I know the term “conspiracy theory” has a storied past, a bit of a bugaboo that causes eyes to roll. I will say enough nuance is already available if you do a modicum of research or go beyond what the mainstream presents. Still, if there happens to be even some small about of utility in a term, a concept, or a body of knowledge then I say it is worth going ahead and using that term.
After the events of 9-11, echoes of which we still feel today, someone said (Noam?) something to the effect that even if there was a conspiracy the effects of those events created a real-world situation that we are still dealing with. And those real world facts, the way state actors and institutions have reacted to those events is what most valuably should be discussed.
The 2016 presidential election is now rapidly receding into the rear view and we are fast approaching the 2020 election but still feel the Trump v. Clinton edition might provide knowledge and insight to us now despite those thoughts having a tinge of conspiracy theory.
The first point, the one actually dubbed a conspiracy - and the point that drives me to distraction - was the Democratic National Committee’s conspiracy against one Bernard Sanders.
I've had a lot of The Emperor's New Clothes” moments during the course of studying sociology and Sanders’ treatment, his response and the response of the nation apres to and up through now is, I guess, as flagrant as any nude emperor in the most stately dignified procession.
For propaganda, fact, or the middle ground between the two that comprises reality to be known it must be seen and that is why the media is so important - just the term itself, adkin to immediate, without media being involved explains the media’s importance as the state of being, ideas needing means of becoming material, becoming known. So when I read about he DNC i saw an outright conspiracy, the chain of which to get to the top was very short: the party leadership was (and still is) opposed to even the rhetoric of Sandres and the Democratic Party’s raison d’etre, and the Republican’s as well is allowing corporations to more readily make money. It takes two to do fascism’s tango - corporations and the government - and that dance is now being done.
The only problem with Bernie’s treatment being labeled a conspiracy or not was that the media is allied with 1) politics as it now exists - see their rating whilst covering Trump’s 2016 campaign - 2) allied with corporate interests because, well, they are corporate interests, and 3) the media more supports the Democratic wing of the War Party. So, any talk of conspiracy was solely being done on the fringe. This issue made it to the Bernie and Hillary debate stage with Bernie declaring that people “are sick of hearing about your damn emails”. Those emails described the conspiracy and Bernie supported his own political kneecapping.
Conspiracies are meant to be secret. Do the majority simply honor the intention of the criminals, seeing something is there but opting to turn a blind ey as some courtesy? This seems especially wrongheaded if they are victimized too. Living their lives as though they are not being plotted against as though everything is okay.
But an honest consideration of our situation demonstrates the ineffectiveness of protest. What I - the conspiracist - thinks is the right thing to do is bucking so many trends as to be impossible to change. The system is so entrenched, built on such a vast, multi-form base - with mechanisms like using opposition to further entrench, its propaganda game being strong - that discussion of changes becomes a discussion about fantasies.
Incremental change, they say, just do what you can do. The argument to use the existing structure to affect change in the structure being your best chance - using corrupted, yet extant, avenues. Is it a difference in cognition, some psychological quirk that makes the conspiracy believing/noticing person dig deeper, who are not happy being a passenger on this ride but want to control the vehicle, pull it over to the side of the road and see what is under the hood?
Conspiracies that claim popular - as popular as can be - attention deal with big events, big players. What is frustrating to a guy who is more interested than the average person is interested in conspiracies is that the causal chains for certain large events or policy maneuverings can be followed a great deal up, close to those metaphorical or literal smoky back rooms where the real levers of control are manipulated. And we see the outcomes where the results themselves may be traced backwards to the door of the smoky backroom. Those causal chains linking the past to an event or that link subsequent policy to the event are there to study. We conspiracists just want to open up the door and reveal those dark mechanisms.
I am torn about the proper understanding of conspiracies as I am of the proper understanding of mass psychology. Conspiracists go too far. They can make most of their arguments near to complete by using “above board” information like Noam Chomsky - he does garner appreciation even from critics. Conspiracists do reveal curious things, little details of the backroom proceedings but the picture will remain incomplete.
And this incompleteness is solved if you just go along with the herd, incompleteness erased once you side, even begrudgingly side, with the official narrative - you trade away some of you rationality for security and I can see why this might be the best choice being offered.
I am writing about the psyche of the country - that emperor's new clothes feeling - that feeling is a sense of wonder - dark wonder - which may be similar to if not synonymous with imagination and the sociological imagination, an old tern now, a qualifying of the simple imagination it takes imagination and applies it to society - this is an invitation to theory and theory’s counterfactuals, an imaging how things could be different. But, they are not different and social structures exist the way they do for a reason.
So, in place of the old term sociological imagination I deploy the term the structural functionalism imagination. How bedrock do you go to get your social theory? The deeper you go the closer to the archetypal you go - you end up with religious or religious-sounding truths, that man is evil, that man is good, that man is but an aspect of divinity expressing itself. Will understanding like this help in theorizing in the real world?
I must understand the world in terms of myself. I must understand that my motivations are structured by society alongside everyone else. That is the name of the game when it comes to perception, the eye describing itself but not capable of seeing itself, the “I” describing itself but not capable of seeing Itself.
Conspiracy theorists dig down to a deeper level. Or, well, at least they attempt to - that they discover and reveal aspects of themselves is more likely than that they reveal a real nugget of truth so solid and real and valuable that all are capable of seeing it - that is the type of thing conspiracy theorists seek with their excavations but instead they present gossamer, specimen lockers full of the finest shimmering gossamer, strands of truth, fantasy and ego braided together. And if the public at large cannot identify with the ego of that conspiracy theorist researcher themselves then the gossamer is disavowed, it is shunned, it is confusedly thrown back in the face of the researcher, his nugget of ore reduced to a glamor blinding him. Alchemy can change the outside world but must necessarily change the alchemist too.
A long way around to get back to my conspiracy, my lamp of truth: Bernie’s mistreatment at the hands of the DNC and how grave an offence this should be perceived by all as - perceived by all and not just me. But, as any true grotesque should, the conspiracy theorist’s ego is a mirror that others see themselves in - and they do not like what they see.
The conspiracy theorist must look into the motivations of the mainstream to find understanding and, with it, moderation.
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