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From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
Date: Thu, 27 May 99 08:44:41 PDT
Fwd Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 08:11:50 -0400
Subject: Re: Book Burnings & Conspiracies


>Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 09:35:11 -0500
>From: Alfred Lehmberg <Lehmberg@snowhill.com>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>Subject: Re: Book Burnings & Conspiracies

>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
>>Subject: Re: Book Burnings & Conspiracies
>>Date: Tue, 25 May 99 12:09:58 PDT

>>>From: Greg St. Pierre <StrmNut@aol.com>
>>>Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 23:15:23 EDT
>>>Subject: Re: Book Burnings & Conspiracies
>>>To: updates@globalserve.net

>>>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
>>>>Subject: Re: Book Burnings & Conspiracies
>>>>Date: Sun, 23 May 99 19:35:37 PDT >>

>>Suspecting that a few agencies of the U.S. government are
>>concealing UFO secrets -- an entirely reasonable position --

>>>>>>>Your argument, sir, seems to suggest that there is _no_
>>>>>>>conspiracy.

>>>>>>Precisely.

>It would appear that you want to have it both ways, sir. <not an
>affectation but a sincere expression of respect. I owe everyone
>initial respect.>You seem to _admit_ to the tips of some very
>dirty 'bergs.

I confess that with each passing posting, I understand less and
less of what you're trying to say.  Recently, you seemed to
argue that because you'd never heard of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion (which I first learned of when I was in high
school, while reading a book on political extremism and
conspiracy theory) this amounted to evidence of a plot to keep
such knowledge from you.  Now you want us to believe that
because governments keep secrets, they are by definition
involved in extraordinary (and, needless to say, sinister)
conspiracies. This is on par with your inability to discern the
simple difference between exercising editorial judgment and
burning books -- which in itself tells me that your ability to
read phenomena in the world is impaired by poor vision. If you
expect to be taken seriously, you'd better start employing
arguments that make sense.

>>is not the same as believing in vast, sinister conspiracies.

>In as much as there is no real forthcoming way to know the
>breadth and scope of the conspiracy you _admit_ to, your
>preceding statement is meaningless, isn't it?

See above.

>>Of course all governments keep secrets;

>I believe you and I think it _may_ be possible to that this
>prerogative has been _richly_ abused.

Most secrets are kept for the most trivial reasons, such as
bureaucratic lethargy.  Unfortunately, the very existence of
secrets, however banal, gives conspiracy theorists the
opportunity to richly abuse reason and evidence in service of
paranoia.

>>For the difference between sane
>>speculation on one side and mad fantasy on the other, just think
>>of Donald Keyhoe as representing the former and the Dark Siders
>>(Cooper, Lear, English, et al.) the latter.

>A division forgetting, for a moment, how the latter can gain,
>maintain, and keep the popular attention, while the former
>languishes in amused and unfounded ridicule. What's the
>mechanism of that, sir? I'm sure the answer would surprise both
>of us.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about.  All I can say
is that if you want to attract attention, what you do is this:
broadcast as loudly as possible the most extreme, absurd,
paranoid claims, promote them fiercely, and shout with every
breath that a vast conspiracy is keeping the "truth" from the
citizenry -- and believe me, you'll have a whole herd of the
terminally frightened among your paying customers. Keyhoe was
too sane, too responsible, and too honest to play that game.

>>Contrails are the latest fad on the far right, perhaps soon to
>>replace black helicopters as something to keep conspiracists up
>>at night, weaponry in hand.

>And all of them basted in an ignorance that you won't cop to the
>mechanisms for;  all of them smelling smoke easily blown away by
>a forthcoming unprevaricating breeze.

I'm glad that we agree that contrail believers are ignorant. (I
am taking a benign reading of what you're trying to say here, of
course.  Your words are sufficiently muddled that they could be
read either way, but I prefer to believe the best about you.)  I
confess that I don't understand all of the "mechanisms" that
underlie paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories.  One,
however, may be a deep desire to simplify a world that is, in
fact, hugely complex and unpredictable. Even a belief in an evil
larger order is, in an odd way, comforting, because it implies
that order can be imposed on the profoundly unsettling chaos of
reality (and of course it holds out the hope that, once the
sinister controlling forces have been vanquished, a benevolent
order can take their place). As all of us who live in the real
world know, it doesn't work that way.

In an interesting essay in The American Prospect (May/June
1999), Alan Wolfe looks back on sociologist C. Wright Mills's
The Power Elite (1956), a now nearly forgotten but once highly
influential book which sought, in effect, to posit an
intellectually respectable version of a left-wing conspiracy
theory.  MiIls was a particular influence on New Left thinking
during the 1960s, but his ideas are now mostly discredited.
Wolfe, himself a sociologist, points to the inherent problem of
conspiracy theories (though he does not use the term; neither
did Mills, who was too canny to do so ):

"Only in a society which changes relatively little is it
possible for an elite to have power in the first place, for if
events change radically, then it tends to be the events
controlling the people rather than the people controlling the
events. There can be little doubt that those who hold the
highest positions in America's corporate hierarchy remain, as
they did in Mills's day, the most powerful Americans.  But not
even they can control rapid technological transformations,
intense global competition, and ever-changing consumer tastes.
American capitalism is simply too dynamic to be controlled for
very long by anyone."

Coincidentally, I happen to be reading a splendid book, John
Lewis Gaddis's We Know Now: Rethinking Cold War History (1997).
While reading it, I couldn't help thinking (1) how real
scholarship, as opposed to the unfettered speculation we see in
conspiracist polemic, is conducted and (2) how that scholarship
shows how incredibly complex, varied, and vast are the forces
that underlie and drive relationships in societies and among
nations.  The notion that they are, or even could be, controlled
by a massive conspiracy -- one whose existence, moreover, can't
even demonstrated to the satisfaction of reasonable people -- is
as sensible as the belief that the earth is flat and rests on
the back of an enormous turtle. (Or maybe _that_ is what the
conspiracy is about: to keep us ignorant of the turtle.)

>>>Where do I draw the line? Where do you?

>>I try to keep this principle in mind: the real world is bad
>>enough.

>The real world is a lot badder than you know. "Enough" is just
>wishful thinking.

Dream -- or, in your case, nightmare -- on, my friend.
Meanwhile, while you and your friends are pursuing imaginary
evils, the world's many real and terrible problems continue,
ignored and unaddressed by you.  To revive an old slogan: You're
part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Jerry Clark