paranoia and conspiracy theories

[Tony Elias]

hello all

jan's points are well taken, the example of the herero genocide
particularly, for which I have encountered similar ignorance (also, wasn't
aware of the Howard bk you mentioned, thanx)

I agree that history must be treated as paranoid to the extent it emphasizes
and obscures and warps and lies and privelages etc., I'm not slamming
conspiracy theory as "false history," since that would only validate and
reinforce the foundations of mainstream and recieved versions of history (of
which the void of herero deaths constitutes a part) yet it seems like
there's a necessity for some kind of poetics of epistemology of the
conspiracy theory, something which pynchon seems to have been working
through for years, in which paranoid narratives and practices are included
along with what I'd call critical-paranoid or meta-paranoid strains
(paranoia that's aware of its own limitations and paranmeters, that doesn't
try to pass itself as TRUTH in the manner of traditional historical writing).

In this sense, we could look at the epistemologies of Marxism and
Psychoanalysis, disciples which seek to uncover supressed or real history
from recieved versions: what Karl Popper has referred to as "integrative
principles" or "the Oedipus effect" which he describes as: "the influence of
a theory or expectation or prediction *upon the event which it predicts* or
describes."
So, what is the status of the conspiracy theory as knowledge. It's not a
frivolous question since conspiracy theory seems to provide a necessary
supplement to recieved history which which would be wholly insuportable
without it - one only need to look to the kennedy assasination, i don;t
think I've ever met a person who would say the warren commission report
constituted a true accounting of what happened, that it is history.

That's all good and well, but cionspiracy theory also has the unfortunate
problem of being used against itself. It's very easy, and beleivable for
"THEM" to label something as conspiracy theory, and thus invalidate it
autmatically. This has happened to Chomsky on numerous occasions and he has
no defence but to say that what he's doing is "institutional analysis" which
is nothing like "conspiracy theory" so its a potentially dangerous thing i
think, one which can work against the one that weilds it.

Tony Elias