Conspiracy and Power E-Book

Donatella Di Cesare

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 164

Beschreibung

Conspiracy theories are neither delusions nor lies, neither simplistic fallacies nor psychological quirks: rather, they are a political problem. They are not so much about truth as about power. Rather than seeking to debunk conspiracy theories as the work of fringe groups and cranks, Donatella Di Cesare develops an original account that portrays conspiracy as the spectre of a shattered community.

With the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the distrust of politics and politicians turns into a boundless and pervasive suspicion. Who is behind the scenes? Who is pulling the strings? The world, which seems increasingly confusing and impossible to read, must have a hidden side, a secret realm, that of the Deep State and the New World Order, where plans are hatched, information is gathered and thoughts are controlled. It is no longer a matter of a one-off plot or intrigue. Conspiracy is the very form in which citizens who feel condemned to a frustrating impotence, helpless before a techno-economic juggernaut, and manipulated by a faceless power relate to the world. This is why conspiracy, which exposes the emptiness of democracy, proves to be a fearsome weapon of mass depoliticisation.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Who Pulls the Strings? In the Depths of Intrigue

Notes

Politics and its Shadow-Realm

Note

The Unreadability of the World

Enigmas and Misunderstandings

Notes

The Workings of the Plot

Notes

Democracy and Power

Notes

The Cause of All Our Ills

Notes

Hungry for Myths

Notes

The Prague Cemetery: The Backdrop to the Plot

Notes

Spokesmen for the Deceived

Notes

Sovereign Ressentiment

Notes

The New World Order

Notes

The ‘Great Replacement’ and the QAnon Patriots

Notes

The Extreme Taste for the Apocalypse: Hidden Enemies

Notes

Populism and the Plot

Notes

Victimhood and Political Powerlessness

Note

On the ‘Heresy’ of Believers in Plots: A Critique of Umberto Eco

Notes

Transparency and Secrecy: In the Press

Notes

In Praise of Suspicion

Notes

Beyond Anti-Conspiracism

Notes

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Begin Reading

End User License Agreement

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Conspiracy and Power

Donatella Di Cesare

Translated by David Broder

polity

Originally published in Italian as Il complotto al potere © 2021 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino

This English edition © Polity Press, 2024

This work has been translated with the contribution of the Centre for Books and Reading of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5489-8

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950230

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Who Pulls the Strings? In the Depths of Intrigue

A few characters are strung together – and the message put out on Twitter spreads, rapid and inerasable, through the worldwide online space. Followers retweet it, and people who think it has a point keep it circulating. At first sight, it is innocuous enough: a tweet expressing a doubt, raising a question. ‘#5G Protect yourself from harmful waves and signals’, ‘Who benefits from mass vaccination? #Bigpharma’. Objections follow, replies chase it in vain around Twitter, while suspicion creeps in and fears build. Explaining the whole story is no longer necessary; a few keystrokes are enough to spread the word that a plot is afoot.

In the twenty-first century, this phenomenon has reached such vast proportions that there is growing talk of a golden age of conspiracism. Any unexpected event is sure to stir a frisson of distrust: environmental disasters, terrorist attacks, unstoppable waves of migration, economic meltdowns, explosive conflicts, political reversals. Amidst the confusion, the indignation, panic breaks out and the conspiracist fever grows. Who is behind all this? Who is pulling the strings? Who has hatched this plot? People look for the culprits for disasters, poverty, wars, inequalities, but also for countless abuses and oppressions, ethical decline, a diffuse malaise, a boundless loss of meaning.

Conspiratorial thinking is an immediate reaction to complexity. It is the shortcut, the easiest and fastest way to get to the bottom of a world that has become unintelligible. The people who look for plots are unable to stand the uncertainty, the open question. They cannot tolerate living in a changing and unstable landscape; they cannot accept its alienness. They are unable to recognise themselves, or others, in a world in which they have been left exposed, vulnerable, unprotected – but, for that, also freer and more responsible for their fate.

This way of thinking unveils, unmasks, demystifies. The all-encompassing explanatory power of the plot leaves no mystery unsolved, no enigma undeciphered. What had seemed unfathomable is finally explained by the obvious answer: a plot is afoot. Here is the solution. Bringing the world out of the shadows, it is possible to clearly distinguish black and white, light and dark, good and evil. Seeing things in terms of a plot provides a rigidly Manichaean picture – a reassuring one.

So, it would be a mistake to consider conspiratorial thinking as the quirk of isolated fringes, a subcultural craze, the residue of a pre-logical mindset or a stubborn superstition. It is not a regurgitation of the past that refuses to pass away, the return of an old spectre whose demise we can confidently predict. In this regard, it shows similarities with closely related phenomena such as denialism, anti-semitism, and racism. Indeed, we can say that this prism is a mirror of the times. Conspiratorial narratives enjoy such great success – have such deep influence on public opinion – because they correspond to widespread needs and stir up common aspirations.

A fringe phenomenon, albeit far from a marginal one, it draws in people who feel they are victims of both the chaos of the present and an anguish-ridden future. They feel condemned to a frustrating impotence, that they have been reduced to the role of mere extras in the ‘games of politics’. So, while conspiratorial inclinations used to be something for aficionados, today they are reaching mass proportions; they increasingly appear as an ordinary way of being, of thinking, of acting.

The growing mass of ‘conspiracy studies’ in recent years takes its lead from research that began already in the twentieth century and has integrated its conclusions, developing them further.1 The approach of these studies conveys the typical negative judgement on this phenomenon: their attitude ranges from good-natured irony to the most severe reprobation. There are mostly two lines of interpretation: conspiracism is seen either as a psychic pathology or as a logical anomaly. In the first case, this means plunging into the dark recesses of the mind, where a clique of microscopic neurons, ever-ready to plot, sets infinite traps for thought, pushing it to indulge an innate – and dangerous – disposition that risks degenerating.2 Meanwhile the second approach takes us to the logic of conspiracist statements – i.e. to false and distorted propositions, or, in short, to the fake news propagated in the ‘post-truth’ era.3 In both cases, these interpretations resort to a largely normative approach. On this reading, the alleged conspiracist is in need of cognitive re-education in order to correct the distortions in his thinking. Or else, his statements should be subjected to debunking – i.e. to refutation that exposes their illogical and false character. But, despite every effort, neither therapy works, and the wave of conspiratorial thinking continues to grow.

Such approaches understand this phenomenon as a problem of delusions or lies. But this demonisation is not just ineffective but counterproductive. As ever, the police-style castigation of thought, the denunciation by an inquisitor, serves little purpose. For some time now, an anti-conspiracist vulgate has been building which – asserting its own mastery of the truth – ridicules and delegitimises the theories it judges to be deviant, irrational, and harmful. But this polemical and pathologising approach, which vilifies any criticism of institutions, only hardens the entrenched sides and deepens an increasingly profound fracture. On the one hand there are those who are accused of being conspiracists, but who would call themselves opponents of the system. On the other are those who, as they draw on the canons of their own reason, are accused of merely propping up the dominant ideology. In short: a simplistic anti-conspiracism risks merely confirming the separation between ‘official’ and ‘hidden’ truth, thus preventing a proper understanding of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon.

Conspiracism is neither an intellectual barrier nor a fallacious argument. Rather, it is a political problem. It is not so much about truth as it is about power. It is strange that, despite the wide-ranging reflection on this problem, the decisive tangle has not been unravelled: the one that ties power to the work of the plot.

Those who challenge the official version of events aim to attack the bearers of knowledge and power. Their distrust of politics, institutions, the media, experts, becomes systematic dissatisfaction and boundless suspicion. If under the polluted skies of globalisation, catastrophic events are multiplying, and if the world seems doomed to unstoppable chaos, this must be because of the ‘caste’, the ‘oligarchy’, ‘international finance’. It is, then, necessary to have sharper eyes and unmask the hidden plans of the ‘New World Order’. But what kind of revolt is even possible against this kind of faceless power? The tacit admission of this powerlessness goes hand in hand with a sullen ressentiment, an explosive rage and the urgent need to unveil The Plot that has spun its threads around power. In the conspiracist hall of mirrors, it is always others who are working up plots, while those who level the accusations are only seeking to defend themselves. The ‘occult powers’, the ‘real powers that be’,4 are called into question by a political theory that sees governance as a plot and thus advocates a strategy and practice of counter-power necessarily understood as a counter-plot. It would seem the ‘little people’ have no other form of resistance against the ‘masters of the world’.

Conspiracism expresses a widespread malaise and manifests a deep unease. It is not merely a marker of obscurantism, but it surely is a dark sign. It exposes the crisis that is convulsing contemporary democracy. Just think of all the broken promises! All the betrayed hopes! And what does the word ‘democracy’ even mean, if not the long-awaited ‘government of, by, for the people’? Yet – as if through some cruel joke – the sovereign people do not really feel sovereign. Power seems to elude them, threatened by the uncontrollable power of The Plot. This is not just a suspicion. Democratic power seems like an illusion. Governments come and go, parties exchange the reins of office between themselves, but nothing really changes. What remains is the ‘Deep State’, the institutional power kept intact and perpetuated by castes, lobbies, banks, dynasties, and media moguls. It may be more or less of a secret, but it’s they who are pulling the strings – that’s the foundation, the principle of real power!

But the fact that in recent times presidents and heads of government have pointed the finger at the Deep State and cried ‘conspiracy!’ ought to give pause for thought. When they do this, it is not just a ploy to shake off any responsibility for governing, and nor is it just a geopolitical defence move. Reference to the ‘Deep State’ has become a catchphrase that, in its own insidious way, confirms what a dismal condition enthusiasm for democracy has fallen into. It insinuates that democracy has been hollowed of all value – that it is, indeed, a mere ‘farce’. Here, conspiracist doubts converge with a certain populist vision of popular sovereignty, reduced to a simulacrum by the ‘real powers that be’.

Is it possible that democracy is just what it appears to be? The empty space of democratic power seems just too empty. Conspiracism renders the archaic idea of an absolute power incompatible with democracy. But perhaps The Plot is precisely the mask that power puts on in an age of faceless power. So, it is instead necessary to unmask the archaic mechanism that drives people to hypothesise an arché – a principle and a command – which democracy ought to have deposed long ago.

Notes

1.

Pioneers include Norman Cohn, Leo Löwenthal, Richard Hofstadter, Serge Moscovici, Raoul Girardet and Léon Poliakov.

2.

Rob Brotherton,

Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories

. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

3.

Michael Butter,

‘Nichts ist wie es scheint’: Über Verschwörungstheorien

. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2018.

4.

Translator’s note: in Italian this is known as ‘poteri forti’, literally ‘strong powers’. There is a certain overlap with the English-language idea of the ‘Deep State’ – those forces behind the scenes who ‘really’ hold power, in defiance of democratic choice – but it is not limited to the state machine per se, also extending to private enterprise, the media, and so on.

Politics and its Shadow-Realm

Millions of people around the world believe that politicians are mere puppets whose strings are pulled by occult forces. All is not as it seems. Behind the apparent but deceptive reality lies a more authentic, truer one. This splitting of reality, this dichotomy between outside and inside, surface and depth – almost reminiscent of Plato’s myth of the cave – is characteristic of the contemporary metaphysics of politics.

If the individuals operating in the shadow-realm that gets passed off as reality are manipulated puppets, merely illusory simulacra, then we must also ask where the puppeteers are hiding. Who is behind it all? Who rules the rulers? Who pulls the strings?

These questions, which already openly allude to The Plot, direct suspicions towards the locus of power and the foundation of authority. But, above all, this is about ascertaining who really has power. Perhaps the men and women called on to serve a term in office? Or those in other posts behind the scenes, who have much more room for manoeuvre, since they don’t have to account for the consequences? As reality splits in two, a gap emerges between official and unofficial power – the recognised but fictitious power, and the illegitimate but real one. It is said that, behind the façade of external reality, with its hierarchies, relationships, and principles, at which the naive gaze stops, there is concealed another, more real and threatening reality, inhabited by a power whose existence no one suspects or, rather, of which no one can even imagine the possibility. This is the field of operation of individuals and groups held together by family ties, personal relationships, economic interests, and political aspirations. Such connivance, which has no legal expression, is the mutual support, the aiding and abetting – the averted gaze which nods along – in the exercise of power. It is in this hidden realm, amidst the pulled strings, the webs and ties, that the plot takes shape.

What are the forces that govern the nation? Which ones direct the market? What face do the masters of the world have? Who determines the course of history? There is a search to find who is responsible for the countless intrigues: is it bankers, financiers, capitalists, or anarchists, subversives, terrorists, or even Jews, internationalists, cosmopolitans, foreign powers? Many alternatives can be speculated upon.

What is certain is that the idea that there are plots is itself thriving. Far from being a niche phenomenon, it appears as a global one, indeed one with mass dimensions. Conspiracist narratives are now established in the public sphere. They cannot be considered, as an old stereotype would have it, an idiosyncratic product of extremist fringes. Rather, they constitute the kaleidoscope through which the events of the world are read by the majority. No one seems to escape them.

There is a long history of such theories, and we could cite countless examples of them. The most emblematic, if we look at the recent past, was and is the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: the vast majority do not believe the ‘official version’ and cling to the belief that he was the victim of some sort of plot. Oswald could not have been the only shooter. The KKK, the Mafia, the CIA must have been involved. This intelligence agency – a malignant expression of US power – has long been the ideal culprit; its acronym is the seal with which any investigation is at least provisionally closed. In some cases, even time does not help to dispel doubts. Thus, more and more people around the world believe that the 9/11 attacks were the result of a well-orchestrated ‘inside job’, with the direct involvement of the Bush administration. The list of conspiracies could go on. The Apollo 11 moon landing was filmed on a TV set; climate change is a hoax by scientists; Barack Obama is a socialist Muslim from Kenya; George Soros spearheads the Kalergi Plan for the ‘ethnic replacement’ of European peoples; the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, cooked up at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is a Chinese-made biological weapon; vaccines are themselves to be feared because they cause diseases such as autism. Big Pharma’s plots are a constant source of apprehension, while the shadowy setups of the ‘New World Order’ sow disquiet.

Traces of the plot can be found everywhere: in the air we breathe, poisoned by chemtrails, in the water we drink, spiked with fluorides, in the earth polluted beyond repair. And there is also a plot to be uncovered in the traces and clues that remain undeciphered, in the past as in the future. What is generally believed is only a lie, while the truth lies somewhere else. In short, history must also be re-read, to unmask the plots that are still at work in the present. And the biggest, most successful deception – we know – is still the great ‘myth’ that Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews.

Conspiracism extends from the furthest shores of the far right to the most unlikely parts of the left. But, beyond political life, it is difficult to find an area immune to the conspiracist contagion: from economic governance to health issues, from the scientific context to the ecclesiastical universe, not to mention history. The enormous spread of conspiracism, also bolstered by the proliferation of fake news, is attested by books, essays, articles, films, television series, historical documentaries, and journalistic investigations, where often even the most careful analyses