This is just between us. Please keep it quiet. Burn this e-mail after reading.
Dan Scanlan wrote: > I think many people, especially "intelligent liberal thinkers" react > viscerally to their own intensional meaning of "conspiracy" and do not bother > to consider the extensional meaning, i.e., "secret collaboration". > It is empirically possible to prove that people often get together privately > to plan an event or orchestrate a program. Surprise is an important part of > successfully pulling off a plan. Being prepared to respond to the expected > reaction to a surprise is an important element of any well planned operation. > It's not rocket science but it does seem to be beyond the reach of high > falutin' intelligentsia intent on making cogent, salient and witty > observations--obvious truth be damned. > Happens all the time. Keeps the greedy wealthy rich and in control of the > conversation. Hard to see the forest at all when you've got knee caps stuck > in your eyes. > Want to avoid really dealing with an issue? Label it a conspiracy theory and > move on to a different box, perhaps an obscure economic theory that hasn't > the weight of a fart in a laundry line but that seems to prop up personal > posture. > Remember the childhood joke about the two dullards who happened upon dog > shit. After they looked, felt, smelled and tasted it they agreed it was, > indeed, dog shit. "Glad I didn't step in it", one says. Today's "liberal" is > more apt to say "It's a conspiracy theory, therefore it can't be dog shit." > I forget who said something like "even though the truth isn't known, it still > exists." > Probably why so many liberals walk on the other side of the street these > days--to avoid the shit they deny on their own side. < There are at least two types of conspiracy theories. The first kind refers to "secret collaboration" that Dan refers to. As he says, this happens _all the time_. To name three examples, the CIA, NSA, and your friendly neighborhood Chamber of Commerce (which secretly collaborates with the local government). _Because_ these groups do almost all of their operations behind the curtain, the rest of us have no choice but to embrace some kind of theory in order to understand what's going on. (Until Toto pulls the curtain away...) The second kind of theory is what gives conspiracy theorists a bad name, and not only with unnamed "intelligent liberal thinkers," members of the "high falutin' intelligentsia," and "liberals." These theories are the ones that assume that the conspirators are close to omnipotent, close to omniscient, and close to omnipresent, if only for one specific issue or arena (e.g., the JFK assassination, 911, or the CIA secret team). In these theories, with only insignificant exceptions, the conspirators never fight (or even disagree) with each other and always present a united front. Their underlings almost always seem to obey the predetermined plan to the letter. Thus, the conspirators _always get the results that they want_ within the scope of the theory.[*] Somehow, the conspiracy isn't limited by the existence of any organized opposition. For example, the conspiratorial powers of the CIA were limited by the conspiratorial powers of the KGB -- and vice-versa. Even without the KGB, the CIA's power is limited by its own internal divisions and the fact that they often have incomplete and confusing information about what's going on "in the trenches." Further, the CIA _competes_ with other "intelligence" agencies such as the FBI and DIA, getting involved with turf wars, interagency miscommunication, and the like. And then there is the role of defectors, like the late Phil Agee who turned against the "Company" because he objected to torture (on moral grounds). Even non-defectors among the underlings and minions can be incompetent, lazy, or personally corrupt. (Conspiracy theorists of this second type sometimes come off as nuts because they list all sorts of (unproven) connections between a wide variety of purported conspirators to form a complex web of speculation, which always rules out the roles of accident, coincident, and uncertainty. Of course, not all of the theorists of the second type are this way.) The exception to the conspiratorial elite's assumed omniscience/omnipotence/omnipresence is the fact that there are conspiracy theorists yelling about them and somehow the conspiratorial elite can't shut them up. But perhaps the conspiratorial elites like to have these folks around, since they discredit their own theories... So are the anti-conspiracy folks unwitting tools of the elite? Even the first kind of theories can be a distraction and a delusion if they don't mention such little problems as the class nature of capitalist society, the way that capitalist dynamics get the economy (and even the society) into a mess now again, contrary to the intentions of the conspiratorial elites. The conspiracies work only _within society_ rather than being puppet masters who actually make society and all its problems. To focus on the elite while ignoring the society that gave them power gives an incomplete and one-sided perspective. If they don't bring in stuff like the class nature of capitalist society, it doesn't surprise me that some left-wing conspiracy theories converge with some right-wing conspiracy theories and vice-versa (if only in the form of their theories if not their content). I remember when NACLA (the North American Congress on Latin America) started finding that the right-wingers had similar theories. They had the good sense to be embarrassed. -- Jim Devine / "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick [*] this violates Jagger's Law, of course. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
