Conspiracy theorists
Aug. 14th, 2007 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksA common mistake among political pundits of either the right or the left, authoritarian or libertarian, conservative or liberal, laissez-faire or state corporatist, is to see people who oppose them as members of a group.
The reason for this attitude taking hold is not complicated.
"Clearly I am right", they say to themselves.
"Clearly, therefore, people who oppose me must be part of some conspiracy. There is no way that they could all come to a conclusion different from mine on an independent basis."
And so, with the news today that an ally of Bush has resigned, a common theme has been the "outpouring" of celebration amongst liberal bloggers. Immediately, the whole thing is cast as some kind of controlled organisation, rather than an anarchic collection of individuals, some of whom might class themselves as liberals, some of whom might not.
It's a universal trait. The US government needs there to be "an international terrorist netowrk". The more organized the Al Qaeda system is, the happier it will be. The one thing that organizations cannot abide is opponents who are not organized. Indeed, it goes farther than this. When reference is made to the "cellular" structure of Al Qaeda (something which seasoned observers might takes a "a collection of individuals in lots of different countries, none of whom have the faintest idea what is going on elsewhere") you get the feeling that this kind of organization is unfair. It isn't playing by the rules. You can't fight a war on an opponent that doesn't exist.
The "blogging liberals" are a similar non-existent movement. Finally a collection of Americans (a large collection) decided that it wasn't too happy with the Bush administration. Whether you agree with the various posturings is neither here nor there. The point is that they aren't an organized opposition. They are not all in the pay of the "Hillary for '08" campaign. When you see that one of the opponents of the current Bush "way" is The Economist then you have to admit that the opposition could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as united.
The kind of people who move into organized hierarchies (of which the political system is the most organized and the most hierarchical) cannot cope with anarchic disorganization on the other side. It fries their brains.
I think I am alone in thinking that the end of John Fowles' The Magus is marvellous. After 600 pages or so of conspiracy theory and paranoia, the protagonists discover that there is no-one there after all (at least, that's my momory of the book -- it is more than 25 years since I read it). Just because some people celebrate on their blogs when the Bush administration has a screw-up, stop looking for conspiracies. For many of the bloggers, it's just a laugh. Don't try to defeat them -- it'll be like fighting shadows.
The reason for this attitude taking hold is not complicated.
"Clearly I am right", they say to themselves.
"Clearly, therefore, people who oppose me must be part of some conspiracy. There is no way that they could all come to a conclusion different from mine on an independent basis."
And so, with the news today that an ally of Bush has resigned, a common theme has been the "outpouring" of celebration amongst liberal bloggers. Immediately, the whole thing is cast as some kind of controlled organisation, rather than an anarchic collection of individuals, some of whom might class themselves as liberals, some of whom might not.
It's a universal trait. The US government needs there to be "an international terrorist netowrk". The more organized the Al Qaeda system is, the happier it will be. The one thing that organizations cannot abide is opponents who are not organized. Indeed, it goes farther than this. When reference is made to the "cellular" structure of Al Qaeda (something which seasoned observers might takes a "a collection of individuals in lots of different countries, none of whom have the faintest idea what is going on elsewhere") you get the feeling that this kind of organization is unfair. It isn't playing by the rules. You can't fight a war on an opponent that doesn't exist.
The "blogging liberals" are a similar non-existent movement. Finally a collection of Americans (a large collection) decided that it wasn't too happy with the Bush administration. Whether you agree with the various posturings is neither here nor there. The point is that they aren't an organized opposition. They are not all in the pay of the "Hillary for '08" campaign. When you see that one of the opponents of the current Bush "way" is The Economist then you have to admit that the opposition could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as united.
The kind of people who move into organized hierarchies (of which the political system is the most organized and the most hierarchical) cannot cope with anarchic disorganization on the other side. It fries their brains.
I think I am alone in thinking that the end of John Fowles' The Magus is marvellous. After 600 pages or so of conspiracy theory and paranoia, the protagonists discover that there is no-one there after all (at least, that's my momory of the book -- it is more than 25 years since I read it). Just because some people celebrate on their blogs when the Bush administration has a screw-up, stop looking for conspiracies. For many of the bloggers, it's just a laugh. Don't try to defeat them -- it'll be like fighting shadows.
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Bloggo The Liberal
Date: 2007-08-15 11:59 pm (UTC)I am getting increasingly tired of this black/white, left/right, you/me bullshit. A decent understanding of Westerns, from John Ford on, should dispose of the first. A decent knowledge of History (sadly lacking in 99.999% of even the intelligent part of the population) should dispose of the second. And a decent dose of LSD, or at least a decent session of Tantric Buddhism, should dispose of the third ...
(Oh look. A concealed tricolon.)
You may or may not be alone in considering the end of The Magus marvellous. I remember it, also from about 25 years ago, as deeply disappointing. My view was that, whilst middle-period Dick wraps things up and leaves you thinking, Fowles was just being a pretentious ass and leaving you dangling. This is a shame, because I rather enjoyed the first five hundred pages or so.
I'm not a big fan of Arnold Toynbee, or other systemic historiographers, because I don't really believe that any given pattern in history has a significant correlation with any other pattern. (I once pissed off a particularly pretentious speaker on some subject to do with Levellers and the English Civil War -- ergo, presumably, a fan of Marxist History and the "Scientific Method" -- who suggested that some set or other of actions in the Long Parliament showed "a significant correlation." Hmmm. "Would that be," I asked, "a multiple correlation, a linear correlation, or just a simple chi-squared correlation?"
I left through the French windows shortly after that. My choice, not his.
Anyway. Francis Fukuyama is just the latest dim bulb to propose an earth-shattering Grand Unified Theory of History (although I seem to remember another idiot, possibly quoted in Francis Wheen's book, who claims that the future will be dominated by a "clash of civilisations," and then fails to define his categories. Rather Toynbeean, except that old Arnold most definitely defined his categories, varying between around twelve and thirty-three, depending upon whether he was pregnant at the time or not).
Anyway, part 2. You are spot-on in your analysis of the root cause of this problem. Fifty years ago, people used to boast that they were a member of the Academie Francaise (particularly if they couldn't speak and French), or of the Royal Society, or of an Oxford or Cambridge college ... etc. These are all real achievements, even if only clubbable in the same sense as Whites or the Young Chelsea.
Most commentators in the public eye now belong to some incomprehensible Foundation, or Think-Tank, or Institute. We have drifted from the intellect, or from academia (the two not being the same, obviously), towards some bizarro world in which being hired by a privately-funded and presumably tax-free lobbying group, based solely on the fact that you are going to spout the company line, qualifies one as a Man of Letters. My impression is that, since these people know that they are hired to spout the company line (and since the company is funded by the same type of person who makes donations to one or more political parties), they will instinctively follow the herd instinct. And, being ignorant savages, they will instinctively attack what is perceived to be "the opposite."
This is probably not a good prognosis for a well-informed society. But then, as PJ O'Rourke once said, and I'm sure you will agree with him at present, 'People always wonder what's so good about modern society. Two words: "painless dentistry."'
Oh, and yes, I'll take you up on the £10 bet. Probably insane, given the fact that we've just dropped under $2, but I think there's a lot of variance left in the markets yet.
Re: Bloggo The Liberal
Date: 2007-08-16 10:35 am (UTC)I've taken a bath the past three days (I should have followed my original thoughts the Monday before last and just gone short Sterling/Yen) and when I am this far out of synch, it's best to walk away. So, a closed book at the moment. I don't even have the screen open at the moment.
I remember Fukuyama and the hype surrounding his book "The End Of History" and I thought to myself "yeah, right". Indeed, I would have been minded to quote Rumsfeld and his "unknown unknowns" back at Fukuyama, except Rumsefled hadn't said it at the time.
I think that I agree with you on the "systemic patterns". As with currency movements, a lot of the patterns are only seen in hindsight. To which I say "just try doing it in real life, pal -- what seems obvious in hindsight very much isn't so at the time".
PJ