Friday, July 21, 2006
'conspiracy theory'
Heard the other day someone say “I prefer cock-up to conspiracy theory every time”. Really? Every time, automatically, without critical thought or reflection? How strangely dogmatic. Sure, there are crazy conspiracy theories, just as there are crazy cock-up theories. But too often, ‘conspiracy theory’ means little more than this: anything that speaks of goals, tactics, strategies other than the ones officially declared; in other words, 'conspiracy theory' as anything that differs too markedly from the official account, anything which – in an age of unprecedented spin and careful government PR – refuses to take such PR on its own terms. And it’s interesting that the ‘conspiracy theory’ whistle is frequently blown before any ‘theory’ has even been advanced, when all that’s happened is that the official narrative has been challenged or asked a few basic questions. (Most recently, an predictably, those disputing – or exposing - the official statements of the IDF as to reasons and motivations in Gaza and Lebanon).
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By the way, talking of conspiracies, you might be interested in this little chase re Shelley. An online petition is brewing and a letter or two to the Guardian...
http://www.readysteadybook.com/Blog.aspx
Thanks - that was quick!
I take the point, but working in Government, I have come to think that the cock-up/conspiracy ratio is far more tilted towards the cock-up than most people would expect. Of course, all that really means is that the real, disturbing conspiracies (of which I'm sure there are many) are more difficult to spot.
Well said. That cant term is the most dependably effective thoughtstopper in the cryptocrat's toolbox.
Jamie Hecht:
THE TERM ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’
This phrase is among the tireless workhorses of establishment discourse. Without it, disinformation would be much harder than it is. “Conspiracy theory” is a trigger phrase, saturated with intellectual contempt and deeply anti-intellectual resentment. It makes little sense on its own, and while it’s a priceless tool of propaganda, it is worse than useless as an explanatory category.
http://www.911inquiry.org/Presentations/JameyHecht.htm
On the other hand, many conspiracy theories are accepted without questions, e.g. Syria and Iran are behind everything Hezbollah does.
Yes, Qlip, I should have made that very point.
Actually, everybody accepts that there are conspiracies, except maybe for the most radical nominalist. Indeed, they are largely inscribed in American law: RICO and Anti-Trust laws are all about conspiracy. The EU has parallel laws. The U.S. war against al qaeda is based on a classic conspiracy theory -- the claims tracing the 19 hijackers back to various meetings (in Afghanistan, in a hotel room in Malaysia) and various sums of money sent to them over the course of a year.
The question in these cases is: what conspiracy theory is the more plausible? Not: is this a conspiracy theory.
Myself, I think there are good reasons to think that, for instance, the FSB was behind the explosions attributed to the Chechen rebels in 1999 in Russia. And I think there are excellent reasons to think that Al Qaeda was behind the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanganyika, the attack on the Cole, and the attack on the WTC. Conspiracies all. On the other hand, I don't think there was any conspiracy to fail in Iraq - rather, it is a symptom of a typical crisis in a decaying imperial order, the final result of the long drift of American recklessness. Nor do I think Hezbollah was conspiring to wreck Lebanon by provoking an Israeli overreaction. A lot of times, conspiracy and cock-up merge -- the Russian secret police used Father Gapon as an agent provacteur in 1905, but they surely never expected him to start a revolution.
One of the seriously fascinating aspects of recent US self-knowing is the acceptance by many, and the insistence on it by quite a few, that complex intrigues were part and parcel of US foreign policy for most of the latter 20th c. - but with the tacit assumption that domestic US policy was, and has always been, essentially intrigue-free.
What the phrase "conspiracy theory" is really about is intrigue.
That men capable of ordering the assassinations of democratically legitimate popular leaders in other countries would never think of violently meddling in their own country's affairs is absurd on the face of it.
It may well have been an act of considerable foresight to establish the phrase "conspiracy theory" in the public mind ahead of the information explosion of the last ten years. That way anything too uncomfortable, and too outside the normative flow, could be dismissed with ready-made scorn, and comfort maintained. At least for a while.
It's likely, e.g., that the resistance to imagining national internal intrigue, along with the dismissive power of the "conspiracy theory" tag, carried a great deal of weight during and after the US voting in 2000 and 2004.
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