Pynchon mention

[pynchonoid]

http://www.hprob.com/May2002Reviews/conspiracynation.htm

HPROB
Volume 1, Issue 2

Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar
America 

Reviewed by Paul McLeary 

Paranoia and conspiracy, as most of the writers in
this collection of essays seem to agree, finds it
wellspring in two primary sources: the uncertainties
inherent in the postmodern condition and the
increasingly diffuse nature of late capitalism. In
other words, the culturally destabilizing force known
as globalization, and all it represents, is the main
culprit. 

The term globalization merely represents the
contemporary idea of a centuries old process that ties
culture and politics to the flow of goods, capital and
information across international boundaries. The
culture (some might say cult) of conspiracy has found
a home in this global system thanks in no small part
to the communication technology that has become almost
ubiquitous around the globe, a communication system
which does a poor job at marking the difference
between the momentous and the trivial. Everything is
exposed, at all times. The immediate cause of the
conspiratorial malaise in which we currently find
ourselves can be attributed to the breakdown of the
traditional boundaries of public/private,
corporate/government, national/supranational, which
have all been upset by the quickening pace of
globalization, leaving many confused as to who is
really calling the shots. The term conspiracy itself
has come, in the postwar years, to stand for a whole
slew of social controls, in whatever form they may
take. As the world capitalist system continues to
expand and create a web of influence that lacks any
semblance of central control, multinational
corporations begin to assume a shadowy visage in the
minds of citizens cut off from the locus of power.
Under such a system, Timothy Melley claims in his
essay "Agency Panic and the Culture of Conspiracy,"
"The idea of conspiracy offers an odd sort of comfort
in an uncertain age: it makes sense of the
inexplicable, accounting for complex events in a
clear, if frightening, way."

It is just this comfort that Tyrone Slothrop, the hero
of Thomas Pynchon's supreme novel of paranoia and
conspiracy, Gravity's Rainbow seeks as he wanders
post-WWII Europe disguised in a pig costume, trying to
unravel the conspiracy that he believes fueled the war
and made his life a government/corporate sponsored
science experiment. Several writers in this collection
point to the work of Pynchon and Don Delillo as
examples of the growing American obsession with
conspiracy, especially in the postwar years. Several
essays argue that these writers, along with television
shows like The X-Files and Millennium and films such
as Conspiracy Theory have essentially served to
commodify conspiracy and paranoia in a culture where
"All this may simply be a reflection of the exhaustion
and intellectual desperation endemic to a historical
moment when the forces of global capitalism seem to
hold all or most of the cards." In a market-driven
society such as ours, that which doesn't turn a profit
often falls by the cultural wayside, so it stands to
reason that the corporate sector would embrace the
paranoid sentiment and use it to belittle the very
idea of conspiracy while at the same time making a
quick buck off it. 

The celebrated theorist Frederic Jameson also receives
much attention in these essays, and his seminal 1991
work, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism is quoted throughout the text. In Jameson's
estimation, conspiracy theories are inherently flawed,
as Peter Knight rightly outlines in his introduction,
stating that "instead of providing a scientific
account of the totality of social relations, they
mistakenly create an ideological version featuring
secret societies with totalitarian ambitions." Given
the rapidly changing world we inhabit, it may almost
be easier to believe in the mythological power of
secret societies than to give oneself over to the
barely controlled chaos that is the free market
paradigm. The Enlightenment's critique of reason and
the resulting shift in faith from divine law to
empirically verifiable phenomena have essentially
destroyed the traditional creation myth as an
underpinning of society, so our secularized world
looks for the hidden power formerly held by gods and
shamans in the corporations, and by governments and
financial institutions which now hold sway over our
lives.

It isn't just the so called military industrial
complex and the entertainment industry's critique of
power relations which finds purchase in this volume,
however. One of the standout pieces deals with the
paranoia inherent in the rhymes of rapper Tupac
Shakur, who was gunned down in 1996 at the age of 25.
Tupac's lyrics, while originally dealing with social
issues such as the subjugation of the black male in
American society, changed direction toward the end of
his life and became more personal, outlining
increasingly paranoid delusions of vast conspiracies
directed against him. Of course, the East Coast/West
Coast rivalry that claimed both Tupac and Biggie
Small's lives within months of each other stands as a
testament to the reality of his paranoia, but Eithne
Quinn crafts an insightful essay in which she ties the
general paranoia felt by the black community at large
in the United States to the plight of the individual
caught in the middle of the struggle. 

It may be worthwhile to note that five of the twelve
essayists in this collection teach in Universities
outside of the United States, four of them in the UK.
While American culture is no stranger to a variety of
critiques, one wonders just how in tune some of these
writers are with the true American street. Of course,
being out of tune never stopped an academic from
holding forth on a topic, but many of the writers here
reach so far into their postmodern bag of tricks that
the essential point they set out to make becomes a bit
obscured in the wash of footnotes and technical
jargon. An interesting book in all, but one written
for the serious reader with a grasp of the theory
going in; anyone coming to this book unaware of the
history of 20th century social thought may want to
start somewhere else. 



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