Social paranoia: one photo says it all

I snapped this photo in early April 2011 across the street from the Southeast branch of the Washington DC library. It perfectly illustrates the ideology of right wing paranoia that forms the subject of my current research.

Theorizing Social Paranoia (2)

 Listen to my podcast on this subject:

Dumain, Ralph. “Theorizing Social Paranoia,” 22 May 2011, 58 min., an episode of "Studies in a Dying Culture" on "Think Twice Radio".

Theorizing Social Paranoia (1)

Theorizing Social Paranoia: A Précis for Discussion

By Ralph Dumain

“Fascism has awakened a sleeping world to the realities of the irrational, mystical character structure of the people of the world.”  — Wilhelm Reich

“You’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you.” This adage reveals a fundamental problem in addressing the question of social paranoia and the concomitant phenomenon of conspiracy theories. Without the consideration of truth content, or a commitment to some view of social reality by which we could divide rational from irrational truth claims, we are left with a formalistic account of social paranoia based solely on defining characteristics of what Richard Hofstadter famously dubbed the “paranoid style.” Here are some essential questions to be addressed.

Is social paranoia essentially the same in all historical periods, and in all social and political circumstances and movements, or are there qualitative differences which need to be highlighted? What is the relationship between occult and supernaturally based paranoia—in primitive societies, the civilizations of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modernity—and secular paranoia—about elites or cabals openly or secretly controlling social institutions, the state, the economy, the world order?  What transformations has the granddaddy of social paranoiac obsession—anti-Semitism—undergone since the Middle Ages? How shall we compare paranoia in power (in those who command state or institutional power) with the paranoia of the putatively powerless? Is there an equivalence between left and right, or are irrationalist worldviews associated with social paranoia essentially the property of the authoritarian right-wing? If there is an essential difference between right and left, what are the telltale signs of right-wing ideology? Are progressives vulnerable to appeals from the right, and are there examples of right-wing tendencies ensconced within the left?

Are the “moderate men” who evince a plague-on-both-your-houses attitude toward left and right guilty of shifting political discourse to the right?

The pooh-poohing of “conspiracy theories” is deployed by the right when it seeks to dismiss legitimate political criticisms and exposés, and often by the left as a distraction from structural social criticism. Given the shifting boundaries of what might be considered outlandish conspiracy claims in light of covert actions revealed over the past half century, how do we distinguish between at least marginally plausible conspiracy theories and totally outlandish or outright crackpot claims? What are the telltale code words and concepts associated with right-wing or other crackpot thinking? What are the tacit assumptions and characteristic fallacies in reasoning to look out for?

Finally, what does a climate of fear do in itself to break down rational processes and confuse attributions of causality? Wilhelm Reich, quoted above, himself succumbed to paranoiac thinking—even while diagnosing it—under the pressure of real persecution and the political horrors of fascism and Stalinism, and descended into crank pseudoscience even while making astute observations of the mystical mentality. Does a climate of fear—in which one has real reason to fear social forces which themselves may be imbued with social paranoia—bear the danger of impairing the rational capacity of a rational opposition?

In preparation for our forthcoming discussion, please consult the bibliography (with web links) I have prepared:

The Paranoia Papers: Theory of the (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia: Selected Bibliography

10 April 2011

The Fascist Occult Unconscious of the World We Live In

"Fascism has awakened a sleeping world to the realities of the irrational, mystical character structure of the people of the world."

    — Wilhelm Reich

The paranoid fascist mentality is deeply ingrained in modern civilization. It is a deadlier mutation of the paranoiac magical thinking of primitive man, except that in a world in which one is menaced more by the forces of society than the forces of nature, occult thinking personalizes an impersonal and incomprehensible sociooeconomic system by constructing a narrative of mysterious omniscient, omnipotent, and omnimalevolent entities who operate according to a consistent master plan.

Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions

Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions by Ronald H. Fritze (London: Reaktion Books, 2009)

See the author's web site, linked above. Here is the publisher's description:

Invented Knowledge is an exploration of the murky world of fake science and pseudo-history: fields that generally rely on lost continents, ancient super-civilizations, conspiratorial cover-ups, preternaturally daring and undocumented discoveries, and even vast Satan-inspired plots to offer an alternative version of the past.

At once lively and authoritative, Ronald H. Fritze illuminates the phenomenon of false history by telling the story of a select group of pseudo-historical ideas. He explores legends such as the lost continent of Atlantis, and the original settlement of the Americas by a European people, who established a glorious civilization only to be supplanted by the invading ‘Red Indian’, and whose only remains are the many mounds scattered across the eastern United States. He also discusses the beliefs of more recent religious groups, such as the Nation of Islam and Christian Identity. Fritze shows that in spite of, or perhaps because of, the strongest rejections of mainstream historians, and the lack of scientific evidence, some of these ideas have proved very durable, and gained widespread acceptance in the public mind. Such ideas can also be deadly – the Nazis, for example, believed in a false version of European history in which the German people were a superior race destined to conquer the world.

With many diverting examples of spurious narrative, artificial chronology and ersatz theory, Invented Knowledge also unravels the disputes and debates surrounding controversial books such as 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Black Athena, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code.

Esoterism, Occultism, the Illuminati, & Fascism

Written 16 June 2010, now slightly edited with slight additions:

Today as I approached my local supermarket to buy groceries, I saw a parked pickup truck with a number of bumper stickers on it, alleging conspiracies by the Illuminati, Wall Street (alleged also to have financed Lenin and Trotsky), 9-11-01 as an inside job, et al, with an assortment of other bumper stickers quoting left and right sources. And this thinking is hardly atypical, esp. among the uneducated and self-educated. By the appearance of things I assume this crackpot had to be white, but Washington is full of black people who think just like this. Large segments of the population are oriented towards occult explanations for social developments they don't understand and refuse to investigate otherwise.

Esoterism = fascism. Paranoia = gullibility. Unrestrained conspiracy-mongering = negation of critical thinking. Cynicism = credulity. The fascicization of American culture accelerates.

Links:

Cynicism & Conformity by Max Horkheimer

Georg Lukács on Irrationalism and Nazism: The Unity of Cynicism and Credulity

What Is Cynical Reason? Peter Sloterdijk Explains

Cynicism as a Form of Ideology by Slavoj Žižek