“ ‘The conspiracy theory of history’ was in the 19th century a reactionary and ridiculous belief, at a time when so many social movements were stirring up the masses. Today’s pseudo-rebels are well aware of this, thanks to hearsay or a few books, and believe that it remains true for eternity. They refuse to recognize the real praxis of their time. . .” -Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988)
In provocation, timing is everything, along with a certain style and taste. Therefore I judge it a very good time to come up with a discussion that, it needs to be said, will not simply provoke for the sake of provocation, but provoke because there are things in our world of today that certainly are, as the phrase would have it, thought-provoking.
For instance, the threatened decommisioning of the 9/11 report by the Americans, and its apparent implications of the Saudi Arabian government, is surely something that would have been regarded as ‘not acceptable for discussion’ in some radical circles, even a few months ago, and yet, this is an undeniable recent fact. But once this comes out many will no doubt ask further questions about the help of other intelligence agencies, first of all, the Americans themselves, and secondly other close allies of the US, like the UK, Pakistan, Israel, and other Gulf monarchies. I think this bit of recent news is a good introduction to thinking about conspiracies, the conspiracy theory and its function in today’s world.
To begin, there are basically two popular conceptions among radicals relating to conspiracy theories, and I would summarize them as ‘too little’ and ‘too much’. For the first, these conspiratorial analyses are pooh-poohed in favor of “serious struggle” or it’s assumed that they “don’t matter anyways”. A slightly more Machiavellian conception would have it that such things might be true, but we can’t discuss them openly for fear of offending or alienating the masses, and so they are unprofitable in this regard. But I also find problematic this last spuriously realistic view, as conspiracy theories, according to various studies, have at least some mass grounding in many societies; and anyways it assumes a sort of role of guiding the bland masses, which I find problematic. This even goes into censorship, and while it’s not totally related, I read with interest an article from an aging Dutch Marxist1, complaining about being silenced for his conspiratorial thoughts:
“However, people at NLR [New Left Review] and other publications are (too) keen to be recognised by the mainstream and are allergic to the faintest hint of ‘conspiracy theory’, as if the incidence of terror attacks would be all spontaneous and there would not have been an infrastructure in place which at least seeks to influence the conjuncture of terror.”
This comes about, in my view, not only from a certain 19th century standpoint of outdated ideas, but also because (in a related, typically Anglophone fashion) they have confused respectability with popularity. What is respectable in today’s decomposing society (e.g. multiculturalism, identity politics, ‘reasonable’ denying of any conspiracy theory, austerity, neoliberal economics, electoralism etc.) is not very popular at all. If we are serious about trying to make some broader influence, we should not be limited by the all-too fragile search for respectability of the Marxists in academia. Actually, I truly believe that ‘crazy anarchy’ of burning cars and riots is much less respectable, but much more popular, than the (generally Anglophone) efforts to present things as if society could be reasonably talked into social revolution during a brief chat, providing we avoid some sensitive topics.
On the other hand, on the side of ‘too much’, we wind up in paranoiac paralysis (in the best case, if not spinning off into sighting UFOs, etc.). Because the modern State has quite a lot of power, it gets credited as having total control over all events, even those of an antagonistic political character. Then the smallest molotov or stone thrown becomes the work of provocateurs, and more proof of the hopelessness of resistance. Everything fits into the plans of the (depending on your taste, Masonic/Illuminati/ Soros/NWO etc.) elite. This is basically where Debord wound up in his old age, and it’s surely not an agreeable or very productive place to be. This represents mental defeat before the battle has even commenced, and becomes in this way a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But from these two views, wrong in different ways for their lack of moderation, I would hope to make a sort of synthesis between them, taking what is valuable and leaving what is not. With that said, let’s begin our further research on this ‘murky business‘ of modern society.
Surely a basic analysis should come from the country that has mainly created the contemporary ‘meme’ of conspiracy theories, the US. If one reads the conspiracy sites a bit, it’s clear that this is something like the death agony of a certain way of life. Because sometimes these don’t go in a clearly reactionary or traditionally ‘right-wing’ direction, and you can find a real opposing ideological grab-bag, as the arguments are often combined with a large degree of intellectual eclecticism, and this utopic free-market neoliberalism, this faith you can almost only find existing in the US (along with other outlandish beliefs like Mormonism, Scientology, etc.). This is sort of a local conservatism unsure of itself and intellectually confused, combined with some occasional pacifist/left/anti-imperialist influence.
There is also a great deal of nostalgia for some sort of constitutional rights and liberties (generally of the 2nd amendment variety). Generally though, most of the conspiracy websites (as far as I’ve seen) don’t seem capable to resist Trump, which is a bit sad, as it seems that despite all their rhetoric, perhaps they just wanted a clumsy and irrational authority. This points to the highly American character of most conspiracies (after all the largest debates concern Sept. 11), and this makes sense, as everything nowadays is being Americanized. Whereas in the past, certain conspiracy theories were quite well-accepted amongst the Left (e.g. the Nazis burning the Reichstag and faking a Polish attack justifying their invasion of that country, or Castro’s conspiratorial view of Kennedy’s demise) while other opposing conspiracy theories (frequently anti-Semitic) were accepted amongst the far-right. In general we would find more historical reality in dividing such a large term by saying, “which supposed conspiracy, and what proposed theory?”.
There are also more recent confirmed minor conspiracy theories that have some value- for instance, the rigging of the precious metals markets (LIBOR scandal, etc.) has geopolitical implications, in regards to gold as a denominator of currency (the free-floating US dollar, against the recently gold-backed Chinese yuan). Wikileaks, in regards to the NSA (and recently the CIA), has confirmed a lot of what has been thought about capacities for gathering intelligence from computers and cell phones. So too, with the ongoing cycle of supposed tawdry revelations about Trump, these reveal both something believable about Trump, but also the truly hypocritical, deeply sick Puritan mindset of the American intelligence agencies. So, these are just a few examples, and they are not so controversial. It serves to reason as, after all, what is rotten at the top must be rotten beneath, and so too, what is rotten at its foundation, can’t be stable at its height. As Debord wrote, concerning the growth of assassinations and conspiracies in his time:
“The syndrome of this newly established social disease has spread quickly, as if, following the first documented cases, it moved down from the summits of the state (the traditional sphere for such crimes) and at the same times moved up from the lower depths, the other traditional locale for trafficking and protection rackets, where this kind of war has always gone on between professionals. These activities tend to meet up in the middle of social affairs, a place where the state was prepared to frequent and which the Mafia was pleased to reach; thus a kind of confluence begins.”
I suppose some might be asking, what practical relevance does this all have? For myself, it would be something like a call to concretely evaluate every large event, not simply believing or disbelieving it. It would be something like the sharpening of a strategic understanding. And to avoid extremes: I would hope that in a radical space given over to dismissing any conception of conspiracy, this article could point to at least a few interesting facts of recent times; in a radical space given to endless paranoid analysis, that this could serve as a call to more healthy and practical actions, as a sort of “yes, and what of it?”. So too, in speaking of its middle character, we might say that many of the spectacular terror events, are probably not teleguided or fabricated, but allowed to happen. I mean that a plot is hatched by various people with many ‘red flags’ going up, they are watched, but on the day of the event, there is also a massive simultaneous simulation of a terrorist attack, or a strange malfunction in the computer systems, and they pass to action. Perhaps the old society is like Winston in 1984, who still assumes the rockets landing from time to time were authentic, whereas the younger and more worldly Julia, assumes they are sent by the Party itself.
But again, and here I would agree with many, the real critique and overcoming of the conspiracy theory would be saying that, whether believing or skeptical, this should not function as some sort of article of faith, where we join the elect or the impure, depending on the view. I suppose of actual value is simply the realization that the old method of politics, and a certain softness that went with it, have gone out the window. “Gentlemen don’t read each others’ mail” indignantly exclaimed an American statesman in the 1930’s, when these tactics began to be applied in a general way. But nowadays, the NSA has been spying on everyone’s mail and phones for years. The most worrying is the realization that in modern society, the secret police and repressive skills inherited from the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, have now ensconced themselves behind the diffuse veils of parliament, social-democracy, legality, the media and academia, consumerism, etc.
And I suppose to realize that the integrated spectacle, or in its organizational terms, the mafia-state, comes more and more to makes its appearance, as the modern State begins to collapse back into its origins, one band of robbers among others. The growth of conspiracy theories are quite obviously correlated to the growth of official conspiracies, reeds that shoot up from this swamp of decay; and these two symptoms, are in their turn just part of the larger lack of reason and meaning in a dying, irrational and decadent society. “Society can no longer be governed strategically”. Far from being a proof of the omnipotence of the modern state, some all-too real conspiracies and their all-too muddled theories in their own way, merely attest to its fatal sickness. This is how the Emperors of today (like those of the past) to cure this malady, only make it worse, by drinking a false alchemical medicine, full of arsenic and mercury. For a good example, the only ‘classical’ power further back in the past that flirted with such devious tentatives, Romanov Russia, collapsed in military defeat and popular revolution. Let’s have this be the image and thought we end on, to close our thinking about conspiracies, what they signify, and where they lead. . .
Endnotes 1 http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2602-social-democracy-has-been-exhaustedkees-van-der-pijl-on-marxism-barbarism-and-prospects-for-left-renewal
p64-69, March 2017