the cultural dimensions of the event. To
state in the vernacular: what was the vibe like?
While
the crowd was fairly diverse – I remember sitting next to a young Indian chap,
and seeing a few women manning merchandise stands in the foyer – my overall
impression of the audience was that it was dominated by middle-aged Pakeha men
of the sort associated with an ACT Party convention or Federated Farmers
meeting on the topic of water quality: rigid, Swanndri-clad slabs of
‘common-sense’, their ruddy cheeks and bullish visages barely containing their
indignation for anything environmental that challenges the Pakeha capitalist
status quo that has constituted the ‘right’ way of doing things in this country
for the last century or so. The hearty applause that such attendees gave
to Monckton’s condemnation of the usual denialist villains – the UN, Agenda 21,
Al Gore, liberal government bodies, climate scientists in general – provided
affirmation of the populist ethos underlying the anti-environmentalism on
display (an ethos that manifests in different forms according to the dominant
resource industries of the countries involved: where denialism in the USA and
Australia is centered around the oil and coal industries, in NZ it is rooted in
dairy farming).
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| A typical example of a Monckton slide: note complete lack of references for the sources of the data, lack of a key on the left axis to tell the reader what units of measurement are involved, and Monckton's heraldic crest displayed prominently centre right (cos it must be legit coming from a toff, yeah?) |
This
populist appeal was particularly interesting in relation to Monckton’s identity
as a scion of the British class system. Monckton’s
publicity materials (interviews, PR bios, website blurbs) usually emphasise the
details of his peerage and other class accoutrements in an implicit appeal to
the ‘rule by your betters’ principle that was one of the defining features of
British imperialism – that the upper classes innately possess intellectual and
institutional authority in all subjects, outside of their obvious areas of
expertise such as grouse-shooting, sherry-drinking, and inbreeding. A notable
instance of this logic in operation during the talk was when Monckton asserted
himself against a heckler’s dismissive comments by whipping out his certificate
of membership in the Knights of Malta or similar upper-crust boys club, as
if this verification of his aristocratic bona fides was sufficient in itself as
a means of rebuttal. However, although NZ’s predominantly egalitarian social
structures still contain lingering residues of colonial deference to the
‘mother country’, I felt that the crowd’s identification with Monckton was due less
to his class status and more to the fact that his green-bashing message tapped
into the Pakeha populism mentioned above.
 |
| Gee, guess where you'll find this video? Clue: first letters start with Y and T... |
Having
previous familiarity with the denialist style, I found Monckton’s evidence and
arguments too obviously meretricious and formulaic to generate the feelings of
shock and indignation he would no doubt enjoy inducing in punters of liberal
and environmentalist bent. Instead, my emotional responses were in the realm of
pathos. There was something innately pathetic about Monckton and the event: a
something reflected in the earnest way he brandished his credentials to the
heckler like a schoolboy showing off his gold star for good work, a something
reflected in the sloppy graphic design of his powerpoint slides, a something
reflected in the crudely scanned covers of the home-burned DVDs of his lectures
available in the lobby. Upon reflection,
this ‘something’ was the fact that this shabby, second-rate conspiracist
spectacle was as much about Monckton sating his narcissistic desire for public
attention as it was about preaching the gospel of denialism. In relation to
this, my feelings of pathos were perhaps manifestations of the sense of
sympathy engendered by some attention-seekers, whose brazen behaviour comes
across as a means of fulfilling some deep-seated psychological need. In these
respects the Monckton experience was probably a good case study in relation to
research undertaken into the psychology of conspiracism, a verification of the
thesis that conspiracy theory is often or as much an expression of personal
psychology as it is political ideology or worldview. The degree of ‘sympathy
for the Monckton’ that I felt should be taken as something specific to this
event though: it’s hard to think of anyone feeling a twinge of pathos for
conspiracist figures like David Irving.
Title
of this post a reference to the brilliant 1966 album ‘It’s Monk Time!’, by cult US garage-rockers
The Monks.
