--- Begin Message ---
-Caveat Lector-
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "liz_mclellan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'd like a definition as well and a response to my last post.
>
>
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Joseph Wanzala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > What exactly is 'conspiracism' anyway? It is not in any
> dictionary as far as I can tell.
Hi,
I'd like a lot of things, including more time. I do not live on this
list, so maybe folks could show a little civility and not pepper me
with questions and then complain that I haven't answered them in a
few hours.
I was just speaking at a rally for Leonard Peltier in Boston, where I
was explaining how the FBI conspired to deny First Amendment rights
to dissidents during the COINTELPRO program.
How many of my critics here have published articles about government
and private right-wing conspiracies to infringe First Amendment
rights? I have had articles appear in UTNE Reader, the Guardian
(NY), Covert Action Quarterly, The Boston Globe, The New York Times,
and other publications. I was one of two people who produced the
catalog of FBI documents in Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall's
book "The COINTELPRO Papers." I spent three years as a paralegal
investigator on lawsuits suing the FBI, CIA, Military Intelligence,
and local police intelligence units or "Red Squads."
So please stop assuming I am not aware of how government and private
groups conspire to deny us our rights. Even a brief survey of my
work would show that this is a false assumption.
See:
http://www.publiceye.org/berlet/Berlet_Articles.htm
http://www.publiceye.org/berlet/Berlet_Bio.htm
I did not invent the word "conspiracism," it has been used for
decades to describe a style of analyzing data. In the U.S.
conspiracism is a major style used by right-wing populists. It is a
parody of serious research the abuse of power. I have included some
books that discuss conspiracism at the end of this post.
I wrote the entry on Conspiracism and was a contributing editor for
the Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements. Richard
A. Landes, ed., (Berkshire Reference Works; Routledge encyclopedias
of religion and society). New York: Routledge, 2000.
I draw a distinction between analysing power (which includes
awareness of conspiracies) and the style called "conspiracism."
Here is my definition:
Conspiracism: A form of scapegoating that portrays the enemy as part
of a vast insidious plot against the common good. Conspiracism
assigns tiny cabals of evildoers a superhuman power to control
events, frames social conflict as part of a transcendent struggle
between Good and Evil, and makes leaps of logic, such as guilt by
association, in analyzing evidence. Often employs common fallacies of
logic in analyzing factual evidence to assert connections, causality,
and intent that are nonexistent. A distinct narrative form of
scapegoating, conspiracism uses demonization to justify constructing
the scapegoats as wholly evil while reconstructing the scapegoater as
a hero. Sees secret plots by tiny cabals of evildoers as the major
motor powering important historical events.
I have a long discussion of conspiracism at:
http://www.publiceye.org/b_conspi.html
and
http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/DynamicsTOC.htm
The conspiracist analysis of history has become uncoupled from a
logical train of thought. . .it is a non-rational belief system that
manifests itself in degrees. Conspiracism blames individualized and
subjective forces for economic and social problems rather than
analyzing conflict in terms of systems and structures of power.
Conspiracist allegations, therefore, interfere with a serious
progressive analysis--an analysis that challenges the objective
institutionalized systems of oppression and power, and seeks a
radical transformation of the status quo.
This discussion on the difference between power structure research
(C. Wright Mills, G. William Domhoff, Holly Sklar)is continued at:
http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/conspiracism-06.htm
I don't mind discussing criticisms of my work. I do mind it when
people misrepresent my work in order to score easy points.
-Chip Berlet
Some books and articles on conspiracism. Some are better than
others, the Pipes books are problematic but have good sections.
Berlet, Chip. (1996) "Three Models for Analyzing Conspiracist
Mass Movements of the Right." In Conspiracies: Real Grievances,
Paranoia, and Mass Movements, edited by Eric Ward. Seattle: Northwest
Coalition Against Malicious Harassment (PB Publishing), 47<N>75.
Billig, Michael. (1989) "The Extreme Right: Continuities in
Anti�Semitic Conspiracy Theory in Post�War Europe." In The Nature of
the Right: American and European Politics and Political Thought Since
1789, edited by Roger Eatwell and Noel O'Sullivan. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 146<N>166.
Blee, Kathleen M. (1996) "Engendering Conspiracy: Women in
Rightist Theories and Movements." In Conspiracies: Real Grievances,
Paranoia, and Mass Movements, edited by Eric Ward. Seattle: Northwest
Coalition Against Malicious Harassment (PB Publishing), 91<N>112.
Curry, Richard O., and Thomas M. Brown, eds. (1972)
Conspiracy: The Fear of Subversion in American History. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Davis, David B., ed. (1971) The Fear of Conspiracy: Images of
Un�American Subversion from the Revolution to the Present. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Dean, Jodi. (1998) Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures
from Outerspace to Cyberspace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Fenster, Mark. (1999) Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power
in American Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Johnson, George. (1983) Architects of Fear: Conspiracy
Theories and Paranoia in American Politics. Los Angeles:
Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin.
Mintz, Frank P. (1985) The Liberty Lobby and the American
Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
O'Leary, Stephen. (1994) Arguing the Apocalypse, New York:
Oxford University Press.
Pipes, Daniel. (1997) Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style
Flourishes and Where it Comes From. New York: The Free Press, 1997.
Pipes, Daniel. (1998) The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of
Conspiracy. New York: St. Martins.
Turner, Patricia A. (1993) I Heard it Through the Grapevine,
Rumor in African-American Culture. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Ward, Eric, ed. (1996) Conspiracies: Real Grievances,
Paranoia, and Mass Movements. Seattle: Northwest Coalition Against
Malicious Harassment [PB Publishing].
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