THE CONSPIRASPHERE
When we talk about conspiracy theorists, are we talking simply about political discontents or also those who would question wider ‘realities’, asks NOEL ROONEY
LOSERS AND FAKERS
I went to an interesting talk at the London Fortean Society last week by a leading US academic in the field of political science, Joe Uscinsky. The title of the talk (‘Conspiracy Theory is for losers’) provoked one dyed-in-the-wool denizen of the Conspirasphere to infiltrate the meeting and attempt to deliver an impassioned, if incoherent, defence of a world view that wasn’t actually being attacked (later, outside the venue, I saw him taking off his T-shirt and disguising himself as a real person, but more on that later). In fact Uscinsky’s talk was on the whole respectful of conspiracy theorists (he pointed out that Nixon was exposed by a couple of conspiracy theorists), and had some good points to make, at least about political conspiracies and their discontents.
It got me to thinking about whether the Conspirasphere encompasses only those who see evil machinations in the actions and words of governments; I see it as a broader church, a sanctuary for New Agers, ancient alien spotters, maverick scholars and a host of other alternative thinkers (or, rather, people who think about subjects that are loosely labelled as ‘alternative’ in conscious opposition to an equally loosely labelled ‘mainstream’). The academics (and their number is growing exponentially) who study the subject tend to a narrower definition of conspiracy theorists. This can be fruitful – Uscinsky talked about how conspiracy thinking shifts across the political spectrum depending on who is in power, thus neatly debunking the widely-held assumption that the Conspirasphere is home to only right-wingers – but can also miss out on the eldritch ecological riches that a broader taxonomy allows.
Out in the niches of this wider environment is a group of thinkers who start from the assumption that absolutely everything in the ‘real’ world is, in fact, fake. I regularly enjoy the fruits of this fancifully fertile field of endeavour, while also finding myself irritated at the epistemological implications. Nonetheless, you have to admire the ingenuity with which the real world is dismantled by the more skilful of the ‘world as hoax’ proponents. Take Miles Mathis; as he pushes his claims that more or less everything you have ever learned is a carefully constructed hoax, he constructs, with equal care, a real ‘real’ world (there is a worrying little Lacanian Russian doll lurking in the ‘real’ here, but probably best to ignore it) where secretive, powerful groups of conspirators create, copy, clone and kill celebrities, historical figures and events in an endless and, one can’t help feeling, ultimately pointless, carnival of invention.
His take on the death of Buddy Holly (mileswmathis.com/ holly.pdf) is a prime example. In a bravura performance (occasionally mad, and, sadly, regularly anti-Semitic) of quirky research and artful use of the unreliable sources available on the Internet, he manages to connect Holly to the English aristocracy, US military intelligence, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Christie’s auction house, Charles Manson and Katy Perry. He rubbishes Holly’s biography, career, and relationships en route to debunking the circumstances of his death and finally, the fact of his death, in order to prove that the doomed young rocker gave up the drab world of stardom for a life of secret squirrelling for the CIA, and eventual retirement into the banking business. And all Buddy had to do, to effectively disguise himself from the millions of adoring fans was to take off his glasses (which were of course fake to begin with).