Posters at Main Station
I think most of us know a couple people who carry what could be called a “conspiratorial world view.” This can mean a lot of things: anything from the tinfoil-hat wearing caricatures who know that the government is watching them from inside their own blood, to the followers and copycats of the prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. I’m not going to attempt to disprove conspiracy theory - that would be an exercise in futility (not unlike trying to disprove God to the devout). Instead, I’m going to address a few reasons why conspiracy theory is irrelevant and unnecessary.
1) There’s already more than enough proof against the bad guys.
A year and a half ago I saw Naomi Klein give a talk about her book, The Shock Doctrine (which I still haven’t read, as much as I mean to). In the Q&A period that followed, someone brought up the “9/11 Truth Movement,” which centers around the idea that 9/11 was an “inside job” orchestrated by or with the knowledge of the American government. Her response was something to the effect of “I can’t prove that the Bush administration killed three thousand Americans by destroying the twin towers. I can prove that they have killed over a million Iraqis as a result of the war they illegally brought to that country. (See also the Lancet surveys.) If that isn’t enough to ‘wake up’ Americans, nothing is.”
Bang. If our goal is to prove that Bush and Co. are murderous and power-hungry, anything more than that should be unnecessary. If we really wanted to get our hands dirty, we could bring up the USA PATRIOT Act, wire-tapping, the approval of torture, Guantanamo Bay, and any number of other crimes against humanity. All of these have been heavily reported (in the mainstream media, no less), are easy to access, and are undeniable as fact. The leaders are bad guys. (I realize that this particular point is less relevant now that Obama is in power, but I am taking a “wait and see” approach. For what it’s worth, the new crew is made up of more than few folks with some blood on their hands as well. And, obviously, Obama himself is “centre-right” at the least.)
2) Our power as individuals is limited.
If global affairs are in fact being run by a shadowy group with an overarching plan for human civilisation (let’s call it the “New World Order”) - a plan that has been unfolding for literally hundreds of years - then there is nothing that we can do about it. We have no access to the king-makers, nor to their sources of funding, nor to their secret planning meetings. For all intents and purposes, trying to stop them would be like trying to kill God.
3) Our actions remain the same.
For those of us who want to build a better world, there are only certain actions that we can take at an individual level. As it happens, these actions remain unchanged regardless of how much we know about any conspiracy theory.
If we seek independence, we organize and build alternative structures that operate without government or without multinational corporations (which are much bigger fish than government these days). We grow our own food, in our backyards or on our balconies or in community gardens. We start to break away from the grid by installing photovoltaic solar panels and micro-wind turbines and composting toilets and grey-water recycling systems. We buy what we can from local sources. We disrupt business-as-usual through street rallies, protests, and other direct action, until our grievances are heard and dealt with on a larger scale. In short, we build resilient communities and render existing power structures irrelevant. Working within the current structure is also useful, of course. It’s undeniable that having Obama as President is far better than McCain would be.
None of these actions are easy or necessarily pleasant, and many of them are met with resistance. This resistance exists regardless of whether any conspiracy theory is true. People in power want to keep it. That’s a truism. You don’t need a global conspiracy to prove that. Is the New World Order at work in Zimbabwe? Or in Burma? Or in any number of other tiny resourceless countries ruled with an iron fist? To the people struggling on the ground, it’s irrelevant - their methods of resistance remain the same.
4) The learning curve is too steep.
In order to truly understand the depth of the machinations of the New World Order (or the Illuminati, or the Reptilians, or whatever), one must plunge themselves into a world of misinformation, black-background websites, over-the-top rhetoric, and obscure factoids. JFK’s “conspiracy speech,” Bush Senior’s single reference to a “New World Order” (note the scary music at that link), and other fragments become essential touchstones. Scraps of information from disparate sources are pieced together to form an “irrefutable” patchwork.
The problem, of course, is separating the wheat from the chaff. One theory is absurd (and is therefore either the work of a lunatic, or a plant from the malevolent group itself), another is more plausible. The writers who try to keep themselves factually grounded use the same fiery language as those who are clearly unhinged. One photo renders a sympathetic interpretation and is published widely - another confuses or contradicts that interpretation, but is harder to find.
I’ll admit that this point is more of a complaint against conspiracy theory in general, rather than a reason why it’s useless, but I include it as a kind of corollary to my first point. Developing a nuanced idea of a global conspiracy is difficult (if it’s possible at all), and it takes a great deal of dedication in comparing information, sifting through nonsense, watching video clips, etc.
Compare this to reading a single book by Klein or Chomsky, both of whom cite their sources very heavily, and draw the damning facts primarily from mainstream media sources, press releases and memos, official speeches, and freedom of information requests. I’m not suggesting that the mainstream media doesn’t lie or omit information - it does - but in this case it gives any admission of guilt more weight, not less. I’m also not saying that Klein or Chomsky are gospel - only that they are far more accessible (and fact-based) than conspiracy theory, and that they have at least as much power to radicalize.
The world is in a very rough state of affairs, that much is clear. There’s no sense in cluttering up the view with shadowy global groups when the facts in front of us push us in the same direction. What’s more, you’ll have better luck convincing others when you can point to a solid stack of info. This is good, because we need all the help we can get.
Yeah, I remember ca 2002 Znet spent a lot of time debunking the 9/11 theories, I read somewhere like over a third of Americans believe in them, I can’t believe how they’ve made a comeback(to put it into perspective though they are popular around the world, like in Asia there are people that think the tsunami was deliberate.) I think anyone that believes there’s one singular power controlling the world’s events just hasn’t spent enough time learning how the world actually works.
This zine, while specific to antisemitic stereotypes gives examples of this problem in handy chart form on p21, in the left column there’s a sane evaluation of an actual policy, which then gets sensationalized and oversimplified and used for propaganda purposes. We just need to be disciplined and very specific about what we criticize.
Klein’s book is way better than her other ones, and more thoroughly researched, though maybe a little slow in parts. You have to look at the economic part as one factor in all of the crises she describes as opposed to the factor, but it’s really great, and covers a lot more ground than Iraq and post-9/11 stuff which is what she usually gets interviewed about. The chapter on post-apartheid South Africa was one of my favourites.
re: Obama, I can’t say I wasn’t relieved that Clinton didn’t win the nomination, and obviously the race thing is a huge deal, but the number of neocons and republicans that threw their support behind him is really disturbing to me, and I can’t be relieved about the end of the Bush dynasty when both parties legitimized the war on Iraq, patriot act etcetc. Besides that Biden is one of my least favourite democrats. The Obama camp’s tent is a huge one, big enough to include some truly vile people and if people want to be heard they should be demanding better now and not waiting for him to turn water into wine.
That goes for Americans though, those of us that aren’t should really be focused on our own guys;)
Nadia, thank you for posting! Sorry I wasn’t able to reply sooner - my weeks are often too busy to have a big enough block of time to think about anything serious. (Even now is gonna be a bit rushed.)
And I agree with you on pretty much all points. Conspiracy theory has a lot of the same aspects of “religious” thought/faith. My housemate and I were talking about how it is a means of taking an inherently disordered and chaotic system (the planet and humanity) and ascribing an element of order and control. God’s plan is replaced with The Conspiracy’s plan - with the added advantage that of course the conspiracy is malevolent, so the crises of religious faith that can be brought on by disasters have the opposite impact. Each act of terrorism/destruction/etc. is a “miracle” - proof of the Conspiracy’s existence. (The reason I didn’t mention this in the post was because, as I said, the point was to render conspiracy irrelevent, not to attempt to debunk it.)
I haven’t had a chance to look at the whole zine, but I did look at that chart just now. Thanks for the link! I guess the unfortunate thing is that even though the statements on the far left are very short and digestible (1-3 sentences), they lack the “soundbite” quality that makes a good slogan or talking point. Nuance is the first thing to get lost when someone is passionate about something - especially since the most passionate tend to take certain readings as given. To many who wind up saying things in the middle part of the chart, they’ve probably got the note on the left in their mind - they just go with the middle-line because it’s faster and more punchy. (That doesn’t make it okay, of course.)
I’m with you on Obama, and yes, of course, he is really none of our concern. I mentioned him more because, well, until this week, we didn’t even have a functioning government. It’s entirely possible that we still don’t (I’m not up on the latest developments). In terms of US foreign policy, I don’t expect a whole lot of change. We’ll see if he actually keeps that promise about pulling out of Iraq - especially given all the permanent bases the US has built there. The thing I’m most hoping for from Obama is a coherant climate policy. We really are fucked if the US (as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases - China may be about equal at this point, but per capita they still make three times less) doesn’t take a leading role. At the moment, though, his climate policy doesn’t have quite as many teeth as I think it needs. It’s a start, though.
No worries!
Well it’s interesting, I think it’s clear that alot of the more dramatic conspiracies rose in popularity because of some of the transparently ridiculous things the Bush admin were saying and doing lead people to be desperate for answers, so regardless of his politics maybe Obama will be a good thing on that level and people will stop freaking out so much, but we’ll see. And I mean I can’t say people living outside the US have no right to criticize them, especially considering how much they affect the world, but I think some of us up in the North use them as a vantage point to overlook our own problems. Maybe the Harper/Obama governments coinciding will alter people’s perspective on this, maybe not.
Slogans happen, and we should keep in mind that unfortunately any criticism can be twisted by nutcases on either side to legitimize their views, so we can’t let that stop us and I’m not saying that anyone that isn’t on the left column verbatim is a bigot or has bad intentions. But still, we should be able to understand what exactly the soundbite is referring to, so you can tell the difference between soundbites and pure sensationalization/demonization, but you’re right it’s a tricky science. being familiar with the stereotypes though will help you if you encounter some sketchy figures IRL, to recognize them for what they are. Fortunately the activists I’ve known have been really great at calling this stuff out.