As you point out, there are many variations on this theme.

Sorry that I’ve got to go…busy busy busy

This is not to say there aren’t genuine conspiracies and coverups, there certainly are. Governments, businesses and oher collective entities certainly work in secret, promoting agendas and methods that they may prefer others not find out. In some cases, it may not even be particularly sinister. In our society, we expect to have privacy and discretion in our affairs, both collective and individual. But there is something off-putting about the breathless air of “I know something you don’t”, which is followed by a “they’re doing everything they can to cover it up” which eventually morphs seamlessly into a “how can you not see this, it’s plain as day”. Eventually it ends up with “You are just afraid to admit it to yourself”. When this happens in science you can fight it with research, observation, experimentation, scholarship. When it happens in other fields, like politics or economics or religion, you cannot use reason or logic to combat it. These people already know the truth, and they know you’re trying to obscure it. You can’t get very far against that attitude.

This is why our discussions of anomalism led me in my post above to a discussion of Narcissism, Paranoia, and fascism. The fascist is a political anomalist, not necessarily because what he believes is wrong, but because he dismisses all criticism of his beliefs as the actions of an organized cabal determined to hide the truth so it can take over the world (cue diabolical laughter).. Anomalists, OTOH, are not necessarily fascists, I suppose people can believe in Bigfoot without believing primate anthropology is engaged in a campaign to Hide The Truth. Still, even though the anomalist is not always certifiably paranoid, they inevitably drop some variation of Hamlet’s Horatio speech into their conversation. (“There are more things in heaven and earth…”). The anomalist instinctively, if perhaps unwittingly, is anti-science, and that arises from a general feeling of anti-intellectualism. Science is smart guys talking big talk. They’re elitist, know-it-alls, smarty pants, wise-asses, they “have no common sense”. You know the talk. Its the plea of the liberal arts major who dropped out of engineering because he couldn’t hack the math.

The sad truth is that many of the issues anomalists argue so fervently, political and economic theory, religion, psychological and sociological questions, morals, philosophy, literary criticism, and even history, cannot be settled by research. These are often questions that have no yes or no answers, some aren’t even valid questions. And remember, there is no sure way to prove there is no Bigfoot. You can only prove there is one.

A historian can determine exactly when the Civil War was fought, how many died in it, where the battles occurred, who were the generals and even some of the privates. But no historian can tell you why the Civil War was fought. We are still debating that one, and every generation of scholars comes up with new ideas, all of them reasonable, none of them conclusive. Even the people who fought the war may have had different reasons why they fought, depending on where they came from and which side they were on. Some kinds of questions need to be asked, but they don’t necessarily have any answers.

Still, as the article points out, people derive a bit of security from knowing why things REALLY happen, and by exposing the hidden puppet masters that pull our strings and dupe our simpleton friends. And folks whose lives are in turmoil and futures in doubt are more vulnerable to these pursuits, and more likely to bet their lives and sanity on them. It gives them some comfort to believe they are fighting the good fight.

The insights of the second article were also profound. I was particular intrigued by the authors’ juxtaposition of the terms “Narcissism” and “Paranoia”, a pair of concepts I have found very useful in attempting to formulate a more succint definition of fascism.

I’ve written about this extensively before, but I’ll briefly recap in case you missed it. I perceive the fascist as being convinced he (or his philosophy) is intrinsically better than everyone else. He may feel, like the Nazis did, that he is racially superior.

Modern fascists aren’t necessarily racist, that is, they don’t necessarily feel they are genetically superior to others, but they do feel they are superior in some way. They may feel they have a better work ethic, or were brought up in a superior culture, or that they are more more creative, or more courageous than others. They may consider themselves more ambitious, or more innovative, or more moralistic or intelligent. That’s the Narcissism.

But feeling you’re superior to others by itself does not make you a fascist. A lot, if not most, people feel that way about themselves, at least about some aspect of their personality.

I feel the combination of Narcissism and Paranoia is what defines the fascist. He not only thinks he’s better than you are, he is convinced you’re out to get him. The Nazis not only considered themselves genetically superior, they also felt that genetically inferior races were determined to destroy them. This is characterized by the Nazi obsession with the Jews, who they considered subhuman life forms of no intrinsic value, yet were convinced those same Jews were abusing them, taking what was rightfully theirs, conspiring against them, and otherwise waging war on them.

The obvious contradiction never seemed to occur to them. If the Jews were so inferior, how did they get the upper hand and how did they maintain it so effectively? You need a conspiracy to get around that paradox.

Of course, as common wisdom reminds us, even paranoids have enemies, and some people may very well be out to get us. So paranoia by itself does not make a fascist. You need the two, locked together in a positive feedback loop, feeding off each other and contributing to each other, so that soon every observation and perception of the outside world is simply dripping with evidence of the conspiracy against the elect.

There are, of course, real conspiracies, and there is real evil in the world, and people are not equal in their talents or virtues, so there is just enough evidence available to reinforce the delusion. For the True Believer, the world is full of clues and obvious signs of the conspiracy against them and the venality of their enemies, as well as their own virtue and righteousness. Those who deny that conspiracy must obviously be part of it. Those who just don’t see it are fools.

When anyone who disagrees with you is either conspiring against you (Paranoia) or are too stupid to notice you are being conspired against (Narcissism) then you have a fascist metality.

You will note than when described in psychological, rather than political or economic terms, the term ‘fascist’ can be extended to either side of the political/economic spectrum, or even outside it altogether. Doctrinaire Marxists are often (but not necessarily)fascistic in this sense. They are convinced they are in the vanguard of an enlightened, scientific view of history, so those who don’t accept it must be reactionary Capitalist roaders conspiring to enslave them.

The psychology of the Nazi and the Communist is quite similar, and their rhetoric (once pruned of the jargon peculiar to each obsession) and behavior, are eerily similar.

Other examples of this Narcissist/Paranoid complex are religious fanatics, (although not necessarily all religionists) and certain conservatives (although certainly not all).

The key insight in the article is the concept of agency panic. Anxiety arises not because you are helpless to face some threat, but when you have the ability to do so but are prevented from exercising it.

When fervent individualists feel that they cannot exercise their independence, they experience a crisis and assume that larger forces are to blame for usurping this freedom. “For one who refuses to relinquish the assumptions of liberal individualism, such newly revealed forms of regulation frequently seem so unacceptable or unbelievable that they can only be met with anxiety, melodrama, or panic.”

Sound familiar?

The anomalists are something else again. Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, too, and they will have to wait til then.

Foremost on my mind: does the information age fertilize anomalist/conspiritorial viewpoints?

I believe it does, and in some, results in information overload, a sort of addiction to diving down rabbit holes.

Busy week ahead; meanwhile, another view:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/200809/paranoia-and-the-roots-conspiracy-theories

He also suggests that this constellation of delusions may also be a natural defect in the wiring of the human psychosocial mind. No doubt there is some truth to that. But I also suspect other potential causes, at least as they relate to contemporary America. Many of the themes he describes as being part and parcel of American, indeed human, political thought, such as the endless search for villains and conspiracies, found fertile ground in post war America.

The USA began the last half of the 20th century as the most powerful, influential country in the world. It was also the freest and most prosperous. Social flaws in the world’s greatest democracy, such as social inequality, class differences, poverty and racism were being slowly but systematically dismantled, and the country had not only just defeated one great 20th century tyranny, Fascism, it was successfully grappling with another, Communism.

But the party could not go on forever. As our relative advantages over the world slowly eroded after the war, and as our economy gradually succumbed to consumerism, debt, laziness, and waste, cracks started to appear in the social fabric. America has always provided a great deal, but it also has promised more than it could deliver. In a meritocracy, and ours is about the best the world has ever seen, every personal failure can only be interpreted in three ways. Either we are the product of historical forces, the individual whose personal condition and position is threatened is incompetent, or the system is failing due to external attack or domestic treachery. Many people would prefer to believe the latter.

Prosperity increased, but the gap between rich and poor did as well, until by the 70s it became slowly obvious that things just weren’t as good as they could be. In another decade, it became clear they even weren’t as good as they used to be. The American Dream meant a single family home, a car, kids in college, and a nice job in an office. If not for the individual worker, at least within sight for his children. This was still possible of course, but the price was getting steeper. First, we went into debt. Then we sent the women to work, but the decline continued. We had credit, welfare programs for the middle class (like subsidized college degrees) but things just seemed to be getting tighter.

It wasn’t noticeable at first because the post-war generation, the boomers (and I’m one of them!) were doing well. We were enjoying the prosperity and the new social freedoms and the benefits of racial, sexual and political liberation. But we also didn’t realize that a main reason for our wealth and well being was the fact that we were starting our careers. The economy may have been getting stiff and slowing down, but we were young, strong, and approaching our peak earning years. We had good jobs, promising careers, excellent educations. We didn’t notice the decline because we were hitting our stride. Our parents, remembering the misery of the Depression and the uncertainty of the war, were now settled in and comfortable. The Dream was theirs and their kids were going to surpass them.

Meanwhile, Japan and Europe were rebuilding their industrial plant, mostly by buying the technology from us, while we were dismantling our own industrial base and failing to invest in improving it; relying more and more on service jobs and cheap imports. And of course, we pissed away a good piece of the abundant natural resources of the North American Continent and the impoverished trade colonies we mined around the globe.

Everybody wanted that job in the office. We wanted it all, and the only way we could still get it was debt: personal debt, corporate debt, government debt, balance of payments debt. For a lucky few who were able to take advantage of the benefits of the new age, but still had inherited some discipline and skepticism from Depression-era parents, it was easy to resist the urge to splurge. As early as the sixties, alert social critics were already warning that the party would not go on forever. They were right, but they were dismissed as Cassandras–or subversives. Saving and financial prudence were not good for business.

Suddenly the industrial jobs started drying up, and the white collar careers with them. When things go bad in a meritocracy you don’t want to admit it might be at least partly your fault, or that the system you had counted on to go on forever was failing and you had failed to notice. So the temptation was to blame it on the other, the external threat, the foreigners, the minorities, the poor, the scapegoat. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed from its own internal inefficiencies and grotesque mismanagement, we had run out of enemies as well as excuses. History finally caught up with us.

Its easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, and we all can’t really be blamed for not seeing it coming. But talk to an older person, particularly one from Europe. They will tell you the same thing.

“You Americans have no sense of history. You have never really known war, or hunger, or even (except for the Depression generation) severe economic distress. You won’t be able to handle it.”

Too many of us will fail to see that the forces of history are at work here, it is not a conspiracy of evil out to get us. Oh sure, evil does exist, and there are real conspiracies. But we can’t blame all our problems on them. We need not be on the road to disaster, but the road is going to be uphill from now on and we should come to terms with the fact that our period of relative prosperity compared to the rest of the world is coming to an end. From now on we’re going to have to compete. And for a population convinced of their own exceptionalism and entitlement, it may be easier to find somebody to blame.

http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/?single=1

Enjoy

This is no flake website. Beck is a leading conservative intellectual and, until recently, a headlining Fox journalist.

God Damn! Don’t you just love this? The whole damn country is turning into an SNL skit.