Conspiracy Theories Secrecy American Culture
JFK, Karl Marx, the Pope, Aristotle Onassis, Queen Elizabeth II, Howard Hughes, Fox Mulder, Bill Clinton-all have been linked to vastly elaborated global (or even galactic) intrigues. In this enlightening tour of conspiracy theories, Mark Fenster guides readers through this shadowy world and analyzes it is complex role in American culture and politics. Fenster argues that conspiracy theories are a form of popular political interpretation and contends that understanding how they circulate through mass culture helps us better grasp our society as a whole. To that end, he discusses Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the militia movement, The X-Files, ordinary Christian apocalyptic thought, and such artifacts of suspicion as The Turner Diaries, the Illuminatus! trilogy, and the novels of Richard Condon. Fenster analyzes the “conspiracy community” of radio shows, magazine and book publishers, Internet resources, and role-playing games that advertize these theories. In this world, the very denial of a conspiracy’s existence becomes proof that it exists, and the truth is always “out there.” He believes conspiracy theory has become a sudden intense feeling for a bored subculture, one characterized by it is members’ reinterpretation of “accepted” history, their deep cynicism regarding contemporary politics, and their longing for a utopian future. Fenster’s progressive critique of conspiracy theories both recognizes the secrecy and inequities of power in contemporary politics and economics and works toward effective political engagement. Probing conspiracy theory’s tendencies toward scapegoating, racism, and fascism, as well as Hofstadter’s centrist acceptance of a postwar American “consensus,” he advocates what conspiracy theory wants but cannot articulate: a more inclusive, engaging political culture. Mark Fenster received his Ph.D. in communicating from the University of Illinois and his law degree from Yale University. He presently lives in Denver. Excerpt: “Ultimately, I want to propose that the Utopian ‘plot’ to be uncovered is not composed of the exclusivity and mysteries of conspiracy, but of the open-ended political struggle for equality, solidarity, and a transparent, participatory democracy that conspiracy theory might assume but may hardly imagine and cannot attain.”
From Publishers Weekly”Just because overarching conspiracy theories are faulty does not mean they are not on to something,” opines Fenster in this commendably level-headed analysis of the grip that conspiracy theories maintain on contemporary America. He does not bother sifting for truth in the The X-Files, the Clinton Chronicles or JFK, but he does recompense close attention to those who believe and promulgate conspiracy theoriesAwhat he calls the “conspiracy community.” Even if each conspiracy theory is patently untrue (Fenster does not marshal proof either way), he argues that mainstream culture’s affinity for conspiracy theory is an crucial phenomenon itself. The “conspiracy” tag may be applied to delegitimize others’ opinions, as when the allegations that the CIA helped fetch crack into East L.A. were written off as portion of the African-American community’s supposed susceptibility to conspiracy. And conspiracy theory is too ofttimes merely the cover story for racists and anti-Semites. But Fenster likewise notes that conspiracy theory serves a utile intent as a balm to the politically alienated segments of society, and he optimistically interprets the popular pursuit of uncovering the concealed mechanics of power as proof of a latent populism waiting to harnessed. By neither dismissing conspiracy theorists as paranoid kooks nor being seduced by their yarns, Fenster constructs a strong case that even while we do not believe, we ought to nonetheless listen.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Conspiracy Theories Secrecy American Culture Picture
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Most helpful client reviews
28 of 29 humans found the following review helpful.
 The truth is out there…
By daibhidh
I recall a quote from Robert Anton Wilson who said, “Anyone in the United States who isn’t paranoid ought to be crazy.” I always thought that was an amusive quote, and it should’ve shown up in this book, probably! Fenster explores the prevalence of conspiracy theory in American culture in this very academic book. While his writing style is good, I warn you that this book seems aimed at academics, and not your garden-variety conspiracy buffs.
He begins with exploring Richard Hofstadter’s work on the paranoid style of American politics, and leaps into studying the militia movement, later focusing on JFK, the X-Files, and other forms of “conspiracy as entertainment” and likewise examines millennial Christian groups and apocalyptic predictions, etc. Fenster is stringent in his exploration of conspiracy theories-as he explains in the beginning, he is not detailing the theories so much as examining what they represent, both culturally and individually. In this, he does an magnificent job, specially when it comes to the militias.
He seeks to get past the old notion of conspiracy theory as pathology to seeing it as a legitimate, if uttermost and disempowering expression of standard dissatisfaction with the status quo. This is an important observation: that conspiracy theory, by embracing the idea of all-powerful person villainy (a mystery group behind it all), rather of structural troubles (capitalism, American democracy) people may in truth affect and change, conspiracy theory saps the strength from humans by making them paranoid bystanders to their own lives. But he’s clear to point out how the structure of the American political scheme gives rise to this line of thought, even though unintentionally-the majority of Americans are marginalized in this society. The tonic for this would seem to be action, rather than taking refuge in conspiracy theory.
Overall, this book is worth your time, but don’t read it as a titillating account of conspiracies or you will be disappointed. If you’re curious with regards to what makes these things tick, then this book is for you.
16 of 20 humans found the following review helpful.
 Not just another conspiracy book.
By Michael J Woznicki
….What makes this book special? Whatmakes this book a must read?
The answers are simple, this book has details. This book has facts. This book has info that is hard to find anyplace else. Above all this book isn’t conjecture. Fenster’s capacity to fetch to life the conspiracy and what it means to society is not one thing short of remarkable.
From the very beginning, we find that author’s attention to detail closely incredible. Fenster has taken what society has scaled down to not one thing more than tabloid trash and revealed mysteries that will make you affrighted and judging from the writing you must be.
Fenster covers Militia groups, JFK, the Millennium, Bill Clinton and other and does it very well. I am surely glad to have had the chance to read this remarkable book. I would hope the author is in the procedure of a second edition. Once again – splendid job!
3 of 4 humans found the following review helpful.
A Deeply Analytical and Scholarly Account
By Roger D. Launius
More than fifty years ago the outstanding consensus historian Richard Hofstadter argued in “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” that the peculiar strain of populism that fosters conspiracy in American culture operates at a fringe of society and represents a threat to the dominant consensus of the nation. We may take exception to Hofstadter’s analysis, something Fenster does to ravaging effect, but few would disagree that conspiracy theories are much more mutual than Hofstadter was more than willing to acknowledge. Indeed, even those who do not receive them as the norm would in all probability agree with the old adage, “Just because you’re not paranoid it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”
Mark Fenster argues in “Conspiracy Theories” that these ideas swirl around us and everyone to a more outstanding or lesser degree buys into them. We could not work efficaciously in society without now and then wild explanations. What percentage of the population, for example does not believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK in 1963? Is your theory the same as mine? What proof supports these assertions?
For Fenster conspiracy theories are something of a mind game we play to support explain what we view as irrational. It is also a way to ease the boredom of our routine modern existence. Furthermore, it helps to explain an overarching cynicism with regards to contemporary culture and particularly politics, which seems both out of reach and totally unlikely to parse. Moreover, it plays to innovative society’s concealed desires for scapegoating, bigotry, and fascism.
Fenster’s short study–only nine chapters with an introduction and an afterword–steps through various key issues. A firstborn division explores the use of conspiracy to shape political thought and action. Here he takes down the marginalization of conspiracism to politics that was so much a part of Hofstadter’s consensus historiographical tradition. He then undertakes assorted case studies of conspiracy, supplying sophisticated analyses of the some conspiracy themes surrounding the Clinton presidency, ordinary manifestations of JFK’s assassination and the X-Files, Christian fundamentalist apocalyticism, and the possibleness of the theme in cultural studies.
“Conspiracy Theories” is very much a work of scholarship. For those seeking the scholarly circumstance of the theme into the larger area of American studies, media studies, and cultural analysis and criticism this is a welcome work. For those fascinated in a more practically and politically motivated discussion this work will be disappointing. As it is, this is a utile place to start out analyzing a complex theme in progressed American society.
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