The treatment of "conspiracy theories" by the US intelligentsia is reminiscent of the Soviet commissions that labeled political dissidents mentally ill.
While psychiatry as a means of repressing political dissent was well-known for its use the USSR, this occurred no less and perhaps more so in the West, and particularly in the USA. While the case of Ezra Pound is comparatively well-known now, not so recognized is that during the Kennedy era in particular there were efforts to silence critics through psychiatry. The cases of General Edwin Walker, Fredrick Seelig, and Lucille Miller might come to mind.
As related by Seelig, the treatment meted out to political dissidents in psychiatric wards and institutions could be hellish. Over the past few decades however, such techniques against dissent have become passé, in favor of more subtle methods of social control. While the groundwork was laid during the 1940s by President Franklin Roosevelt calling dissidents to his regime the “lunatic fringe,” this became a theme for the social sciences, the seminal study of which is The Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno et al. This Zionist-funded study established an “F” scale in which respondents were tested for latent “Fascism.” The extent depended on their attitudes towards hitherto what was regarded as traditionally normative values, such as affection for parents and the family, the latter in particular regarded by these social scientists as the seed-bed of “Fascism.”
While social mores have been established to make dissidents pariahs, to impose a soft totalitarianism of the Huxleyan Brave New World variety, social scientists remain occupied with creating new approaches for the continuing de-legitimizing of dissident opinions. Among the primary targets are those who have in recent years been termed “conspiracists.” The term is used to induce a pavlonian reflex in nullifying dissident views on a range of subjects, like the words “racist, “fascist,” “sexist,” etc. Any hint of “conspiracism” in a paper is also sufficient to prevent it from even reaching the initial stage of peer review if submitted to a supposedly academic journal, where one might expect a range of views to be debated.
Recently a group of psychologists studying the allegedly contradictory nature of conspiracy beliefs were able to furnish mind-manipulators with a study that can be used to show that anything associated with or labelled as “conspiracy theory” can be relegated to the realm of mental imbalance. The paper was published as “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories.”[1] The abstract reads:
Conspiracy theories can form a monological belief system: A self-sustaining worldview comprised of a network of mutually supportive beliefs. The present research shows that even mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively correlated in endorsement. In Study 1 (n ¼ 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 (n ¼ 102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up (Study 2). The monological nature of conspiracy belief appears to be driven not by conspiracy theories directly supporting one another but by broader beliefs supporting conspiracy theories in general.[2]
The conclusion is that conspiracy theorists have a generalized suspicion of all authority and thereby believe that any event is the product of a conspiracy by authority. Several categories were used to score contradictory attitudes in regard to conspiracy. The subjects were chosen from 137 undergraduate psychology students. Five questions were asked regarding conspiratorial beliefs in Princess Diana’s death.[3] The results “suggest that those who distrust the official story of Diana’s death do not tend to settle on a single conspiracist account as the only acceptable explanation; rather, they simultaneously endorse several contradictory accounts.”[4]
There are several factors to consider:
- The small number of subjects drawn from the same background.
- Whether the belief in contradictory theories is rather the willingness to accept several alternatives rather than being bound to a single explanation.
- The tests appear to be of a “tick the boxes” character, and do not appear to offer the subjects opportunity to explain their views.
- The test therefore seems to be nothing other than very limited statistical surveys from which a generalised theory is postulated in regard to “conspiracism.”
Other test categories were on 9/11 and the death of Osama bin Ladin.
In is of interest that Wood, Douglas, and Sutton draw on The Authoritarian Personality in creating a psychological profile of conspiracists that will accord with the Liberal-Left assumptions of “conspiracists” as “fascists’ and “anti-Semites”: “There are strong parallels between this conception of a monological belief system and Adorno et al.’s (1950) work on prejudice and authoritarianism.”[5] The purpose of the study can be discerned from this passage:
If Adorno’s explanation for contradictory antisemitic beliefs can indeed be applied to conspiracy theories, conspiracist beliefs might be most accurately viewed as not only monological but also ideological in nature. Just as an orthodox Marxist might interpret major world events as arising inevitably from the forces of history, a conspiracist would see the same events as carefully orchestrated steps in a plot for global domination. Conceptualizing conspiracism as a coherent ideology, rather than as a cluster of beliefs in individual theories, may be a fruitful approach in the future when examining its connection to ideologically relevant variables such as social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism.[6]
Conspiracism is identified as inherently “right-wing authoritarian” ideology. The authors, Wood, Douglas, and Sutton, thereby show themselves to be ideologically biased and agenda-driven; in the same manner as Adorno, et al. Moreover, in ascribing “conspiracism” to “right-wing ideology’” there seems to be a remarkable ignorance as to the diversity of “conspiracists.”
What is one to make, for example, of Carroll Quigley, Professor of History at Harvard and Georgetown University Foreign Service School, whose academic magnum opus Tragedy & Hope, is often quoted by “conspiracists.” This includes several dozen pages describing an “international network” of bankers whose aim is to bring about a centralized world political and financial control system.[7] Despite the relatively few pages on this network in Quigley’s 1,300-page tome, he regarded the role of this network in history, over the course of several generations, as not only pivotal, but also as laudable (apart from its ‘secrecy”).[8]
Wood, Douglas, and Sutton begin their paper with the definition: “A conspiracy theory is defined as a proposed plot by powerful people or organizations working together in secret to accomplish some (usually sinister) goal.”[9] Based on that definition, it would seem difficult to conclude anything other than that Quigley was describing conspiracy, insofar as it is:
- “Secret,” which Quigley laments as being the primary cause of his disagreement with it,
- Composed of powerful people or organizations,
- Aims to accomplish a specific goal.
The only question is whether “it” should be considered as “sinister,” however, Wood, et al, state that “conspiracies” are “usually” regarded as “sinister,” which presumably means that it is a frequent but not essential ingredient. Obviously, the word “sinister” is subjective. Quigley regarded “it” as being composed of highly cultured and intelligent men of good intentions for the world, although he seemed to have doubts towards the end of his life, when the lecture circuit had been denied to him, and his scholarly Tragedy & Hope was inexplicably suppressed by his publisher.[10]
What can one make also of the “warning” to the American people by Dwight Eisenhower during his “farewell speech,” in which he referred to the ‘military industrial complex,” which became a favorite expression of the Left? Eisenhower pointed out its wide ramifications, not only economic and political but also on moral and cultural levels. He stated of this:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist….
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.[11]
Here are the primary elements for “conspiracy theory” in Eisenhower’s address:
- There is a threat that is obviously “secret,” or at least not above-board, otherwise Eisenhower would not see the need to make it a feature of his final words as President.
- This threat involves a cabal: “the military industrial complex,” and a technocratic “elite.”
- The threat involves “the power of money.”
- The threat is that of the accumulation of power by these elites.
During the Cold War, John F. Kennedy also referred to a global conspiracy, while “extremists” such as The John Birch Society had been saying the same, and were pilloried by the Kennedy administration as dangers to American democracy. Kennedy stated to the Newspaper Publishers Association that they had a duty in the fight against this international conspiracy. He began by referring to Karl Marx having been a writer for the New York Herald Tribune in 1851. The context is important because Kennedy was obviously referring to a “communist conspiracy” although “conspiracists” have often portrayed Kennedy as referring to a conspiracy of a secret society. This is clearly not the case. Nonetheless, this only shows that some “conspiracists,” no more or less than anyone else, are not always accurate in how they interpret something. However, Kennedy is nonetheless a “conspiracist,” regardless of what “conspiracy” he is describing. He did however refer to the abhorrence Americans have had for “secret societies.” He then stated:
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence—on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.[12]
Kennedy used the word “conspiracy.” He was a “conspiracist” in today’s derogative terminology.
Are we really to believe that it is mentality questionable to state that the Bilderbergers for example are a “conspiracy” with a globalist agenda when they have all the facets of a “ conspiracy,” other than to decide subjectively whether such cabals have an evil or a noble intent?
Would Eisenhower score as a “right-wing authoritarian” on Adorno’s personality tests, or as “monological” on the tests of Wood, Douglas, and Sutton? Would Quigley? Kennedy? Would Professor Michel Chossudovsky and the large number of academics who are involved with the Centre for Research on Globalization[13] be characterised as ‘monological” and “right-wing authoritarians’ by Wood, Douglas and Sutton? Perhaps what is required is a screening process whereby “conspiracists” of the “Left” are distinguished from “conspiracists” of the “Right,” allowing the former to retain their legitimacy, while the latter can be subjected to either public anathema or psychiatric treatment, such as lobotomy, medication, or long-term confinement?
Therefore, it seems that there must be arbiters from on high to determine what “conspiracy theories” are socially and politically acceptable and what are not, reminiscent of the Soviet psychiatric commissions that examined political dissidents and diagnosed mental illness.
Dr Karen Douglas describes her academic focus:
My primary research focus is on beliefs in conspiracy theories. Why are conspiracy theories so popular? Who believes them? Why do people believe them? What are some of the consequences of conspiracy theories and can such theories be harmful?[14]
The description implies that “conspiracy theorists” are apt subjects for psychological diagnosis, because they are intrinsically “harmful” to society, like Adorno’s suspicion of the family as the seed-bed of “Fascism.”
References:
- Michael J Wood, Karen M Douglas, Robbie M Sutton, Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories, Social Psychology & Personality Science, 25 January 2012, http://m.spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/01/18/1948550611434786.full.pdf
- Ibid., p. 2.
- Ibid., p. 4.
- Ibid., p. 5.
- Ibid., p. 6.
- Ibid., p. 6.
- C Quigley, Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: The Macmillan co., 1966), p. 51.
- C Quigley, ibid., pp. 950-956. See also: K R Bolton, Revolution from Above (London: Arkos Media Ltd., 2011), pp. 24-26.
- Michael J Wood, et al, op. cit., p. 2.
- Robert Eringer, The Global Manipulators (Bristol: Pentacle Books, 1980, pp. 9-10. Eringer spoke to Quigley regarding the professor’s predicament after running afoul of the ‘network’.
- Dwight D Eisenhower, ‘Farewell Speech to the American People’, 17 January 1961, IV, http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
- John F Kennedy, Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961.
- Centre for Research on Globalization, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
- Karen Douglas, University of Kent, http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/people/douglask/
Hofstadter, of course, is worth a mention here also. You can see the essentially conservative (in the most basic sense) and liberal (in the political sense) tendency from Adorno through Hofstadter up to today: starting with the equivalence drawn between fascism and paranoid political ideology, Adorno et al. shaped the whole academic discourse on ‘conspiracy theory’ right up to the present day, and as the author shows, that discourse is worse than useless. Of course, the joke is that leftism in the best sense is supposed to be founded on a ‘conspiracy theory’ also: that powerful interests (e.g. capitalists) act in concert (i.e. by way of a political economy) to oppress the masses and deny social justice.
actually, you are quite mistaken. part of the ‘authoritarian character’ was NOT questioning authority. seedbad was the family, the church, the military because in his time children were oft violently punished for speaking back to adults, especially when they challenged a status quo. so before you reach a simplistic understanding, adorno and horkheimer actually are on your side. they saw great danger in the path of the us leading back to totalitorian or fascist tendencies like in germany. he would absolutely have been ringing the alarm bell early on about deeming people ‘mentally ill’ because of critical inquiry. in fact, the second slip made by both bolton and you, heinrich, is confounding freudian psychotherapy and (repressive) psychiatry. the two always were at odds or even at war with each other. psychotherapy was conceived of a means to heal a person of its trauma or subconscious fetishs and emotional illness, as for them to become a free individual. the body politic and society were deemed very repressive and oppressive for human beings, so they also worked towards a free society. psychiatry and clinical psychology do the exact opposite: they try to ‘cure’ the misfits of their ‘crazyness’ so as to reinsert them in a society deemed ‘normal’, which of course is a complete fallacy and travesty and deeply totalitarian (therefore it was always popular by stalinists or people like government agents trying to bring back the goold old ‘yessir’-submissive subject, in awe of big men and fearful of individualism or personal freedom. i feel these points to be key, as not to fall into a trap of partisanism. this is NOT a left-right-section. in the us, both parties seem to have subcome to corruption and group think, and therefore the old divide-and-conquer scheme pulls. most postmodern thinkers werde deeply influenced by freud, adorno and marx. the analyzed the submission and subjection of the individual in order to critize (!) it and find alternatives. especially its most famous philosophers in france – michel foucault, deleuze & guattari, sartre, lyotard, bataille, debord – first met in their group on ‘prison-information’ which was the starting point of the academic 68 revolution aswell as the movement for civil rights and civil libertys in europe. their most important goals were to abandon the imprisoning of dissidents and minorities in prisons and psychiatric words for allegedly being ‘crazy’. Antipsychiatry as a movement had its start there, and Foucaults thesis on microstructures of powers actually describes the history and coming-of-age of the military-industrial and the prison-complex in great detail (‘Discipline and Punish’) aswell as its intrinsic double-bind of creating a surveillance state irreconcilable with the republic and liberty, he so fiercely defended (his ideal type was a slave-free, inclusive republic as in the platonic polis). He also foresaw and fought against the totalitarian age of ‘governmentality’, which merges neoliberalism and neoconservatism to forever imprison the individual. deleuze and guattari went even further, they founded their own antipsychiatric treatment center commited on helping patients back into retrieving their freedom as individuals. Both issued powerful warnings, also, on the coming matrix of the ‘society of control’, taking away liberties through spectacularization and hyperreal simulations of politics and warfare. Several of these exponents actually ended up taking their own lives in a very reflected gesture of responsible republicanism and staying a fiercely resistant free-willed libertarian to the very end, before they would have been submitted to inpatient homes or wards due to age-related chronical illnesses. I can strongly recommend reading their powerful analysis and philosophies in full, and preferrably chose a strong translation (as there are some rash transcripts which alas, have created alot of confusion and misunderstands. heck, some people in the us even believe they advocated political correctness and anything-goes, when all these icon’s projects where centered in the believe of critically inform, educate and free the minds of a docile ‘sheeple’ public undermining true self-governing in a open-minded republic! (I know as I have written my thesis as well as several post-grad papers on all these people and know all their writing by heart, as it profoundly shaped and enforced my writing career and political activism. all the best, tara hill
If you have written a thesis and ‘several post-grad papers’, you could do to read a little more carefully and not breathlessly project in the bizarre way you have done. The basic difference highlighted in the article concerns the way one interprets conspiracy theories: as a side-effect of questioning authority (healthy) or as a form of pathology (unhealthy). I never said that the authoritarian character critiqued by some in the Frankfurt school ‘equalled’ questioning authority. Moreover, I never ‘confounded’ Freud and repressive psychotherapy – I never even mentioned Freud.
The whole reason why Adorno was invoked in the article – and why he’s been used by people like Hofstadter – is that the ‘contradictory’ nature of the views identified by Adorno in anti-Semitism – which is why he classed it as pathological – is thought by some to likewise be present in so-called conspiracy theories. Whether or not this is an appropriate reading of Adorno is open to question. But, you see, a certain school of thought equates the two (anti-Semitism and conspiracy theory) inasmuch as they are pathological and this school of thought relies on Adorno and others in doing so. They also perceive any conspiracy theory belief as politically right-wing thanks to their appropriation of Adorno’s work.
You mention Foucault and others. I consider Foucault and some of the names you gave as proper leftists who would not balk at supposing people in the State were villains capable of anything. I do not consider namby-pamby American liberals like Chomsky to be in the same category – Chomsky who still can’t wrap his head around the fact that the Kennedy killing was a coup d’etat.
thanks for the clarification! in that case i might have simplified your stance and misappropriated it. my bad! i was reading a lot of similar votes recently, that’s also the reason i payed reference to freud and the postmodernists you hadn’t directly mentioned. i think the f-skala was not meant to be a means to ‘measure’ conspiratory thoughts or potentials (i worked with it as research assistant, but that was almost a decade ago, so i might have to reread). i always understood it as more of a pendant to the milgram experiment. in that it deals with how ‘indirect victims’ of state repression (normal citizens) readily become perpetrators, abuse and even kill and torture scapegoated ‘others’, and then rationalize their behavior with sentences like ‘i was just following order’. i thought at the time it was a groundbreaking research design, and quite ‘grounded’ (as in relatively unbiased, und not trying to be judgemental, though adorno sure liked to dish out scathing aphorisms at the same time. but in the sense of. not like the hysterical hyperbole papers on ‘antisemitism sourgeing’ we get by the dozens by aipac & co., nowadays) and sure as hell not as simplistic and normalizing as above study on conspirational thinking, which is a major joke (sort of like shill sunsteins work, only more simple-minded). in my opinion, you can’t ‘charter’ a conspirational mind, unless he’s seriously bordering on paranoia/delusions (which happens, of course, but is completely inflated). every sound critical thinking, whether in a police investigation, lawsuit, journalism, research or critical theory begins with a mindmap and tries clustering your knowledge. obviously, anyone who realizes the government lies about 911 will now revise other shady or incredulous claims by officials more thoroughly. this is not mental illness, the opposite: it is sound reasoning. that people take these token projects of compromised reasoning seriously is alarming, though. lots of people without critical thinking skills, apparently. you obviously are not one of them, as you made your point very clear to me with your reply. thanks again! ps. i think chomsky is a valuable man, but a pussy. he probably rationalized keepiing his mouth shot on jfk, 911 & co. to lead a comfy ivy league life and rationalized this decision thinking he still benefits many people with his work. which i would agree, as he has made some valuable and well-known points (and there are loads of people like him, unfortunately, but better than to completely lobotomized who jump at your throught when questioning bullshit) . he still remains a bore, though, and no comparison to real freedom warriors and big minds, like e.g. a julian assange, an ed snowden, a john pilger, paul craig roberts, peter dale scott or the ex-cop who risked his life several times, from the days of the contra-hearings until he was found ‘suicided’ some time ago, always to stay straight to his belief and became a real muckraker (the one who wrote ‘over the rubicon’, i think his name was michael ruppert?). all the best! t.h.
oh, and i’m sorry about all the stupid typos, i hate writing on these pads with no space and autocorrect while commuting. if i have the time to reread, edit and structure above posts afterwards (paragraph!) later when i come home, i’ll happily do so. :)
leftists think that there is a class struggle,and the riches think they are winning the struggle. leftists do NOT think there is a conspiracy against them. Marx argues about added value mathematics and social consciousness, NOT about a demonish conspiracy of any sort.
Marx was a boob.
Marx was a critic of capitalism. His ideas will still be discussed a thousand years from now – you on the other hand will have dissipated like a bad fart.
So this is about the blame game rather than inherent damage of conspiracy theorists, no matter where the theory originates? Not helpful.
Can’t punish folks for having a theory! LOL! This is STILL a free country.
It’s called paranoia. Not a “new” disorder. Just a contemporary spin.
Whomever labels you is your enemy…
Like George Bush said about his membership in Skull & Bones: ” … it’s so secret I can’t say anymore …”
Conspiracy theory – the alternative to the blatant lies we are fed on a daily basis
A world without conspiracies would be a place where no group of people ever collaborated in secret to accomplish anything more significant than a surprise birthday party. You buy that?
Psychiatry is nothing but nonsense. It isn’t a real science. it is nothing more than modern day shaman-ism.
actually, it’s more the opposite. shamanism centered on the belief of the ability of every human being to overcome his illnesses and weaknesses and grow into a powerful being not dependant on others. the shaman as healer merely assisted and guided him through. psychiatry is trying to turn critical, contrary or otherwise resistant individuals into docile flock, going with the herd. thus the medication and the imprisonment and mindfuck/brainwash-methods. it is very abusive, where as a shaman usually only took payment when the ‘costumer’ or the troubled individual felt he was sufficiently cured and shown the way to self-healing. so in many aspects shamanism is more an ectatic technique of freeing one’s mind and body of oppressive influences, thus the medicine man was actually a hell of a lot advanced, when compared to the institutalisation and pathologies of today’s mental illness treatments. it was more of a mentor, spiritual guide and life-coach than anything else (of course there were also a lot of snake-oil salesmen among them, but they were generally frowned upon by their more esteemed, fiercely independent colleagues. :)
Let’s face it, we’re controlled by communists, even in the workplace where they are now using psychiatry to discredit freedom of thought, academic freedom etc.
The real sad truth about conspiracies is that – save for the really crazy ones that violate physics (or biology) … most of them have at least some SIGNIFICANT basis in fact.
I always thought the mentally ill were people that desired to label you? Say like the psychiatrist or commie lieberal that said you are mentally ill.