Thread by @LeftistsUk

@ggreenwald Snowden:

Snowden:

"The concept of the enemy is fundamental to conspiracy thinking — and to the various taxonomies of conspiracy itself.

Jesse Walker, an editor at Reason and author of The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory (2013), offers the following (1/19)

@ggreenwald categories of enemy-based conspiracy thinking:

“Enemy Outside,” which pertains to conspiracy theories perpetrated by or based on actors scheming against a given identity-community from outside of it

“Enemy Within,” which pertains to conspiracy theories perpetrated by (2/19)

@ggreenwald or based on actors scheming against a given identity-community from inside of it

“Enemy Above,” which pertains to conspiracy theories perpetrated by or based on actors manipulating events from within the circles of power (government, military, the intelligence (3/19)

@ggreenwald community, etc.)

"Enemy Below," which pertains to conspiracy theories perpetrated by or based on actors from historically disenfranchised communities seeking to overturn the social order

“Benevolent Conspiracies,” which pertains to extra-terrestrial, supernatural, or (4/19)

@ggreenwald religious forces dedicated to controlling the world for humanity's benefit

(similar forces from Beyond who work to the detriment of humanity Walker might categorize under “Enemy Above”)

Other forms of conspiracy-taxonomy are just a Wikipedia link away:

Michael (5/19)

@ggreenwald Barkun's trinary categorization of Event conspiracies (e.g. false-flags), Systemic conspiracies (e.g. Freemasons), and Superconspiracy theories (e.g. New World Order),

as well as his distinction between the secret acts of secret groups and the secret acts of known (6/19)

@ggreenwald groups; or Murray Rothbard's binary of “shallow” and “deep” conspiracies

(“shallow” conspiracies begin by identifying evidence of wrongdoing and end by blaming the party that benefits;

“deep” conspiracies begin by suspecting a party of wrongdoing and continue by (7/19)

@ggreenwald seeking out documentary proof — or at least “documentary proof”).

I find things to admire in all of these taxonomies, but it strikes me as notable that none makes provision for truth-value.

Further, I'm not sure that these or any mode of classification can adequately (8/19)

@ggreenwald address the often-alternating, dependent nature of conspiracies, whereby

a true conspiracy (e.g. the 9/11 hijackers) triggers a false conspiracy (e.g. 9/11 was an inside job),

and a false conspiracy (e.g. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction) triggers a true (9/19)

@ggreenwald conspiracy (e.g. the invasion of Iraq).

Another critique I would offer of the extant taxonomies involves a reassessment of causality, which is more properly the province of psychology and philosophy.

Most of the taxonomies of conspiracy-thinking are based on the logic (10/19)

@ggreenwald that most intelligence agencies use when they spread disinformation, treating falsity and fiction as levers of influence and confusion that can plunge a populace into powerlessness, making them vulnerable to new beliefs — and even new governments.

But this top-down (11/19)

@ggreenwald approach fails to take into account that the predominant conspiracy theories in America today are developed from the bottom-up, plots concocted not behind the closed doors of intelligence agencies but on the open Internet by private citizens, by people.​​​​​​​

In sum, (12/19)

@ggreenwald conspiracy theories do not inculcate powerlessness, so much as they are the signs and symptoms of powerlessness itself.

This leads us to those other taxonomies, which classify conspiracies not by their content, or intent, but by the desires that cause one to subscribe (13/19)

@ggreenwald to them.

Note, in particular, the epistemic/existential/social triad of system-justification: Belief in a conspiracy is considered “epistemic” if the desire underlying the belief is to get at “the truth,” for its own sake;

belief in a conspiracy is considered (14/19)

@ggreenwald “existential” if the desire underlying the belief is to feel safe and secure, under another's control;

while belief in a conspiracy is considered “social” if the desire underlying the belief is to develop a positive self-image, or a sense of belonging to a (15/19)

@ggreenwald community.

From Outside, from Within, from Above, from Below, from Beyond...events, systems, superconspiracies...shallow and deep heuristics...these are all attempts to chart a new type of politics that is also a new type of identity, a confluence of politics and (16/19)

@ggreenwald identity that imbues all aspects of contemporary life.

Ultimately, the only truly honest taxonomical approach to conspiracy-thinking that I can come up with is something of an inversion:

the idea that conspiracies themselves are a taxonomy, a method by which (17/19)

@ggreenwald democracies especially sort themselves into parties and tribes, a typology through which people who lack definite or satisfactory narratives as citizens explain to themselves their immiseration, their disenfranchisement, their lack of power, and even their lack of will." (18/19)

@ggreenwald - Edward Snowden (19/19)