Conspiracy Theories And Conspiratorial Mentality - Alternative View

Conspiracy Theories And Conspiratorial Mentality - Alternative View
Conspiracy Theories And Conspiratorial Mentality - Alternative View

Video: Conspiracy Theories And Conspiratorial Mentality - Alternative View

Video: Conspiracy Theories And Conspiratorial Mentality - Alternative View
Video: Conspiracy Theories and the Problem of Disappearing Knowledge | Quassim Cassam | TEDxWarwick 2024, March
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A conspiracy is the illegal act of a small, secretly working group of people who intend to turn a historical turn, such as overthrowing a government. Conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain an event, or series of events, as the result of a conspiracy. Conspiracy as a mentality views all significant events from the perspective of conspiracy theories. For people with this mentality, conspiracy is the only model for change in history, and conspiracy theories are the only form of historical explanation. The German word Verschworungsmythos (conspiracy myths) refers to "conspiracy theory" as a myth. Indeed, this is a more appropriate term than "theory", which implies a rational, scientific basis. The American scientist Richard Hofstadter used the phrase "paranoid style" to characterize conspiracy, i.e.conspiratorial mentality.

The purpose of this article is to outline the contours of the conspiratorial mentality, to trace in general terms its evolution in Europe and the United States, and to offer some explanation for this phenomenon. Conspiracy theories as a means of interpreting history and politics are dangerous and destabilizing in today's world. I hope that the proposed article will help open a discussion - both scientific and practical - around this urgent problem.

Conspiracies go as far back as politics itself. Their roots should be sought in the Middle Ages, and perhaps in antiquity, but for the most part they were generated by the French Revolution of the late 18th century, the great hotbed of all world "isms". In America, conspiracy is older than the United States as a state. One of the most astute scholars of the American Revolution considers conspiracy to be one of the factors that determined the reaction of the colonists to the policies of the British government. Russia turned out to be a fertile ground for both conspiracies and conspiracies. Perhaps most historians other than Soviet historians view the October Revolution as the result of a conspiracy, and few would argue that the CPSU conspired against other governments. While it is possible that conspiracy is dwindling in Western and Central Europe,but even there he has a rich history.

The spread of conspiracy to the third world is one of the most obvious signs of the modernization and Westernization of the countries of this part of the earth. It is hardly possible to overestimate the importance of conspiracy in the modern world. Conspiracy theories help explain the confusion of the minds of our time, as well as the widespread inability of individuals and groups to act in their own interests.

Is conspiracy really increasing its presence in the modern world, or not? Are there a growing number of people who believe that historical events and their own lives are controlled by invisible and incomprehensible forces, or, on the contrary, fewer people share these pseudo-theories? There is a vast literature on individual conspiracy theories, such as the so-called conspiracy of the Zion sages to take over the world, theories about Freemasonry and other closed or secret societies. The movements based on such theories have been studied in great detail and from many angles.

The study of the history of Nazi Germany is expanding and deepening. Much of what was previously called "Sovietology" can be viewed as the study of conspiratorial behavior. This is especially true of the Stalin era. However, conspiracies in general, as a phenomenon of modern history and modern consciousness, are not receiving so much attention. Not too long ago, an important book has appeared, a kind of explanatory essay that may pave the way for further research. An interesting example of modern psychological analysis can be found in the works of Mikhail Billig. Many years ago, the Frankfurt School scholar Franz Neumann attempted to combine the views of Marx and Freud on the level of explanation. The historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt, more than anyone else,participated in the development of the concept of totalitarianism and made important remarks about conspiracy. Various works on mythology and myth-making in the modern world are also related to this topic. Below we will consider some of the interpretations of conspiracy.

Political action often requires secrecy and is planned in advance. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between ordinary politics and conspiracy. There is one important indicator: for the conspiracy theorist, the coming change is of global importance; the fate of peoples and the entire world is at stake. Plus, paranoid individuals can have real enemies, and conspiracy theorists can be insane.

In an inexplicable way, conspiracy theories bear a formal resemblance to real theories and normal historical explanations. The most important conspiracy stories are presented in books and magazines that look scientific in the sense that they contain footnotes and bibliography, as well as other features of genuine scholarship. However, this similarity is purely formal.

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Scientific interpretations and conspiracy theories are characterized by two different mentalities. Conspiracy is completely devoid of common sense, knows little about actual conspiracies and how often they fail, power is seen as the only goal. To summarize, adherents of conspiracy theories do not know how to operate with evidence, do not know how the historian evaluates his sources and draws conclusions from them, and why he prefers one interpretation to another. In short, conspiracy is reminiscent of a paranoid mentality who sees conspiracies against himself. Conspiracy theorists believe that they are directed against the groups to which they belong or with which they identify themselves.

Conspiracy can be seen as a mentality or a state of consciousness; it can also be seen as a style of thinking. Hofstadter's notion of "paranoid style" is useful for our purposes, even if it does not cover all cases of conspiracy.

The paranoid writer does not view conflict as "something that can be resolved." The stakes are too high to be compromised. "Absolute good" and "absolute evil" entered the conflict. "Only complete victory."

According to some researchers, the origin of the conspiratorial mentality can be derived from the dualistic religions of ancient Iran. This mentality took on more definite forms in Europe during the Middle Ages, foreshadowing more modern variants in which it turned against secret societies and supposed conspiracies of the Jews. During the first millennium of Christianity, the Jews had a tolerable, albeit marginalized, existence. Starting with the first crusade in 1096, mass pogroms began. The church opposed the pogroms, but many of the lower church officials supported them. In the minds of the masses, Jews began to be associated with Muslim opponents, from whom it was required to liberate the Holy Land. After the initial pogroms, there was a perception that the Jews were plotting revenge. Wild stories about poisoning of wells and ritual killings were widely circulated.

In 1119, the first known secret society, the Knights Templar, was formed, the first of a group of knight-monks whose mission was to protect Christian pilgrims. Over time, the Templars accumulated enormous wealth and became highly isolated, invented complex rituals and signs to secure their borders. In 1306, King Philip IV of France expelled the Jews from his country. The next year, he dealt with the Templars, seizing their property and subjecting them to painful execution. Other rulers followed suit. Pipes draws attention to the paradoxical nature of these events. “Why exactly Jews, when Muslims posed a much more significant threat? Why the Templars, who served as the most gallant soldiers of Christ? " Pipes sees a pattern in this: “conspiracy suspects are rarelywhich logic could point to; on the contrary, they are those who are least capable of conspiracy."

XVI and XVII centuries. - the era of great scientific discoveries - were also the golden age of prejudice. The ideas of the end of the world were widely circulated; witches were seen in every comer. Thousands, maybe about a hundred thousand, innocent women were hanged and burned. The witch hunt is not entirely identical to conspiracy, but there is something in common between the two.

Witch hunters and conspiracy seekers refuse to accept things as they are. Whether it's a flood, fire or famine, or even the death of someone's cow, they look deeper and look for hidden causes. This only seems like a sophistication of the mind, in fact, it is a sign of superficial thinking, a tendency to find the culprit, instead of studying the complex set of phenomena that such a person witnesses.

The Age of Enlightenment was the golden age of secret societies. The most famous of these are Freemasons, an organization that sought to implement reforms in accordance with the ideology of the Enlightenment. Although they were not democrats in the modern sense of the word, Freemasons sought to weaken the social system that divided societies into estates and that provided for the inheritance of status and rights. Freemasonry lodges were the meeting place for the liberal-minded upper and middle class. Their conspiracy was rather innocent and apparently served mainly for the pleasure that the members of the lodge received in performing the rituals.

The Illuminati were the second most famous secret society after the Freemasons, and perhaps even more important than the Freemasons in importance. It was founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 and existed only actively until 1784, although after that it remained in the background for several years. During its heyday, this society numbered only about three thousand members, but it really strove for a radical restructuring of modern society. Members of this secret society have developed a theory and thought out the means to achieve goals. Its great importance lies in the fact that it served as a model for future secret societies, laying the tradition that was followed by Buonarotti, N. P. Ogarev and V. I. Lenin. For example, Buonarotti used the concept of "double doctrine": some beliefs and goals for a narrow circle of leadership, others for the rest of the members. This is where the use of organizations serving as signs begins - an important element of the tactics of the communist parties.

In addition to the very organizations created by the Illuminati, they have become a source of exaggerated fear. This gave rise to the birth of conspiracy theory. This society was credited with a long underground existence. Those who feared him could not believe that society had ceased to exist. They continued to believe in his underground work and saw his hand in all the events that puzzled them.

In the 18th century. conspiracy existed in the American colonies and in England. Conspiracies shook the throne of Russian monarchs, and Poland's fate gave rise to the fears that fueled conspiracies. However, it was the French Revolution of the late 18th century. gave birth to the conspiracies with which we live to this day. Paradoxically, the revolution itself destroyed the potential for the success of the grand conspiracy. Under the ancienne regime, the elite ruled. The revolution marked the beginning of the century of ideology, the emergence in public life of the most diverse "isms", political parties and mass movements. Moreover, nascent industrial relations on a pan-European scale have made the market a significant determinant of socio-political transformation.

The name of Abbot Augustin de Barrule is not widely known, but he was a figure in modern history. Barryul was a former Jesuit fleeing the French Revolution of the late 18th century. in England. In 1779-1798. he wrote a four-volume history of secret societies - Freemasons, Illuminati, and others, whom he associated with the Jacobins. He attributed the French Revolution to the result of a successful conspiracy. According to him, the Jacobins opposed themselves not only to the French government. The stakes were higher; they wanted to destroy religion, government and private property. Barryul's interpretation was not the first attempt to explain the French Revolution as the result of a conspiracy, but his attempt was the most detailed and elegant in terms of a whole collection of external trappings of pseudoscience. By 1812, his multivolume work had been translated into nine languages,including Russian and was reprinted several times, until 1837 Barrule influenced several generations of French thinkers and left a deep mark on German romanticism. Even such a sane mind as Edmund Burke took this work with enthusiasm. Looking at the revolution as the result of a conspiracy initiated a new sense of history, a new model of historical development.

In 1806 Barrule received a letter from an Italian officer, J. B. Simonini, who claimed that the Jews not only caused the French Revolution, but also conceived to overthrow the existing institutions. The letter itself may have been written by the French secret police to persuade Napoleon to abandon his plans to endow Jews with certain civil rights and end their imprisonment in the ghetto. Barryul agreed with the idea that Jews were behind and above the secret societies he wrote about. Their plans included the destruction of Christianity, the enslavement of Christians and the creation of their own world government. In his imagination, he imagined an invisible empire that sprouted all over Western Europe, right down to the godforsaken villages, an empire that was completely at the mercy of the Jewish council. He statedthat the conspiracy has existed since the advent of Manichaeism, and at one time its participants were the Templars. Here we find the original source of what was eventually published as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Barrule consulted with Pope Pius VII about the veracity of Si-Monini's letter, and appears to have received assurances that there is evidence for such claims. Then he wrote a book in which he developed the plot suggested by the letter. Two days before his death, he destroyed the manuscript, fearing a mass slaughter of the Jews. Meanwhile, he introduced his research to church circles and the French government. His statements were enthusiastically supported by others, including the famous French philosopher Joseph de Maestre, who repeated them to the king in his warnings.

The century between the defeat of Napoleon and the outbreak of the First World War witnessed the strengthening of democracy, national consolidation, and rapid industrialization. Art and science have reached great heights. However, conspiracies and other forms of irrationality also flourished. There were no major wars, but social strife and ethnic strife were widespread. Prince von Metternich, who ruled the politics of the European continent in the years after the Congress of Vienna, created an atmosphere that limited the possibility of public action - and this at a time when democratic and national movements were trying to increase their influence. Conservatives dreamed of secret societies everywhere. Radicals responded to conservative fears by organizing themselves into such societies. They exploited the myth of powerful secret societies and put it on their heads, exaggerating their strength and numbers, and portraying their members as heroic figures. The fears of the right have become a self-fulfilling prophecy - a case where life imitates art.

Secret societies spread all the way to Great Britain. The most famous was probably the Carbonari Society. The most important, apparently, were the Decembrists, whose aspirations and actions laid the foundation for a revolutionary counterculture in Russia. Young people, who rejected the lifestyle of their class, were able to pin their hopes on the revolutionary movement, serve it faithfully and identify with it; they began to seek social justice and hope for the eternal glory of the liberators of the people.

As democracy won victories in Western Europe, the influence, although not the number, of secret societies diminished. In Eastern Europe, the opposite process took place: social and national movements waged a secret struggle against multinational states. The most important manifestations of this tradition were Bolshevism and Leninism. The Bolsheviks sought to come to power in an undemocratic way: they conspired, but did they themselves believe in conspiracy theory, were they conspirators? We will come back to this issue later.

By the middle of the XIX century. the attention of supporters of conspiracies shifted from secret societies to nation-states, primarily to Great Britain, then to the United States. Distrust of Britain has a long history on the European continent. In France, it goes back to the Middle Ages. The suspicion was, first of all, the ease with which Great Britain managed to maintain the balance of power on the continent in such a way that no state would gain hegemony. Prominent English thinker J. A. Hobson played a part in strengthening this trend. In 1902, he promulgated the theory of imperialism, in which he paid tribute to the conspiratorial mentality. He argued that imperialism did not bring wealth to Great Britain as a whole, but only to a minority of its population. “Certain well-organized business interests may outweigh weak ones,the dispersed interests of society”. This thesis had a great influence on Lenin and was a bridge to the transition of conspiracies from the camp of the right to the camp of the left forces and movements.

Over time, a new application was found for these feelings. From Great Britain they went to the United States, and especially to the CIA. One of the main goals of the KGB was to portray the CIA as the source of political upheavals. The CIA paid the KGB with the same coin. Of course, both agencies were conspiracy and both succeeded in instilling a conspiratorial mentality.

Conspiracy on the right had the most sinister connotations. The conspiracy attributed to the Jews, combined with the pseudoscientific theory of the superiority of the Aryan race, led to dire consequences. We have already mentioned Barryul's work and Simonini's letter. In 1868 Hermann Gedsche published a piece of fiction entitled At the Jewish Cemetery in Prague. This is a story about a fictional meeting of the twelve tribes of Israel that takes place once in a hundred years, and their plans to conquer the world. Just a few years later, the fictional story was already seen as fact, and its retellings were replenished with even more gruesome details.

Such images and themes are most fully reflected in the so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". These "Protocols" were passed off as a stenographic record of the first Zionist congress, which was convened in Switzerland in 1898 by Theodor Herzel with the aim of rebuilding the ancient Jewish state of Israel. The "Protocols" have become the most successful and efficient counterfeit in the history of the world. The "Protocols" were compiled by a number of authors using various sources. The forgery was sponsored by Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the residence of the secret police in Paris. Apparently, his goal was to prove to the tsar that the Russian liberals were Jewish agents. Initially "Protocols" were published in 1903 in the St. Petersburg newspaper "Znamya". They remained little known until the First World War and the 1917 revolution in Russia. After Hitler's suicide, the number of their publications decreased, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Protocols found a second birth in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Protocols have a large readership in third world countries.

The supposedly existing plan of the Jews to conquer the domination of the world is outlined in the "protocols" quite cleverly. Their very abstractness, the almost complete absence of any names or dates, gives the reader an impression of universality. To achieve their goals, the "Wise Men" are ready to use any weapon, even if it gave the impression of combining opposites: capitalism and communism, love for the Semites and anti-Semitism, democracy and tyranny. As a result, the Protocols found a response among people of different classes and worldviews - rich and poor, right and left, Christians and Muslims.

“Conspiracy anti-Semitism expressed the deep essence of National Socialism and was one of the key doctrines that brought Adolf Hitler to power,” wrote D. Pipes. The Nazis "combined racism with conspiratorial anti-Semitism: Jews gain power by encouraging race mixing, which leads to moral and physical degeneration, thereby weakening the purity of the Aryan race." A feature of German anti-Semitism was the romantic longing for paganism and the world of the Wagnerian gods. In fact, many in Germany viewed Christianity as a straitjacket put on by the Jews! They viewed Christianity as an instrument of Jewish domination. While the Nazis never invented an organization as all-encompassing and sophisticated as Agitprop, they created an extensive bureaucracy to propagate and plant their criminal ideas.

After 1945, conspiracy in Western Europe, which was its cradle, began to decline. However, he ended up on a fertile soil in Eastern Europe, which fell under Soviet rule, and survived the death of Stalin. As a tool of the KGB, conspiracy became a kind of surrogate for "socialism" as the word lost its power over the minds, and the original Marxist ideas lost the idealism of utopia. The flame of conspiratorialism flared up more and more in the United States, fueled by fear of world communism. The creation of the State of Israel contributed to the spread of conspiracies in the Third World countries, and not only in the Middle East. Israel found itself in the focus of Soviet conspiracy, which vied with the CIA as the alleged center of a world conspiracy.

The spread of conspiracy theories to the Third World was a sign of its Westernization. Jews, or at least Zionist Jews (those who advocated the re-creation of the ancient state of Israel) began to be seen as accomplices in the spread of poverty and unrest. After the Second World War, the CIA became the rival of the Jews in this capacity. The Middle East, with its significant Jewish population, was the most fertile ground for conspiracies. It was believed that even the term "anti-Semitism" itself was planted by Jewish conspirators, since it united Jews and Arabs into one group, which in fact defocused anti-Jewish sentiments. From the Middle East, this view moved to other Muslim countries.

The strangest case is Japan, where there are more Jewish conspiracy theories than Jews themselves. Yudayaka, the Jewish danger and fear of it have existed in Japan since the 1920s. Some researchers in Japan even consider Commodore Perry's discovery of Japan to be part of a Jewish conspiracy. Bookstores in Japan have Jewish corners with books on the subject. As a result of this conspiratorial mindset, many Third World countries view Zionism and the CIA as enemies and are blind to the hostile plans of their neighbors.

It seems that the United States and Russia have a particular predisposition to conspiracies. As noted above, American conspiracy is older than the French Revolution of the late 18th century. Fear of a British conspiracy to do so. to take away from the colonists their rights as Englishmen was the driving factor of the American Revolution. In 1827, a political party emerged briefly, with a specific aim in the fight against Freemasonry. Later, by the middle of the century, several secret societies formed the Dunno Party to fight against Roman Catholic influence, which they saw as a growing threat in the predominantly Protestant United States of America. The more famous Ku Klux Klan inherited these anti-Catholic sentiments, combining them with racist and anti-Semitic prejudices.

Conspiracy reached its peak in the United States shortly after World War II, when communist expansion in Eastern Europe and China peaked. Senator Joseph McCarthy has succeeded more in exploiting such fears. He announced his crusade against internal enemies in a speech in 1951, in which, quite in the manner of Stalin, he answered questions posed to himself:

McCarthy's belligerent tone mobilized supporters across society, and his largely unfounded accusations created a stifling atmosphere in American cultural life, including in higher education. The condemnation of McCarthyism by his colleagues in the Senate, which occurred a few years later, completely discredited McCarthy, but, unfortunately, did not put an end to conspiracies. In the 1950s, the John Birch Society was born, which became notorious for declaring President Eisenhower a conspiracy agent of the communist conspiracy, thereby going beyond even McCarthy himself. There are now thousands of paramilitary members who fear that an international group, under the control of the United Nations, is preparing to subjugate the American government.or even did it already. Under the slogan of protecting the constitution, they oppose the government and refuse to obey it. Some of these groups promote racist ideology. Individuals who shared the ideology of such organizations are guilty of committing terrorist acts.

Another source of conspiracy in the modern United States is Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Islamic Nation. This organization views the entire history of mankind through the prism of a white-against-black conspiracy. Among the accusations were that whites produced the AIDS virus to kill blacks; for the same purpose, whites promote the sale of drugs in neighborhoods where blacks live. Farrakhan claims that the same Jews are at the center of the White conspiracy. From his point of view, capitalism and communism and both world wars are the result of a Jewish conspiracy, and even Hitler was financed by Jews.

Wide, and as some say, excessive freedoms in the United States create fertile ground in this country for the disseminators of conspiracy theories around the world. Pamphlets and symbols of conspiracy, mostly Nazi, are born in America and then distributed in those countries where their publication is prohibited.

Russia's special susceptibility to conspiracies has several explanations. The autocratic state did not have a legitimate political space for political discussions and processes. Such a space was created only in 1860, and only after 1905 radical parties began to participate in it. Another explanation is the somewhat ambiguous position of Russia in relation to Europe. It was not difficult at all to arouse in Russians the fear of conspiracies by foreign governments against Russia. Imposed by I. V. Stalin's isolation of Russia greatly increased these fears and made it easier to control the population. This isolation was one of the main pillars of the Stalinist regime.

Lenin was engaged in conspiracy, but not conspiracy theories. He did not have a conspiratorial mentality, and he did not use conspiracy theories to understand events, but the conspiracy was the main instrument of his political actions and the key to understanding his way of building a political organization, a revolutionary party of a new type. Although Lenin's opponents accused him of Blanquism, he was a Marxist. History for him developed according to inexorable laws that were rooted in economic processes and the arrangement of classes.

However, the accusation of Blanquism is not without foundation. Lenin was not only a student of Marx, but also of Ogarev, who, in turn, was a student of the Decembrists and G. Babeuf. From them he inherited this image of a small, conscious and self-sacrificing group standing behind and above the mass semi-conscious organization, which was propelled by this core towards insurrection. The Bolsheviks brought this image to life in the most magnificent way in 1917. Can you imagine the October Revolution without such an image? Another striking embodiment of this image was how L. D. Trotsky manipulated the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies and the Military Revolutionary Committee.

The issues of conspiracies and conspiracies acquire a sharper sound with the coming to power of Stalin. Both his supporters and his opponents paid tribute to him as a master of intrigue. A "fine" example of this was the struggle against the right-wing opposition led by N. I. Bukharin, which took about a year and a half and ended with its liquidation in 1929. Stalin put forward the idea that imperialists from abroad, in despair of a deep economic crisis, entered into an agreement with the capitalist elements in the country - representatives of the intelligentsia, people of free professions, as well as wealthy peasants - with the aim of overthrowing Soviet power. Not just hostility, but the alleged conspiracy was the theory that led his faction to unlimited power. After that, he connected his faction to encourage the growth of a cult of his own personality. I believe that Stalin showed his genius in using conspiracy theory as a tool of his own conspiracy.

The peak of his efforts in this direction falls not on show trials and the mass terror of the 1930s, but on the publication of the Stalinist history of the Communist Party, the well-known "Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)", which, after the Bible, became the most read book in world history. … In this work, Stalin gave form and meaning - a mythical meaning - to show trials. He transformed the theory of class struggle into a concept of opposition and the need to suppress it. The testimony obtained at the trials was presented in the book as proof that his opponents were unscrupulous schemers and traitors who had no other goal than overthrowing Soviet power, with the help of which Stalin led the peoples of the USSR to a brighter future.

This image of Lenin and Stalin, who ruled on the basis of Marxist science and constantly thwarted the designs of new and new revisionists, became the leitmotif of all history. All events in party history acquired an appropriate structure, which gave the work the unity and logical consistency characteristic of conspiratorialism. The Short Course rivals in this sense the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a classic conspiracy theory.

Although none other than Stalin himself was the author of the show trial scenarios, it is likely that he believed that his opponents were unprincipled schemers, plotting to destroy the fruits of his labors. Even if they were not guilty of those conspiracies that were imputed to them in the dock, they were guilty of other, not yet uncovered conspiracies. Stalin projected his fears onto the Soviet Union and the entire communist world. By the end of his life, his conspiracy had clearly turned into a mental madness. His fear of doctors drove him to such a state that he preferred to put himself leeches. Personal security measures had reached ridiculous proportions and became more and more costly.

I proceed from the assumption that there was an element of pathology in Stalin's views, and that it is necessary to take into account the facts of his biography and psychological characteristics of his personality. It is difficult to understand Stalin's views and behavior if they are considered the result of only Bolshevik culture. Something remains inexplicable. His fears exceeded anything that could be attributed to a common culture. In other words, Stalin's behavior stemmed partly from the general culture, and partly from his unique political position, which gave him power over life and death in his subject area. He was at the very top - and alone. He was devoid of the spontaneity of human relationships. Without disregarding the political and cultural aspects of Bolshevism, psychoanalysis is required to explain its pathology.

The death of Stalin and the fresh air that NS brought with him. Khrushchev, opened the blinders of conspiracies, but did not completely remove them. Lenin's theory of imperialism was distorted even more than under Stalin. Imperialism was viewed not simply as an objectively conditioned stage of capitalism, but as a condition that required a conspiratorial policy from those who reaped its fruits. The opponents of the Soviet Union were not just rivals for spheres of influence in the world, but active conspirators. Another twist is the announcement at the center of a conspiracy of Zionism, which was seen as a global political force that extended far beyond the Jewish state. All this was accompanied by a return to the anti-Masonic theme.

The publication in 1974 of the book by N. N. Yakovlev "The first of August 1914" can, apparently, be regarded as a conscious decision of the ideological department of the KGB. Sensing the weakening of the position of socialist ideology with its ideas about a bright future, the KGB saw in Russian nationalism a more effective slogan - both mobilizing and cementing society. If such an ideology, combining national pride with fear of foreign conspiracies, took root, it would still be able to keep people "in the cage", or more precisely, "in the queues."

The collapse of the USSR put an end to conspiracy, which was patronized by the state, but in society itself, conspiracy theories multiplied day by day. What was seen as reform failures convinced many that the end of communism was not a victory for freedom-loving citizens, but rather the success of a CIA conspiracy. The glorification of Russia, on the one hand, and the explanation of its weakness as a result of tireless efforts by the West to prevent Russia from developing and exploiting it, on the other, have become popular themes. Once again, Freemasons and Jews were proclaimed to be the main conspirators.

Conspiracy is a vast and complex topic that deserves study from many different angles. Social psychology reveals that conspiracy theories give their supporters a holistic view of the world, in which there are no contradictions, inaccurate details and unanswered questions. They provide comfort, relieve anxiety, and explain personal failures. Richard Hofstadter reminds us that the conspiratorial world is radically dual and full of threats; it draws a clear line between the forces of good and the forces of evil, the latter gaining the upper hand. Invisible forces are constantly at work and tend to keep the innocent under surveillance.

One can try to explain conspiracies in terms of class struggle. I find it difficult, however, to make assumptions like that. The fact that conspiracy is present on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum, and that both sides have manipulated it, makes class analysis difficult. Conspiracy is a worldview common to many classes, and conspiracy is a tool used by many classes, and not only classes, but also different kinds of groups and subgroups.

If not class analysis as such, then social analysis in the broader sense of the word still gives a result. Franz Neumann, a German Social Democrat who fled the Nazis, is well known for his efforts to explain Nazism in economic terms. In his essay Anxiety in Politics, he was the first to attempt to synthesize the teachings of Marx and Freud. The essence of his argumentation is that the destruction of the estate society increased the burden of anxiety and anxiety. In class society, a person's place was determined by his origin. Only a few had doubts about which rung of the hierarchical ladder they should stand on. In a class society, the status of each is determined by his personal achievements, and this is a rather slippery position, which causes anxiety. Anxious citizens tend to associate themselves with leaders through identification;they see in history a conflict between great heroes and great villains. The latter also pull the strings, often remaining invisible. It is entirely reasonable to assume that such a mentality is fertile ground for a paranoid style.

Historical analysis finds analogues of conspiracy in past centuries. We find examples not of the paranoid style as such, but of a similar mentality that kindled the bonfires of the witch-hunt: “This fantasy is based on the idea that somewhere within a large society there is another society, small and underground, which not only threatens the existence of a large society, but also engaged in practices that were considered disgusting and literally inhuman. In the II century. Greeks and Romans also fantasized about Christians, accusing them of ritual murder of babies and subsequent cannibalism as the eve of incestuous orgies.

We find traces of such a mentality in the actions leading to the massacre of the Templars. There were both cunning and opportunistic calculations of Philip IV. who saw in these persecutions a means of enriching the treasury. It is curious that the extermination of the Templars, who were considered members of the secret society, coincided with the beginning of the anti-Jewish revolts during the first crusade.

In the 18th century. history was explained mainly by referring to the interests and abilities of individuals - kings, ministers and generals. This approach to history has sometimes been called "psychologism." This mode of explanation excluded impersonal forces such as Providence or fortune, and conservative thinkers were far from explaining the late 18th century French Revolution. theory of progress. The will of God could not come to the rescue, since it was about the destruction of the "sent down" social order. The dead end was obvious. Conspiracy theory helped find a way out of it.

The conspirators were, of course, ordinary people, but they lost their individuality "in the shadows" and acted, as it were, from behind the scenes. It is noteworthy that at the very time when the conspiracy theory was born to explain the French Revolution of the late 18th century, a grandiose Hegelian system appeared, albeit on completely different grounds, and then Marxism, which also explained everything by the action of impersonal forces.

One of the first conclusions that can be drawn from our study is that conspiracy exists on both sides - the left and right - of the political spectrum, which in turn indicates the inadequacy of these terms. Political extremes have a similar, if not identical mentality. Conspiracy was born as a conservative reaction to the French Revolution of the late 18th century.

With the development of industrialization and unwanted social changes, it has become a large-scale trend. Jealousy and mistrust of Britain gave rise to conspiracy theories that became part of the socialist tradition. In the XX century. right and left conspiracies began to be encouraged by the state in Germany and the Soviet Union. Hitler's regime lasted only 12 years; its collapse opened the door to the full development of the leftist variety of conspiracy. The communist ideology has made conspiracy almost a global phenomenon. She adapted anti-Semitism to her own purposes, tearing it away from racist mythological soil and transplanting it into the theory of imperialism.

While conspiracy exists on both ends of the political spectrum, a distinction must be made between the two. Hofstadter's definition of paranoid style, cited above, is quite applicable to the right-wing varieties. Their world is inhabited by ghosts and demons. The left-wing species look at humanity as a victim of the villainous designs of the rich, but do not have their own demonology and references to otherworldly forces.

A few final words about left and right varieties of conspiracies. Are we talking about fear of Great Britain in the 19th century? or Soviet perceptions of enemies in Washington or Jerusalem, the leftist variety was accompanied by utopianism. It is about the conviction that revolutionary action will lead to a "bright future", a perfect society of complete freedom and complete equality; all human abilities will thrive in an environment of abundance and social peace. This can be described as “utopian style”. At the same time, one cannot fail to see the utopian aspects of the Nazi ideology of the "millennial Reich", in which "racial purity and natural hierarchy of races" would be restored, and opponents would be destroyed. However, the dark and nightmarish imagery overshadows the utopian side.

In leftist ideology, conspiracy is a secondary topic; it does not have such a scary face as the right-wing variety, which emphasizes, as usual, racist doctrines. The leftist variety of conspiracies is not so saturated with hatred and anxiety, although it is no less cannibalistic in its Stalinist version.

Comparing the conspiracies of the left and the right, I do not deny a close connection between them. They are rival forms of mythology and are, if not twins, then perhaps cousins. Defining mythology is not an easy task. Narrow definitions, such as those used by Hans Blumberg and Erik: Feglin, reduce the definition to the stories of an era before there was writing. In their opinion, the extremist "isms" of our time are nothing more than pseudo-myths. Broader definitions such as Roland Barts and Hayden White make mythology ubiquitous. According to Barts, any expression of human conventions or social structures as a natural phenomenon is an exercise in myth-making. For White, mythology is essential to any story. Conspiracy and utopianism seem to beexist somewhere between the hammer of myth and the hard place of paranoia.

In conspiracies, there is not that charm and wisdom that are characteristic of ancient myths; it is not so widespread and not so innocent as to be broadly defined. However, conspiracy, like ancient myths, is characterized by high symbolism: almost any thing or person is a symbol of something else: “There is nothing neutral in this Universe: everything is burdened with affects, collective feelings and intentions. Being subjective, people very often give objects and beings properties that the latter do not possess in any form or degree. The imaginary permeates reality and subdues it to such an extent that any differentiation becomes impossible. In other words, the objective, social and economic reasons for this or that situation are not taken into account at all."

Conspiracy can be viewed as one of the varieties of mythology in educated societies. Utopianism can be seen as another kind of mythology, and religious fundamentalism as a third. They can be considered mutually complementary, and sometimes competing, forms of mythological thinking.

These brief remarks on mythology raise another final question of this essay. Is there a relationship between mythology and modern political forms - the parliamentary system and democracy in general? It can be argued that to the extent that democracy depends on the existence of political parties, there is such a relationship, and quite close. Political parties are fertile ground for mythology. Each party performs under its own banner and a variety of other symbols. Each party glorifies its own leaders and their predecessors as heroes; each party has its own register of enemies. In other words, each party develops its own version of national and world history and does so in a spirit of opposition. Such symbolic structures are not necessarily mythological in nature,but they easily acquire it as a result of the efforts of demagogues.

Perhaps mythology and conspiracy are diseases of the transitional stage. In the comparatively mature democracies of Western Europe, such a mentality is less evident than at the beginning of this century. The US is perhaps the exception - a mature democracy that is highly susceptible to conspiracy theories. Postcolonial Asia, Africa and the Middle East are the scene of wars and revolutions, and the conspiratorial mentality flourishes in them. What place does Russia occupy in this continuum?

Author: George Entin - professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, specialist in Russian historiography, author of many works on the history of Russia

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