Theorizing conspiracy

Theory and Society

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 255-271

  Pratt, Ray ^a  

^a MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0345861988     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1023996501425     Document Type: Review

References (39)

1. Edward Said, "Islam and the West are inadequate banners," The Observer [London], Sunday September 16, 2001 [online edition].
2. Peter Navarro, "Plug An Electric Cord Into a Grassy Knoll" Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2001.
3. On the tremendous upsurge in trust in government after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, see Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, "Poll: Americans' Trust in Government Grows - Confidence in Government More than Doubles Since April 2000," Washington Post, Friday, September 28, 2001 [http://www.washingtonpost.com].
4. See Mark Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium, 125-138.
5. One of the most insightful brief discussions of conspiracy thinking, its rationality, and reasonable basis is Judith Grant, "Trust No One: Paranoia, Conspiracy Theories and Alien Invasions," Undercurrent 6 (Summer 1999). http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/^ucurrent6/6-grant.htm. Examining contradictory government statements regarding the alleged Roswell UFO crash in 1947 Grant finds that by their very public admissions, government agencies demonstrate the truth of the arguments of proponents of cover-up conspiracies in this and many other events usually dismissed as paranoia or delusion.
6. Dery, 135.
7. Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (New York: Free Press, 1997); Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
8. Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (New York: Free Press, 1997); Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
9. Jodi Dean, "Theorizing Conspiracy Theory," Theory & Event 4/2 (2000), 7. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v004/4.2r_dean.htm.
10. Timothy Melley, Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 12.
11. See Ray Pratt, Projecting Paranoia: Conspiratorial Visions in American Film (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2001). Among the empirical studies of paranoia evident in recent decades, see, for example, John Mirowsky and Katherine E. Ross, "Paranoia and the Structure of Powerlessness," American Sociological Review 48 (April 1983), 228-239; Ted Goertzel, "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychological 15/4 (1994), 731-742; Anita Waters, "Conspiracy Theories as Ethno-sociologies: Explanation and Intention in African-American Political Culture," Journal of Black Studies 29/1 (September 1997), 108-115.
12. See Ray Pratt, Projecting Paranoia: Conspiratorial Visions in American Film (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2001). Among the empirical studies of paranoia evident in recent decades, see, for example, John Mirowsky and Katherine E. Ross, "Paranoia and the Structure of Powerlessness," American Sociological Review 48 (April 1983), 228-239; Ted Goertzel, "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychological 15/4 (1994), 731-742; Anita Waters, "Conspiracy Theories as Ethno-sociologies: Explanation and Intention in African-American Political Culture," Journal of Black Studies 29/1 (September 1997), 108-115.
13. See Ray Pratt, Projecting Paranoia: Conspiratorial Visions in American Film (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2001). Among the empirical studies of paranoia evident in recent decades, see, for example, John Mirowsky and Katherine E. Ross, "Paranoia and the Structure of Powerlessness," American Sociological Review 48 (April 1983), 228-239; Ted Goertzel, "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychological 15/4 (1994), 731-742; Anita Waters, "Conspiracy Theories as Ethno-sociologies: Explanation and Intention in African-American Political Culture," Journal of Black Studies 29/1 (September 1997), 108-115.
14. See Ray Pratt, Projecting Paranoia: Conspiratorial Visions in American Film (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2001). Among the empirical studies of paranoia evident in recent decades, see, for example, John Mirowsky and Katherine E. Ross, "Paranoia and the Structure of Powerlessness," American Sociological Review 48 (April 1983), 228-239; Ted Goertzel, "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychological 15/4 (1994), 731-742; Anita Waters, "Conspiracy Theories as Ethno-sociologies: Explanation and Intention in African-American Political Culture," Journal of Black Studies 29/1 (September 1997), 108-115.
15. See Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and The Death of JFK (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
16. Carl Boggs, The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere (New York: The Guilford Press, 2000).
17. Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan: The Movie - and Other Episodes of Political Demonology (Berkeley: California, 1987). In his important discussion of political repression throughout U.S. history Rogin repeatedly cites Robert Justin Goldstein's classic study, Political Repression in Modern America, recently reissued with significant updates, (University of Illinois Press, 2001).
18. Michael Rogin, Ronald Reagan: The Movie - and Other Episodes of Political Demonology (Berkeley: California, 1987). In his important discussion of political repression throughout U.S. history Rogin repeatedly cites Robert Justin Goldstein's classic study, Political Repression in Modern America, recently reissued with significant updates, (University of Illinois Press, 2001).
19. Page numbers in parentheses refer to Fenster's book.
20. Chalmers Johnson, Blowback:The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000). Johnson takes account of the September 11, 2001 events in "Blowback," The Nation, October 15, 2001, 13-15.
21. Chalmers Johnson, Blowback:The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000). Johnson takes account of the September 11, 2001 events in "Blowback," The Nation, October 15, 2001, 13-15.
22. On Morris's critique of Bellamy's work see E. P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic Revolutionary (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1976), 692-698. After a recent re-reading of Bellamy's tract - wildly popular in its day and responsible for stimulating hundreds of local Bellamy societies in the country - it seems to me to conceive of the future as a kind of gigantic state capitalist Wal-Mart.
23. Christopher Sharrett, "Conspiracy Theory and Political Murder in America: Oliver Stone's JFK and the Facts of the Matter," in Jon Lewis, editor, The New American Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 217-247.
24. A good summary of the alleged "October Surprise" plot can be found in Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 228-233.
25. Richard Rashke, The Killing Of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case, Second Edition, (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000).
26. Robert Anton Wilson, Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998). A similar parodic, yet meticulously well-researched accounting of the details of plots and conspiracies is evident in Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, The 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (New York: Citadel Press, 1999) updated from earlier "50 Greatest..." and "60 Greatest..." versions. See their website at http://www.conspire.com.
27. Robert Anton Wilson, Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-ups (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998). A similar parodic, yet meticulously well-researched accounting of the details of plots and conspiracies is evident in Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, The 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (New York: Citadel Press, 1999) updated from earlier "50 Greatest..." and "60 Greatest..." versions. See their website at http://www.conspire.com.
28. Morris Dickstein, Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), 97.
29. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London: Verso, 1977), 176.
30. Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
31. On the Unabomber, see Mark Dery's discussion "Wild Nature, Wired Nature: The Unabomber Meets the Digerati," in The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium, 225-245.
32. Lawrence Grossberg, We Gotta Get Out of This Place (London: Routledge, 1992), 277.
33. See, for example, Johnson's Blowback and analyses of earlier U.S. support of "terrorism" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979) and Herman's The Real Terror Network (Boston : South End Press, 1982). William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995) provides extensive background on U.S. interventions forgotten or ignored by the public and national leaders. In Z Magazine [online edition] October 18, 2001, Edward Herman argued, "from the 1950s the United States itself has been heavily engaged in terrorism, and has sponsored, underwritten, and protected other terrorist states and individual terrorists. In fact, as the greatest and now sole superpower, the United States has also been the world's greatest terrorist and sponsor of terror." Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Who Terrorizes Whom?" http://www.zmag.org/whoterrorizes.htm.
34. See, for example, Johnson's Blowback and analyses of earlier U.S. support of "terrorism" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979) and Herman's The Real Terror Network (Boston : South End Press, 1982). William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995) provides extensive background on U.S. interventions forgotten or ignored by the public and national leaders. In Z Magazine [online edition] October 18, 2001, Edward Herman argued, "from the 1950s the United States itself has been heavily engaged in terrorism, and has sponsored, underwritten, and protected other terrorist states and individual terrorists. In fact, as the greatest and now sole superpower, the United States has also been the world's greatest terrorist and sponsor of terror." Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Who Terrorizes Whom?" http://www.zmag.org/whoterrorizes.htm.
35. See, for example, Johnson's Blowback and analyses of earlier U.S. support of "terrorism" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979) and Herman's The Real Terror Network (Boston : South End Press, 1982). William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995) provides extensive background on U.S. interventions forgotten or ignored by the public and national leaders. In Z Magazine [online edition] October 18, 2001, Edward Herman argued, "from the 1950s the United States itself has been heavily engaged in terrorism, and has sponsored, underwritten, and protected other terrorist states and individual terrorists. In fact, as the greatest and now sole superpower, the United States has also been the world's greatest terrorist and sponsor of terror." Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "Who Terrorizes Whom?" http://www.zmag.org/whoterrorizes.htm.
36. See Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, "Poll: Americans' Trust in Government Grows, Washington Post, Friday, September 28, 2001.
37. In the large earlier literature on the topic, see particularly Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King, editors, Why People Don't Trust Goverrment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). The erosive effects of electronic media on the reputations of political leaders were perceptively discussed by Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), especially "Lowering the Political Hero to Our Level," 268-304.
38. In the large earlier literature on the topic, see particularly Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King, editors, Why People Don't Trust Goverrment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). The erosive effects of electronic media on the reputations of political leaders were perceptively discussed by Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), especially "Lowering the Political Hero to Our Level," 268-304.
39. Associated Press release, April 26, 2002.