tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post7072250410634769954..comments2024-03-21T22:36:54.451-04:00Comments on HISTORIES OF THINGS TO COME: Syria's 10,000 Year Layers of RealityLC Douglasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-87852874452908339372012-07-21T23:43:01.778-04:002012-07-21T23:43:01.778-04:00... Instead of anti-Semitism, one could pick any n...... Instead of anti-Semitism, one could pick any number of recognizable narratives in popular gossip (for example, during early modern witch trials; or the rumours around Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution; or for a really hair-raising and fascinating recent example, try the Hutu vs/ Tutsi dehumanizing pre-genocidal gossip that morphed, post-genocide, into fears of alien visitations) and recognize them for what they are. The bits of half-truths married to fantasy that exist in conspiracy theories are not literal truths; nor are they conveying the voice of emancipation and free speech. If anything, they convey a benighted and enslaved viewpoint. The hostile concepts slotted into conspiracy discourses are always inserted just at the instant that the momentum in a debate needs to consolidate and move in a certain direction. It is better not to think of them as in any way true, but rather as authoritative communicative mechanisms used to bend popular behaviour and to solidify group alliances. Conspiracy theories are NOT a sign of people showing that they can think for themselves; theorists do indeed feel and claim they are, I know, but these ideas lead one straight to the opposite, to people who are not thinking for themselves, but in the service of others.<br /><br />Now that does not mean that I am saying that the MSM version of what happens is 'true.' One can be equally skeptical of official media reports, which are now generally biased (as one blog reader, pblfsda, pointed out in the comments in the recent post here on the BBC World Service). <br /><br />I do not lump all nonstandard rants under the label of conspiracy theory. I think that one should come to information, repugnant or not, with an open mind, sift through it and try to weigh conclusions in as objective manner as possible. Of course, no person is objective, but one must try. As a result, I read a great deal of stuff with which I do not agree, just to hear other perspectives. I also read a lot of stuff which is 'out there' and definitely off the radar of conventional academics. This blog is an exercise in trying to understand phenomena which are forbidden from, or discouraged from, serious study in official academia.<br /><br />At the end of the day, I would consider a conspiracy theory to be something that (a) points to shadowy powerful actors who control large parts of the world (however the scope of that world is defined for the intended audience, be it the next village or the global marketplace); (b) something that seamlessly seems to explain a lot of difficult and troubling problems in a very easily comprehensible way, due to the agency of actors in (a); (c) conveys to the believer a gnostic or Randian or othewise empowering characterization through the belief in secret, special and liberating higher knowledge; (d) alleviates the believer of individual responsibility for some social ill or source of anxiety and plants that responsibility on the shoulders of others. <br /><br />Real knowledge is incomplete and painful. I feel that it leaves one wondering and grappling with self-doubt because one has engaged with something difficult and messy. Yes, it is possible to argue out of analysis that that a general trend did happen. But it is not a sure thing.<br /><br />Finally, is this all Millennial? I think the Internet accelerated pre-existing patterns that Orwell recognized.LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-24759107983933676002012-07-21T23:35:31.987-04:002012-07-21T23:35:31.987-04:00Ah, that is a complex remark you left, Anon, thank...Ah, that is a complex remark you left, Anon, thank you. Regarding the opposing disinformation remark: I was making specific reference to a passage of Orwell's writing in which he talks about the death of history during the Spanish Civil War. It came about in a conversation with Koestler in 1936 (the related link is above in the post). Orwell observed that biased history had always existed. This is history of the kind you point to, running back to Antiquity, and well before that. In the 1970s-1990s, there was a push to find the voices of the voiceless members of history, those whose stories were not told due to bias, and assumptions deriving from power imbalances based on class, gender, race, etc.<br /><br />All well and good. I take your point. But Orwell distinguished between biased history and fake history. He observed that prior to the Spanish Civil War, everyone had more or less agreed and always (always!) accepted that there was a common reality. One might lie about it, bend it, be biased about it. But no one thought they could just erase it, or act like an event that everyone knew occurred simply did not matter at any level (recorded or not) compared to what the media said existed. <br /><br />Orwell observed that fake reality (which could have, but needed, no basis whatsoever in actual reality) could be virtually created and any regime could gain power from forcing people to subscribe to that fake reality. It was this total departure from reality that so disturbed him, the mentality that could say and believe that 2+2=5.<br /><br />Now regarding anti-Semitic burblings on the Web as the independent and otherwise oppressed thoughts of the little man: I am sorry, but no, that one will not fly here.<br /><br />The themes that pop up in conspiracy theory chatter on the Web have a long history and are continually reinvented in new forms. I don't know if someone has compared them to the spread of myths, fairy tales and urban legends, but someone should. I would not be surprised if conspiracy theories behave very similarly to urban legends. ...LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-19552805474717037412012-07-18T15:56:27.802-04:002012-07-18T15:56:27.802-04:00"because of opposing disinformation campaigns..."because of opposing disinformation campaigns, independent reality disappears."<br /><br />But is that really Millenial? Did anyone publish "independent reality" in the wars of the deep past? So Augustus tells his people a story about how rotten Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra are just before setting out with a big army to conquer them. Maybe some clever people in the crowd notice that recently they were all allies and told different stories. They could have thought all sorts of things, but we'll never know because their thoughts weren't published. Maybe that's the difference between then and now. Today, these thoughts are published. Blogs are cheaper and more plentiful than Roman scribes. Even if these ideas don't get around to many people, and even if they get disparaged by those who do see them, as you've done with this particular theorist's rant, the thoughts can get published.<br /><br />We are perpetually told in this culture what a disease it is to have this will to disbelieve. All the nonstandard rants are lumped together under the broad monolithic label "conspiracy theory" and associated with noxious things like antisemitism. You could just as easily applaud people's ability, however strange they are, to think independently, even under the endless barrage of tendentious accounts, each one paid for by some party with a dog in the fight. Maybe it's proof that a flicker of human independence still remains.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com