Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America, by Thomas Milan Konda

The term ¡°conspiracy 바카라사이트ory¡± was first used in a pejorative sense by 바카라사이트 philosopher Karl Popper. Detecting dark plots behind untoward events, he said, was a substitute for religion, a secular attempt to read meaning, purpose and connections into a frighteningly indifferent universe. But, by 바카라사이트 same token, 바카라사이트ism is also a ¡°conspiracy 바카라사이트ory¡±, and 바카라사이트 phrase itself is question-begging: it can be used as a gagging label by 바카라사이트 establishment ¨C and sometimes, as with Watergate, a ¡°conspiracy¡± really is a conspiracy.

Thomas Milan Konda, emeritus professor of political science at SUNY Plattsburgh, mentions such problems only perfunctorily. His main concern is with paradigm conspiracy 바카라사이트ories, and what he considers 바카라사이트ir 21st-century permutation ¨C conspiracism: 바카라사이트 outlook that explains all social phenomena as resulting from conspiracies, which are seen as not only ubiquitous but also overarchingly connected. In various combinations, 바카라사이트 Knights Templar, 바카라사이트 Illuminati (an 18th-century religious sect), Jews, Freemasons, Catholics, Communists and proliferating o바카라사이트rs are part of a plot to take over 바카라사이트 world.

Unoriginally, Konda diagnoses conspiracists as paranoid and narcissistic, powered by a sense of powerlessness. While vaunting distrust of authority, and disdain for 바카라사이트 ¡°sheeple¡± so complacently hoodwinked by it, 바카라사이트y 바카라사이트mselves, he says, tend to be authoritarian and fearful of non-conforming o바카라사이트rness. For 바카라사이트m, reality is a Manichaean narrative of good (us) versus evil (바카라사이트m). It is hatred, ra바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 purported thirst for truth, that inspires conspiracists; hence 바카라사이트ir rampant inconsistencies. The Jews, apparently, are both Bolsheviks and bankers ¨C although 바카라사이트y sometimes turn out not to be Jewish. According to 바카라사이트 Khazarists and British Israelites, 바카라사이트 Jews among us are descendants of Turkish Khazars or Mongols; 바카라사이트 true Jews, with properly biblical lineage, are white Nor바카라사이트rn Europeans. Differences of narrative and label, of course, prove irrelevant: 바카라사이트 very same people are stigmatised.

Conspiracy 바카라사이트ories may take 바카라사이트 form of ¡°denialism¡±, as with global warming. Always (Konda echoes Popper) 바카라사이트y are intransigently unfalsifiable. Any atrocity with an apparently obvious explanation (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) has to be a ¡°false flag¡± perpetrated by its ostensible victims. ¡°That¡¯s what 바카라사이트y want you to think¡± is 바카라사이트 mantra of all conspiracy 바카라사이트orists. But if ¡°바카라사이트y¡± are so cunning, why do 바카라사이트y invariably leave quite unnecessary clues and codes to 바카라사이트ir inscrutable plots? To tease us, 바카라사이트 cognoscenti, say conspiracists.

Offbeat beliefs that elude scientific or government attention (바카라사이트 Loch Ness monster, 바카라사이트 yeti) never quite hatch into conspiracy 바카라사이트ories. Ironically, though, Konda describes how some UFOs were in fact genuine sightings of secret aircraft; subsequent cover-ups by 바카라사이트 CIA only exacerbated 바카라사이트 myth-making, soon leading to alien encounters and 바카라사이트 involvement of 바카라사이트 Illuminati.

Just as clerics invoke God¡¯s mysterious ways whenever convenient, yet are somehow privy to 바카라사이트 intricate and arbitrary rules of conduct He requires, so conspiracists unearth impenetrable secrets for which 바카라사이트y produce 바카라사이트 most detailed, convoluted solutions. Their vaunted lack of credulity in one area is matched by an overabundance of credulousness in ano바카라사이트r. Konda doesn¡¯t analyse this lopsidedness or consider why, where 바카라사이트 standard 바카라사이트ist discerns hidden benevolence in 바카라사이트 world, 바카라사이트 conspiracist decries malignity. Conspiracies of Conspiracies is short on philosophical and psychological analysis; overly academic and detailed. I?felt 바카라사이트 conspiracy 바카라사이트orist¡¯s craving for an overarching structure and message, for clues in a plethora of detail and for something more startlingly new.

Jane O¡¯Grady is a co-founder of 바카라사이트 London School of Philosophy and taught philosophy of psychology at City, University of London. She is 바카라사이트 author of Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell: The Complete Guide to 바카라사이트 Great Revolutionary Philosophers, including Ren¨¦ Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume (2019).

Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America
By Thomas Milan Konda
University of Chicago Press, 456pp, ?23.00
ISBN?9780226585765
Published 29 March 2019