Kay's writing style is excellent. One may not agree with the content, but you won't be bothered by stilted, poorly written sentences. I learned a great deal about the foundations of conspiracism, patterns of conspiracism, and the anti-semitic origins of many conspiracies. As Kay notes, anti-semitism plays a significant role in many conspiracy theories. Kay traces the origin of modern conspiracism to a nasty Russian anti-semitic tract known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Though many conspiracies are not anti-semitic, many still follow the same pattern presented in The Protocols by mere substitution of players. I was never aware of the existence or history of The Protocols. That history lesson alone (coupled with the author's review of Zamyatin's 1920s novel "We", a precurser to Orwell's 1984) is worth the price of reading the book.
Noteworthy takeaway quotes:
"When a critical mass of educated people in a society lose their grip on the real world--when they claim that George W. Bush is a follower of Nazi ideology, that Barack Obama is a Muslim secretly plotting to impose Sharia law on America, that the United States government is controlled by Israel, or that FEMA is preparing to imprison political dissidents in preparation for a totalitarian New World Order--it is a signal that the ordinary rules of rational intellectual inquiry are now treated as optional."
"The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding, or slight discrepancy to defeat 20 pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than 10 normal witnesses on the other side; treats rumors, even questions, as the equivalent of proof; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries to the grandest of conclusions; and insists, as the late lawyer Louis Nizer once observed, that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained." --Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History
"It is not unusual for intellectuals and politicians to reject their opponents' arguments. But it is the mark of an intellectually pathologized society that intellectuals and politicians will reject their opponents' realities."
"What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them." --Voltaire
GROW THICK SKIN
Your toes will be stepped on when you read this book, unless you're one of those non-committal, apolitical moderates with a weak pulse (if such people indeed exist.) To read the reviews here is humorous. Each critic has his own grievance. Kay manages to include just about everyone in his critique. I resolved before reading to not take the criticism personally. I have a fair number of disagreements with the author, but I didn't let them get in the way of enjoying the book. I actually like the Among the Truthers very much despite being, to a degree, one of its targets.
Since everyone gets criticized, there is also something in the book for everyone. Advocates for their own position will be gratified to see opposing views "get theirs." The author concedes that it is very unlikely that he will change anyone's mind due to the human tendency to seize confirming evidence while filtering discomfirming facts for the mental garbage can. For this reason, instead of panning the book, smart Truthers will encourage initiates to read it as a primer. The author does a very good job of summarizing key people and factions within the Truther movement.
GOVERNMENT: WE DON'T TRUST YOU
There is no doubt that the single biggest factor fueling most every variety of conspiracy theory is a lack of trust in our government. They haven't given us much reason to trust them. Kay agrees:
"The proportion of Americans who say that they "basically trust their government" has dropped from a high of 73 percent in 1958, when pollsters first asked the question, to just 22 percent in 2010. And there is a direct line from this statistic to the men and women profiled in this book."
Government must earn our trust. Wariness of totalitarianism is a good thing in my view. Today we are witnessing great lurches in that direction. Big government is spending us all into bankruptcy. There is no accountability. Corruption is rampant. Private property is under assault. Radical environmentalism and crony corporatism is out of control. Politicians misrepresented social security from the beginning. The mainstream media is held in the same contempt, and is now viewed primarily by many (myself included) as a mere propaganda arm of government. Such an environment is a recipe for conspiracism. Politicians have themselves to blame for the mishmash of extreme distrust of which rampant conspiracism is a symptom.
WEAK ON ECONOMICS
Kay holds a view of capitalism common among intellectuals:
"Unfettered American capitalism in the nineteenth century permitted a concentration of economic power in a small handful of banks and conglomerates, whose abuses summoned into being a populist backlash, which in turn spurred the creation of an intrusive regulatory state."
This is a demonstrably false view of history that conflates free market capitalism with mercantilism or crony-capitalism. That is, government/business partnerships. The difference is vast. The "concentration of economic power in a small handful of banks and conglomerates" was due, not to unfettered capitalism, but government "fettering" of the same.
On Ayn Rand: "Both of these men [radical conspiracists] follow faithfully in the tradition of Ayn Rand, whose radicalized fear of government seems to have taken root when the Soviets took over her father's pharmacy in St. Petersburg."
"...this also happens to be the time in life when many young people are looking to define their identity through the sort of radical, overarching secular faith conspiracism provides (which is one of the reasons so many college students fall hard for Karl Marx or Ayn Rand)"
Well, count me among those with a "radicalized fear" then. Much of the soviet-style encroachment into private property and business depicted in Atlas Shrugged is now taking place. (Among other things, the Kelo v. New London decision completely ignored the plain, unambiguous language of the constitution.) I am struck that much of what I read of Rand (to a point, mind you) is not dissimilar to what was written by several of the founders. For example:
"...man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave." -- Ayn Rand
NO LOVE FOR TEA PARTY, GLENN BECK, SARAH PALIN, RUSH LIMBAUGH, ET AL.
"The [Tea Party] ideology on display roughly coincides with the nativist, homophobic, socially conservative right-wing fringe of the Republican Party, but with an even heavier dose of paranoia and freaked-out America-gone-to-Gomorrah sensationalism."
The author indicts Glenn Back, in part, by pointing out that Glenn flirted with the FEMA camp conspiracy "for a time." Fair enough. What he actually said was he "wanted to debunk them, but can't" and "If you trust our government, it's fine" but if you don't the scenario is a matter for concern. In other words, he believed the government could potentially use FEMA for oppression based on the information he had at the time. After investigating further, he demurred and actually invited both Ron Paul and Popular Mechanics onto his television show to DEBUNK the "FEMA camp" myths. That sounds to me like an honest man going where the facts lead and revising his views to match the evidence. Isn't that what Kay purports to encourage us to do?
Nevertheless, government so-called emergency powers should be a concern for Americans. They can, and have been, used as tools of oppression. Most notably in prosecuting the Civil War and during the FDR fascist years. Those who have no idea what I'm talking about should investigate history. Under FDR, persons who violated the law by charging TOO LITTLE (during the depression) for goods or services actually went to jail. That's not conspiracy mongering, it's historical, verifiable fact.
The author offers the following indictment of Sarah Palin:
"Other right-wing conspiracists, including no less a political celebrity than the Republicans' 2008 vice-presidential candidate, accused Barack Obama of creating "death panels" that would send the old and crippled to early graves."
Kay makes disparaging reference to the Tea Party fear of the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" and says that the Tea Party characterization contains only a "grain of truth."
Kay takes exception to Tea Partiers who tag President Obama as a Marxist.
Rahm Emmanuel did in fact say the following; "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Echoing Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton repeated the same thing before European Parliament. In other words, every crisis is an opportunity to expand government power. Hillary Clinton did in fact say "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." That's Marxism. It is a sentiment that Obama shares and has repeated, albeit in different words (remember Joe the plumber?) If you take the position that rhetoric of that kind is not a matter for concern then we surely disagree. Rhetoric precedes action. When politicians routinely demonize certain groups ("The Rich" for instance) they are a target for persecution, if not elimination.
I do not disagree with the author's assessment of Tea Party positions. He gets it essentially right. I disagree with his diminution of Tea Party concerns, which I do not believe are vastly overblown.
I find one Tea Party statistic cited by Kay disturbing, if accurate: "...more than half of self-declared Tea Party supporters said the government should maintain or increase its involvement in poverty eradication."
SEE ONLY WHAT IS THERE
My advice for avoiding the decent into paranoia is to force oneself to see only what is there. Many innocents have been unfairly convicted on circumstantial evidence. The practice of restraint is easier said than done. I find that I must constantly steel myself to keep from going to far in assigning hidden motives and secret plans. It is better to examine direct actions, direct statements, and real consequences.
Antigonish, by Hughes Mearns
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
Everyone will take something unique from this poem. I think it illustrates the fears created by our minds. We often fear imagined things. Things that are not really there. Inferences. Future anxieties that never come to pass. Hidden agendas. Paranoias.
Look away! Do not look at the man who is not there. Do not meet him on the stair.
MY VERY OWN 911 CONSPIRACY THEORY
911 Conspiracists effectively work for Muslim jihadists. They betray us by shifting the blame from Muslim terrorists to the very targets of the terrorists themselves, whether it be Americans or Jews. They twist victims into perpetrators and make themselves apologists for those seeking to destroy us. Wait. That's not a conspiracy. It's actually happening.
Recommended additional reading:
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
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Top reviews from other countries
Albert Moessmer
Ein sehr aktuelles Buch über die Welt der Verschwörungstheorien
Reviewed in Germany on January 20, 2012Roger Clark
Distrubing - America is heading for the rocks
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 20, 2014basque
can you really write a Truther Book without mentioning...
Reviewed in Canada on June 3, 2017JS Rioux
Well-written, well-researched and very interesting read
Reviewed in Canada on July 1, 2013
