[Marxism] Why Does Fahrenheit 9/11 Pursue Conspiracy Theory?

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hans wrote:

"The problem is always, that it may be possible to prove that there were a
conspiracy, but it can never be proved
that there was no conspiracy, because the conspirators may have eradiated
all traces."

This is true, and it could lead not just to mistrust and cynicism about
politics, but also to a paranoia which assumes conspiracies exist, where in
reality there are none.

I think Mike Moore aims to convey that you ought to (should) mistrust and be
cynical about the Bush administration, and he appeals in this sense to a
trend of progressive liberal or libertarian consciousness that emerged in
the 1990s. If you do nothing else, you should vote these people out. But
voting Bush out and voting Kerry in serves the interests of the American
elite just as well, this is the point Yoshie makes.

Moore's politics seems to be more a kind of anti-politics such as Gyorgy
Konrad proposed. Konrad wrote: "Anti-politics strives to put politics in its
place and makes sure it stays there, never overstepping its proper office of
defending and refining the rules of the game in a civil society.
Anti-politics is the ethos of civil society, and civil society is the
antithesis of military society."

"Marxism" can also lead to an unhealthy paranoia about "ruling-class plots"
and class stereotypes, which has its source not just in "Zinovievism" as
Louis Proyect argues but, as Richard Sennett implies, in Leninism and
Kautskyism - a system of adversarial politics which imputes intentions to
imagined enemies based on a military model of conduct, which at critical
points paralyses the relation between self and world, and thus
self-destructs.

More generally, any solidarity among people which is based primarily on
affirming opposition to a commonly perceived enemy, rather than also based
on shared positive values, real feelings and real affinities among those
people, can create paranoid disorders, insofar as it involves some form of
emotional or personal denial.

Jurriaan



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism