Modern Conspiracy: The Importance of Being Paranoid PDF
Preview Modern Conspiracy: The Importance of Being Paranoid
MODERN CONSPIRACY MODERN CONSPIRACY The Importance of Being Paranoid Emma A. Jane and Chris Fleming NEW YORK • LONDON • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway 50 Bedford Square New York London NY 10018 WC1B 3DP USA UK www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Emma A. Jane and Chris Fleming, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-6235-6681-4 PB: 978-1-6235-6091-1 ePDF: 978-1-6235-6589-3 ePub: 978-1-6235-6431-5 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. EJ – for my beautiful Alice (as everything always is) CF – for Solly and Dom: palmary persons, exemplary educators. Tibi magno cum amor CONTENTS Acknowledgements viii Introduction: Running Dogs and the ‘Rightness’ of Conspiracy 1 1 Powerful Secrets 11 2 Impossible Things 33 3 A Short History of an Epistemic Ambience 53 4 Pleasures, Sorrows, and Doubling 71 5 Cultural Ramifications and Reflections 91 6 Conspiracy and Theory 111 Conclusion: Where to Now? 129 References 140 Index 158 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS E J – I have discovered that it takes a village not only to raise a child but to write a book (especially if one happens to find oneself child- raising and book-writing at the same time). An enormous, proverb- strength thank you, therefore, to some excellent villagers, whose above- and beyond-ness in relation to conjugation, charitability, compassion, consolation, cooking, company, conversation, and many other affectionate c-words, has my enduring gratitude. Profound thanks to: Nicole A Vincent, Vaishali Kashyap, Marie-Pierre Cleret, Anne Fawcett, Rachael Swain, Melanie Anderson, Kat Costigan, and Mark Rosalky (and the extended Rosalky and Ambrose clans). This is not an exhaustive list but it’s a start. I am also fortunate enough to work at a university where the powers-that-be conspire to promote research; indeed this book was written, in part, with the assistance of an internal grant from the School of Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales. Gratefulness, too, therefore, to UNSW and to the many fine colleagues with whom I work there. Finally, a special thank you to Chris Fleming, for explosive intellectual generosity, for walking with me through the PhD, and for introducing me to the euphoric highs and horror lows of intellectual collaboration. I doubt we’ll ever agree on semicolons; but perhaps that’s for the best. CF – much thanks to David Burchell, Jane Goodall, Michaela Davies, Sirianand Jacobs, John O’Carroll, James Gourley, and David Haggerty, whose voices and beautifully odd minds reverberate through the book in ways far greater than any mere bibliography could indicate. (I realize that sounds like a slightly muted plagiarism warning.) Sizeable and strepituous thanks are also due to my improbably large-brained co-author, without whom this book might well have remained an excited email exchange and a series of absurd jokes. I’m also deeply indebted to Malcolm Jones, Bob Vavich, and Mindy Sotiri. You each know why. Thank you. INTRODUCTION: RUNNING DOGS AND THE ‘RIGHTNESS’ OF CONSPIRACY Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET ‘This is the age of conspiracy’, Don DeLillo writes in Running Dog – ‘…the age of connections, links, secret relationships’ (1989, 111). He’s right. Here in the non-fiction world, hardly a day goes by without some novel revelation of a terrible new plot that would have had us all fooled – if it weren’t, that is, the subject of such scandalous and continuous revelation. Thanks to the hard work of conspiracy theorists, common knowledge now has it that the World Trade Center was not destroyed by aeroplanes, but by a coordinated bomb detonation by the American government; that Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a body double; that Princess Diana – on the other hand – did not die in a car crash but was assassinated by the British monarchy (who may or may not be extraterrestrial); that fluoride controls our minds via an undetermined process of chemical alchemy that transforms human defiance into slavish obedience; that the world has been invaded by reptilian humanoids and they are already here among us; that the secret world government is run by Jews – and that, correspondingly, there is, in fact, a secret world government whose overarching governance passes by undetected on the basis that it is, obviously, secret. And so on. This allows us to supplement DeLillo’s characterization of our era by adding that not only is this the age of conspiracy, it is also the age of exposé. Presumably, we only
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