The church was intimidated. Academe succumbed to discipline. Sharing this view, Goebbels presided over the immolation of national culture. Einstein and Freud were reviled. He, too, insisted that the truth was what he said it was, endorsing the bogus science of the agronomist Trofim Lysenko , denouncing the mathematician Nikolai Luzin as a wrecker, and killing astronomers for taking a non-Marxist line on sunspots.
Conjuring with the dialectic, Stalin maintained that the greatest saboteurs were those who committed no sabotage and that the monstrous apparatus of Soviet repression assisted the withering away of the state. This driver of the locomotive of history shunted backwards as well as forwards: He put on elaborate charades to fool foreign travellers and fellow travellers: Truth was further occluded by faith and fear. In the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, Arthur Koestler observed some of the worst horrors of the famine but affirmed they were products of the capitalist past, whereas the few hopeful signs pointed to a communist utopia.
Even in the gulag, Eugenia Ginzburg wrote, people refused to believe the evidence of their senses: In the shadow of the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, the most hardened sceptic paid lip service to the veracity of the newspaper Pravda Truth — lying, Russians joked, like an eyewitness. Universal mendacity, said Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , was the only safe form of existence. Against a background of turmoil and stress, propaganda dissolved certainties and warped perceptions. Power created hallucinations, dreams of golden mountains. Dual consciousness flourished, which Orwell dubbed doublethink.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - Wikipedia
At public meetings, and even in private conversations, citizens were obliged to repeat in ritual fashion grotesque falsehoods about themselves, the world, and the Soviet Union, and at the same time to keep silent about things they knew very well, not only because they were terrorised but because the incessant repetition of falsehoods which they knew to be such made them accomplices in the campaign of lies inculcated by the party and the state.
The world was especially confused by the show trials choreographed by Stalin during the Great Purge. The crimes to which the defendants confessed were so fantastic that their guilt seemed inconceivable. Yet, as the economist John Maynard Keynes said: A number of well-informed observers took the charges at face value, while others dismissed the entire proceedings as a cruel piece of agitprop.
Many foreigners, lacerated by more immediate troubles, took the clash of opinion as a licence to withhold judgment. Seeing things straight was made even more difficult in the west by revelations about the activities of British propagandists during the first world war. Americans found evidence that they had been inveigled into the conflict by a transatlantic campaign of deception, which strengthened the isolationist case during the s.
Britons discovered that there was no substance to most of the more lurid atrocity stories — about crucified soldiers, raped nuns, dismembered babies and, notoriously, about the German factory for rendering corpses into fat. The Labour politician Arthur Ponsonby gave voice to the widespread outrage: As a result of the exposure of its crude fabrications, British propaganda was relatively genteel during the s — typified by the British Council, the BBC, cinema newsreels and the Times.
These organs of the establishment manipulated opinion discreetly, but effectively. Sometimes these subterfuges rang hollow: The US government also acted with some finesse. Elsewhere, reflecting local circumstances, propaganda was more strident. New depths of falsification were plumbed during the Spanish civil war. But Gallic festivals of fraternity, despite dramatic special effects such as skywriting, were tame beside the brutal pageants staged beneath the red flag and the swastika.
Indeed, as Richard Hofstadter has pointed out, conspiracist literature often mimics the apparatus of source citation and evidence presentation found in conventional scholarship: But the obsessive quest for proof masks a deeper problem: This paradox occurs because conspiracy theories are at their heart nonfalsifiable.
No matter how much evidence their adherents accumulate, belief in a conspiracy theory ultimately becomes a matter of faith rather than proof. Conspiracy theories resist traditional canons of proof because they reduce highly complex phenomena to simple causes. This is ordinarily a characteristic much admired in scientific theories, where it is referred to as "parsimony.
Precisely because the claims are so sweeping, however, they ultimately defeat any attempt at testing. Conspiracists' reasoning runs in the following way.
Because the conspiracy is so powerful, it controls virtually all of the channels through which information is disseminated-universities, media, and so forth. Further, the conspiracy desires at all costs to conceal its activities, so it will use its control over knowledge production and dissemination to mislead those who seek to expose it. Hence information that appears to put a conspiracy theory in doubt must have been planted by the conspirators themselves in order to mislead.
The result is a closed system of ideas about a plot that is believed not only to be responsible for creating a wide range of evils but also to be so clever at covering its tracks that it can manufacture the evidence adduced by skeptics. In the end, the theory becomes nonfalsifiable, because every attempt at falsification is dismissed as a ruse. The problem that remains for believers is to explain why they themselves have not succumbed to the deceptions, why they have detected a truth invisible to others.
This they do through several stratagems. They may claim to have access to authentic pieces of evidence that have somehow slipped from the conspirators' control and thus provide an inside view. Such documents have ranged from The Protocols to UFO documents that purport to be drawn from highly classified government files.
Another stratagem is to distance themselves ostentatiously from mainstream institutions. By claiming to disbelieve mass media and other sources, believers can argue that they have avoided the mind control and brainwashing used to deceive the majority. This also accounts in part for their fondness for what in the following chapter I call stigmatized knowledge-that is, knowledge claims that run counter to generally accepted beliefs. The connection made between conspiracy and paranoia has two interrelated origins.
The first, and more general, source is the similarity between the delusional systems of paranoids and the plots imagined by conspiracy theorists. Kennedy's assassination and published in its final form in Hofstadter sought to make clear that his use of paranoid was metaphorical rather than literal and clinical. Indeed, he argued that, unlike the clinical paranoid, the political paranoid believes that the plot is directed not against himself or herself personally, but "against a nation, a culture, a way of life whose fate affects not himself alone but millions of others.
Unlike Hofstadter, some have argued that the clinical and the political may overlap.
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Robert Robins and Jerrold Post assert that the domain of political paranoia encompasses a range of exemplars, including such clinical paranoids as James Forrestal and Joseph Stalin; borderline paranoids whose "delusion is likely to involve exaggeration and distortion of genuine events and rational beliefs rather than pure psychotic invention"; and cultures in which, at least temporarily, conspiracy beliefs become a culturally defined norm. In this view, conspiracy beliefs become neither determinative of paranoia nor divorced from it.
Instead, conspiracism straddles a blurred and shifting boundary between pathology and normalcy. The precise nature of the relation between conspiracism and paranoia is unlikely to be definitively determined, if only because the two concepts are subject to varying definitions, depending on theoretical orientation. The effect of introducing such terms as paranoid into the discussion of conspiracism is double-edged. On the one hand, the connection-whether metaphorical or literal-captures the belief that devotees of conspiracy theory have severed important ties with a realistic and accurate view of the world.
They inhabit a world of the mind more orderly than the world that "is. Indeed, it seems clear that Hofstadter utilized it precisely because of its judgmental quality. Its overtones are such that its use, even in careful hands, runs the risk of merely labeling people whose ideas we disapprove of.
In addition to his ruminations about the suspicious tendency of political paranoids, Hofstadter also linked the paranoid style to millennialism. He noted that the millenarian figures described in such works as Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium manifested precisely the complex of plots and fears that Hofstadter called the "paranoid style. Conspiracism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for millennialism. It is not a necessary condition, because some millenarian movements lack significant conspiracist components. For instance, Millerite Second Adventism in the s, perhaps the most significant American millenarian movement of the nineteenth century, never constructed a major conspiracist structure.
Millerism-named after its founder, Baptist preacher William Miller-coalesced around Miller's interpretation of biblical prophecy. According to him, Christ would return to earth sometime between March 21, , and March 21, When the latter date passed without an end-time event, his followers persuaded Miller to accept a revised deadline of October 22, On that date, the "Great Disappointment" destroyed the movement, but not before it had attracted tens of thousands of supporters throughout the Northeast, including prominent abolitionists and evangelicals. The movement attempted to maintain a harmonious relationship with existing Protestant churches, and only in a late phase did adherents heed the call to "come out of Babylon" by withdrawing from their congregations.
Likewise, conspiracism is not a sufficient condition for millennialism, for all conspiracism does is to impose a strongly dualistic vision on the world. It does not necessarily guarantee that good will triumph or predict that such a triumph will mean the perfection of the world. Indeed, conspiracism can sometimes lead to an antimillenarian conclusion, in which the evil cabal is depicted as virtually invincible.
Fixation on a conspiracy the indestructible tentacles of which are alleged to extend everywhere can give rise to the belief that the forces of good are perilously close to defeat. Some conspiracy-minded survivalists have retreated into the wilderness, at least in part because they fear that if they do not, they risk being destroyed. Despite the absence of a systematic connection between conspiracy and millennialism, the two are in fact often linked. Many millenarian movements are strongly dualistic, and often ascribe to evil a power believed to operate conspiratorially.
As Stephen O'Leary notes, "The discourses of conspiracy and apocalypse Hence the two can exist in a symbiotic relationship, in which conspiracism predisposes believers to be millennialists and vice versa, though each can exist independently. They are thus best viewed as mutually reinforcing. There is reason to believe that conspiracy theories are now more common elements of millennialism than they were in the past.
In chapter 2, I describe a shift in millenarian "style" that I believe accounts for their increasing prominence. The traditional religious and secular-ideological styles have now been joined by a third variety, which I call the improvisational style. Religious and secular millennialism, however different they are from each other, have two common characteristics: Religious and secular millennialism have certainly not been immune to conspiratorial ideas, but they have normally adopted only those grounded in the particular vocabulary of a specific tradition.
Thus, Christian millennialists could develop conspiracy ideas by elaborating the scriptural Antichrist, while Marxists could develop notions of a capitalist plot.
Death of truth: when propaganda and 'alternative facts' first gripped the world
Neither religionists nor secularists, however, could easily construct conspiracy theories not already rooted in their own texts and traditions. Improvisational millennialism, by contrast, has a much freer hand. It is by definition an act of bricolage, wherein disparate elements are drawn together in new combinations. Such belief systems have become increasingly common since the s, and freed as they are from the constraints of any single tradition, they may incorporate conspiracist motifs whatever their origin.
As we shall see, this has given conspiracy theories an unprecedented mobility among a wide range of millenarian systems. Because improvisational millennialisms are bricolages, they can be treated both holistically and in terms of their constituent elements. The latter become particularly important, as they can appear simultaneously in a broad range of belief systems, having a slightly different significance in each, depending on the other elements with which they are combined. The chapters that follow examine a series of conspiratorial ideas both individually and in combination, among them concentration camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA , implanted mind-control devices, and the Illuminati.
Each can be separately traced, as well as related to other ideas with which it may appear, and each moves among different audiences. Because the dualism inherent in conspiracy ideas makes them ideal vehicles for apocalyptic anxieties, their prevalence in the years leading up to was scarcely surprising. The nature of conspiracy ideas can best be illuminated through the category of folklore known as the urban legend.
According to one of its most prominent students, Jan Harold Brunvand, "Urban legends belong to the subclass of folk narratives, legends, that-unlike fairy tales-are believed, or at least believable, and that-unlike myths-are set in the recent past and involve normal human beings rather than ancient gods or demigods.
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Turner points out, urban legends-those that deal with distinctively modern themes-are closely related to rumors. Both purport to be true, or at least to be believable, and both circulate rapidly, though legends are likely to be more long-lived and complex. Beliefs that originally circulate as rumors may subsequently appear as elements of legends. There is, however, one complication in dealing with conspiracy beliefs as urban legends: The bias of folklorists is toward oral transmission as the primary medium.
Legend texts are often secured in tape-recorded examples with accompanying data about the teller and how he or she learned the story. Conspiracy ideas clearly circulate widely in oral form, as evidenced by Turner's important study of conspiracy legends in the African-American community; but the media-rich, technologically sophisticated society that exists in both the United States and other developed countries opens up new avenues for transmission.
Brunvand, writing in , conceded that "today's legends are also disseminated by the mass media. Despite predictions to the contrary, technology and industrialization have not necessarily destroyed traditions but have altered the ways that traditions are expressed and communicated, and have helped to generate and perpetuate new types of folklore. Conspiracy ideas are particularly prevalent in what I call the realm of stigmatized knowledge-knowledge claims that have not been validated by mainstream institutions.
Subcultures dominated by belief in some form of stigmatized knowledge-such as those defined by commitments to political radicalism, occult and esoteric teaching, or UFOs and alien beings-are therefore most likely to nurture conspiracy ideas. These are also precisely the kinds of subcultures most attracted to the Internet.
The Internet is attractive because of its large potential audience, the low investment required for its use, and-most important-the absence of gatekeepers who might censor the content of messages. To some extent, of course, the subcultures referred to above have access to conventional mass media. They publish books and periodicals, though these are often restricted to distribution by mail or only the largest book stores, which may also screen out overtly anti-Semitic or racist material.
Access to radio and television appears limited to shortwave stations and community-access cable channels. There have been, to be sure, exceptions, such as the newspaper The Spotlight, once the right-wing publication with the largest circulation in the United States, and which ceased publication in ; and the Australian New Age-conspiracy magazine Nexus.
For the most part, however, stigmatized knowledge subcultures are at a distinct disadvantage as far as mass media are concerned, for the latter are precisely the mainstream institutions best positioned to confer stigma on certain knowledge claims, including those that are overtly conspiracist. This contempt is reciprocated by conspiracists themselves. Not only do conspiracists distrust the mass media as distorters and concealers of the truth; they also regard them as part of the conspiracy, a tool controlled by the plotters in order to mislead the public.
Consequently, those whose worldview is built around conspiracy ideas find in the Internet virtual communities of the like-minded. Copyright and other issues of intellectual property appear to count for little among many who engage in Internet posting. Multiple versions of the same document are likely to appear in various places, some identical, some slightly different, some with annotations by the poster.
The result is not unlike the variant accounts of urban legends that circulate by word of mouth. Unlike oral versions, however, all of the variants may in principle be simultaneously accessible to the Web surfer, who may then be tempted to judge the credibility of a story by the number of times it is told. Here repetition substitutes for direct evidence as a way of determining veracity.
The dynamics of rumor provides a helpful analogy, for it is in the nature of rumors to appear precisely in those situations in which normal means of determining reliability are not available, so the potential consumer of rumors may end up determining truth on the basis of how widely a particular one circulates. This gives to rumors-and, by extension, to Internet conspiracy accounts-a self-validating quality.
The more a story is told, and the more often people hear it, the more likely they are to believe it. In a somewhat different way, search engines' placement of a page in a list of responses can reflect searchers' preferences. Google, for example, ranks pages produced in response to a search on the basis of both the page's content and the frequency with which it is linked to other pages.
The more frequently other pages include it as a link, and the more prominent the pages that include the link, the higher the placement. This communications milieu, in which self-validating rumors and urban legends can spread with unrivaled rapidity, has had particularly important implications for the spread of millenarian and apocalyptic beliefs. The result has been millennialism that is not only pervasive but increasingly varied in form. While many of the older religious and ideological forms remain-as, for example, among fundamentalist Protestants-these have been joined by many other varieties that resist easy classification.
These are the examples I call improvisational millennialism, and it is to improvisational millennialism that conspiracists have most often been drawn. American society has changed dramatically since A Culture of Conspiracy was first published in What do UFO believers, Christian millennialists, and right-wing conspiracy theorists have in common? According to Michael Barkun in this fascinating yet disturbing book, quite a lot.
It is well known that some Americans are obsessed with conspiracies. The Kennedy assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the terrorist attacks have all generated elaborate stories of hidden plots. What is far less known is the extent to which conspiracist worldviews have recently become linked in strange and unpredictable ways with other "fringe" notions such as a belief in UFOs, Nostradamus, and the Illuminati.
Unraveling the extraordinary genealogies and permutations of these increasingly widespread ideas, Barkun shows how this web of urban legends has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media, how a new style of conspiracy thinking has recently arisen, and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture. This book, written by a leading expert on the subject, is the most comprehensive and authoritative examination of contemporary American conspiracism to date.
Barkun discusses a range of material-involving inner-earth caves, government black helicopters, alien abductions, secret New World Order cabals, and much more-that few realize exists in our culture. Looking closely at the manifestations of these ideas in a wide range of literature and source material from religious and political literature, to New Age and UFO publications, to popular culture phenomena such as The X-Files, and to websites, radio programs, and more, Barkun finds that America is in the throes of an unrivaled period of millenarian activity. His book underscores the importance of understanding why this phenomenon is now spreading into more mainstream segments of American culture.
It has been sixteen years since the Twin Towers collapsed, forever changing the physical and emotional landscape of those who call the United States their home, and those worldwide who stand in …. The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement revised edition and Disaster and the Millennium , among other books. Preface Preface to the First Edition 1. The Nature of Conspiracy Belief 2.
Millennialism, Conspiracy, and Stigmatized Knowledge 3.