• Conspiracy Theories

This article on 911 conspiracy theories is worth reading : Professors of Paranoia by John Gravois.


Unfortunately it just dismisses the people involved as loonies instead of trying to understand why quite sane people are attracted to such obviously looney ideas. The key lies in these sentences:

They feel sure the post-9/11 era is built on a lie.. 

Well, it is, and that's bound to cause cognitive dissonance.

When history ceases to resemble a train of conflicts and ambiguities and becomes instead a series of disinformation campaigns, you sense that a basic self-correcting mechanism of thought has been disabled. A bridge is out, and paranoia yawns below.

 Again, current history has become a series of disinformation campaigns. The dislocation between the beliefs of "opinion leaders" and those of policy makers is so wide it disables the normal mechanisms by which people can participate in political analysis and debate.

Some reasons why people might believe conspiracy theories:

1) They provide the intellectual justification for a gut sense of overwhelming caution, in turn caused by the enormous local repressive power of modern states. (They couldn't just crush a real revolution overnight, but they can throw you in jail right now).

2) After Nixon's impeachment, it was impossible for USAians (pronouned you-ess-ay-uhns) to maintain the previous sense of mass affluent-working-class['middle class', as they called themselves] reverence for the political system. The sense of reverence turned not into a rational analysis of the ruling class and its structure, but into a sense of mass cynicism and paranoia, or an even more widespread lack of interest or connection.

3) Sections of the ruling class encourage such cynicism when it arises in mass culture, because it suits them to appear more powerful than they are.

4) The pseudo-left encourages viewpoints that build up the USA as the 'Great Satan', to increase newspaper sales, recruiting and so on. While their leadership probably do not harbour the wilder conspiracy theories themselves, they do not see it as their political project or interest to break down this style of thinking.


What sort of activist culture could help to make fewer people accept conspiracy theories?

You'd have to have stories, films, TV shows, books etc that showed people actually thinking concrete problems through, understanding the factors, and winning battles.

Perhaps a drama set in an immediately-post-revolution society.

You'd have to have writers, production values etc as good as those on the top TV drama shows today. (Law and Order, not Days of our Lives).

Obviously you'd be starting with cheaper genres first though - writing, podcast drama, short viedo pieces distributed only on the Net. The idea would be to build up a story/ies that become popular enough to get funding for big-time media like prime time TV or top-release movies.

How much rope would they sell us? Could a show with such an agenda get an airing, because a certain small group of capitalists saw immediate profit in it, even while it undermined their own class interests?

Well I doubt very much that we would ever be in a position to be funded for a prime time series. The only time the bourgeoisie comes up with funding for some sort of production with a strongly progressive theme is when the events it is based on  have become part of history (ie after we've won) or when there is a united front in which a whole section of the bourgoisie is temporarily on the side of an oppressed group.

The latter situation does occur quite often and with regard to the Middle East we are in such a situation now.  However its not really a united front as it's completely under the control of the one section of the bourgeoise that is far-sighted enough to realise that   democratization in the Middle East is now in its own interests.  The genuine left plays no significant role.  With the bourgeoise in charge,  people have been subject to a huge misinformation campaign  beginning with lies about WMD's and continuing with all sorts of other pretences ("we are fighting a war on terror", "we will support Israel forever" etc etc).

I agree with Arthur that  "current history has become a series of disinformation campaigns. The dislocation between the beliefs of "opinion leaders" and those of policy makers is so wide it disables the normal mechanisms by which people can participate in political analysis and debate.".

The policy makers (ie the neocons) have turned US foreign policy on its head but the opinion leaders don't seem to get it  at all.    They continue to churn out  material  based on the assumption that US policy is pretty much the same as it ever was.    This presumably suits the neo-cons to quite an extent (despite the reduction in their popularity).  It's presumably pretty important for them to have the public perception of their policy change happen by degrees (especially with regard to Palestine).  That of course is the reason for all the lies along the way.

However the impact on  people is one of enormous confusion because in the current situation there isn't a genuine debate going on.  There is only  the crap from opinion leaders about how terrible everything is and the more positive  neo-con posoition,  which although at times quite subtle and deep,  uses the language of US imperialism.


Without a genuine debate in which the issues can become  clear and understandable, people (obviously!) have trouble making sense of things.   They (correctly) don't trust their leaders but they want a theory, any theory which seems to make sense of things. 

I think humans have a great cognitive (and emotional) need for things to make sense.  This is not the same as saying that people are naturally "scientific", "objective" or "rational".  I think that to some extent these attributes of human thought are "unnatural" and still emerging (as a result of the demands of being increasingly civilised

However it's fundamentally important for people to see the world around them as making sense in terms of  not being just a random swirl of events happening for no apparent reason.  That's why the invention of religion by early humans was a sign of intelligence. Only humans search for reasons...

I'd put conspiracy theories on a similar level - they are the inevitable product of trying to make sense of a confusing world.

I agree with the general thrust of keza's analysis of the deeper reason for popularity of conspiracy theories:

Without a genuine debate in which the issues can become clear and understandable, people (obviously!) have trouble making sense of things. They (correctly) don't trust their leaders but they want a theory, any theory which seems to make sense of things.

 What follows of course is that we have to focus on making the issues clear and understandable by insisting on genuine debate...


On youngmarxists point 1) about conspiracy theories providing a rationale for "overwhelming caution", I assume that's referring to people using paranoid ravings about police states and the matrix to make themselves feel better about not standing up and actually rebelling about anything by implying that they are somehow being brave to even say such things  - and if they did more they would be locked up. Although that tendency clearly exists I would not emphasize it too much.  Some people with paranoid conspiracy theories do try to rebel and most people who are passive and cynical do not justify this on the basis of paranoia about repression.


But I'm struck by the possibility of another connection with "overwhelming caution". The desire for a theory (any theory) that makes sense of things may perhaps be linked with an "overwhelming caution" about genuine debate (which initially leads to only more confusion and discarding of comfortable illusions). There clearly is a very real fear of genuine debate. People putting forward various political lines (both conspiracy theories and others) quiite simply do not want to debate them at all, but merely to disseminate them and get angry with people who don't think the same way.


That is also true of this web site which is not making any attempt to debate other views. Since they don't want to debate us we ought to be totally focussed on how to force them to, against their will, rather than comfortably retreating into talking to ourselves.


The proposal for an "activist culture" based on cultural media "showing" examples of people thinking through concrete problems and winning battles etc may be a reflection of this, and the "obstacle" of lack of funding for such media may be similar to the imaginary obstacle of repression faced (or not faced) by conspiracy theorists.


I also had that reaction to the earlier proposals for stickers, which hasn't gone anywhere but struck me as yet another diversion from the need to seriously debate opposing views.

 An activist culture of "people actually thinking concrete problems through, understanding the factors, and winning battles" has to actually exist before you can have culture media "showing" it. We need to be out there forcing people to debate concrete problems, and thus forcing both our opponents and ourselves to deepen our understanding of the relevant factors in order to win the debates and so win the battles.


On point 2, I think it is the crisis on the left that has to be explained rather than the crisis in the ruling class.


Mass cynicism and paranoia towards the ruling class would have very different results if it was not accompanied by mass cynicism and paranoia about "politics", and especially revolutionary left politics.


Point 3 is central to how we should debate the pseudo-left - ie treating them as an expression of that ruling class promotion of cynicism and being awestruck at the "power" of a moribund ruling class.


Clearly there is no point blaming ruling class ideologists for promoting ruling class ideology, we should just take it for granted that this is precisely what we are fighting.


Point 4 refers to the activity of the (pseudo-left) sects. I doubt that they have much influence on anyone. Except that in failing to clearly identify them as enemies of the left (and carefully distinguishing betwwen those people who havejust been  taken in by them and those who really are  active enemies) we tacitly collude in the general view that it is left politics that is totally fucked,  rather than it being pessmistic cynical ruling class ideas which are totally fucked.

The four sites I comment in most often are:

1) Harry's Place.

Agree wholeheartedly with the descriptions 'shallow' and 'religious' that have been used to describe Harry's Place recently.

But they have a very broad left audience, from Methodist do-gooders to Blairites to Drink-soaked trots. They also appear to have the attention of centrists and freethinkers.

Getting the attention of their audience is the point here, rather than agreeing with the general drift of the site itself - regular, interesting, strong postings showing our often contrary point of view on Harry's Place could drive a regular stream of readers and commenters here, or get them engaging with our ideas there.

2) On Line Opinion

Collects newspaper columns etc from Australian authors and publishes them online, allowing comments.

Damn this place is _dreary_. The tone of the articles is generally "stuck in the swamp". So keep on plugging away at the place, because the chance to put the alternative point of view is good. For instance, this is a thread about sedition, where I was able to directly link to the thread here on LS

Linking to specific articles on LS that back up our points will be more useful than a general link to LS. I am slowly cataloguing and writing brief descriptions of substantial threads on LS that will make it easier for me to find and promote the best, most original thought on this site.

Why is this slow? Because about a third of all topics on this site are NOT just 'this-is-cool' type links or one-off comments, but have developed into real debate and discussion that is pretty substantial compared to a lot of the Internet. We have a _lot_ of thought to show off once our commenting hits its stride.

3) Comment is Free - Guardian Unlimited

It's the Grauniad...so once again you'll need patience to deal with the inevitiable swampies. There are a few good ones though, like Sunny Hundal, also of Pickled Politics.

Once again, I go there to find the freethinkers, contrarians and dissidents from the general line, not because I like that line. The Guardian is a market leader in pseudo-left politics, so that is where we have to be if we are to thrust our ideas into the debate.

Commenting is vital, to win an audience from around the world that wants to debate with us.

But I also think local work is important too. I've done a lot of what Arthur suggests (commenting on other sites), and none of what I suggested a while back (stickers etc).

I think that is because I can comment from my own house - it is just easier and cheaper to do.

But I also think there are local battles against the pseuds to be fought as well, and I think sticker/flyer campaigns etc are a good idea, when we have money, time etc.

We should also let people in our cities know what original and interesting thought is going on under their very noses. We should also be trying to find those local freethinkers, actual-leftists and contrarians I mentioned earlier.

I think the pseudo-left has an enormous influence. Not their ideas, but THEY are what people think the 'left' is.

If you said 'radical' or 'activist' to most average working people, they would most likely think of a Green Left Weekly salesperson in a Che t-shirt, who is against the Iraq occupation and globalisation.

Just by having an 'organisation in being', they dominate the popular view of 'left' politics.

Do you think the views from this very old LS post by 'albert' describe pseudo-leftism adequetely?

In particular, can we safely use this quote from that post as a practical definition?

Revolutionaries are historical optimists who stress the inevitability of progress. Pseudo-Leftists are reactionaries who merely denounce how bad things are and actively reinforce the idea that they cannot be changed.

If so, then we are in a strong position, because that link appears to come up in the first page of google results for a search for 'pseudo left'.

(independent checking of this appreciated).

Every time we come across this behaviour on the Net, we can label it pseudo-left and we can link to the above post, if suitable. It can be used a lot on the sites i mentioned in the above post.

The more we use the phrase psuedo-left, the more it will be re-inforced, and the more people will search for it.

Yes. I just checked.  The old LS post defining the difference between pseudo-left and genuine left does indeed come up at the top of a google search for pseudo-left.  The second item listed is also an LS item.

Revolutionaries are historical optimists who stress the inevitability of progress. Pseudo-Leftists are reactionaries who merely denounce how bad things are and actively reinforce the idea that they cannot be changed.

I think it's a good definition.  That thread is rather heavily philosophical (discussion of Hegel) so we probably should launch another thread about the pseudo-left/genuine left distinction  for people who at this stage don't want to grapple with Hegel. 

We also need to discuss other terminology such as what we mean by "progressive".

Any takers for getting going on this??? We should include links to older relevant posts of course - but I think its important to have another go.

We should also place a link to our new thread, at the top of the thread that already is on the top of the google search. And in reverse, our new thread should point to

I can scan this site and others for arguments about the use of the word pseudo-left and, write a summing up of what seems to be our general line, and why it's important.

My posting will try and be fair and comprehensive, but is only a first draft.

Any corrections or discussions can be carried out in the thread itself - readers will see how the argument progresses.

Then, we can link to that discussion every time we use the word 'psuedo-left' in a web discussion on another blog - it can be used as our standard reference for that phrase.

Wikepedia has no entry for "pseudo-left", so once the draft has been thrashed out on our site, we can try writing a wiki entry, to try to entrench our definition in what is becoming a common reference.

My google search has this link from a Euston Manifesto site at top and ours just below - which is also fine. (Also on first page is Nick Cohen's important piece about this phrase knocking about the blogosphere which has been the most important mainstream impact so far - again via Euston Manifesto sites).

I'm totally in favour of each of the (several separate) exercises proposed by youngmarxist although my contributions will still be limited to cryptic comments. Please respect my current sensitivity to irritation by simply summarizing various views rather than attempting to ascribe to named individuals or a consensus view of this web site what will inevitably be hard to summarize explanations of a hard to define concept. In particular don't try to pin down "agreement" on quotes or paraphrases.

An "objective" wikipedia account with links to both our usage(s) and other legitimate variant usages would be highly desirable as a goal. Don't rush that but work steadily towards it and at the same time debate other sites (eg Euston Manifesto sites) on (separate issues of) agreed and variant usages of the same term and how it should be elaborated.