Academic Reading Challenge Recommendations: Books About Conspiracy Theories or Conspiracism

 

Category ten this year is a “book about conspiracies or conspiracism.”  Because of the research I’ve been doing on opposition to the far-right, this is one category where I’ve read enough to make some general observations about the scholarship.  It’s also a category in which new books, and new editions of old books come out at a fast clip, so there’s just a ridiculous amount to choose from. As usual, I’m including a mix of journalistic and more academic works, though I’ve only included one novel.

My general observation about scholarship on conspiracy theory is that it’s closely tied to scholarship on populism, and thus tends to be divided in similar ways to that scholarship. The books that come to the quickest and easiest condemnations of conspiracy theory are by defenders of liberal democratic institutions who find both left and right populisms to be dangerous to liberal democracy. Richard Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style in American Politics, while written mostly in opposition to right-wing populism, also identifies left populism as paranoid, and is the foundational work for most liberal critics of conspiracy theory. Frederic Jameson’s description of conspiracy theory as a “poor person’s cognitive mapping” is a Marxist analysis similar to Ferdinand Kronawetter's description of anti-Semitism as the “socialism of fools" (this phrase is often attributed to August Bebel). Jameson rejects conspiracy theories while also advocating for left critique of liberal capitalism. Since the 1990s, academic analyses of conspiracy theories have largely aligned either with one of these two central arguments or have been written against them. Those scholars influenced by post-modern theory oppose Hofstadter thesis for its own defense of establishment common sense and Jameson’s for what they see as “dismissal” of popular anti-establishment ideas and over-zealous rationalism. I would call these recent critics of anti-conspiracy theory writers as more populist than leftist as they are defending conspiracy theorizing on the basis that it represents an “anti-establishment” position, while depicting even left critics of conspiracy theory as aligned with various “authorities.” They argue for the radical potential in conspiracy theory, sometimes by pointing out that “real conspiracies” do exist.

 My own view is that left scholars accommodate conspiracy theory and repudiate efforts to disprove or debunk them at our peril. Conspiracy theory may be understandably anti-establishment and even exhilarating, but that’s what makes it more dangerous than more traditional conservative politics. The problem is not that it is “pseudo-conservative,” to use Richard Hofstadter’s term, so much as it is “pseudo-left.”  The left populist academic effort to salvage conspiracy theory for as imanent radicalism fails to account for right-wing populism. I think this blindness to right-wing anti-establishment discourse is related to this group's general emphasis on opposing liberalism (and sometimes Marxism) as more hegemonic than they are. Their identification of liberal and left enemies as the most important ones means that they have a relatively simple understanding of right-wing politics. This also means that their analyses of fascism are similarly wrong-headed. 

The conceptual battle-lines in this case are not between liberalism and populism but between Marxism and populism. Populism is not “almost” Marxism or on the way there, but this idea causes some leftist writers on this issue to be overly charitable to conspiracy theorizing for its anti-liberalism. Rather than leading to more leftist positions eventually, conspiratorial understandings of power may be helpful in explaining why someone who once seemed to be on the left - say, Tom Watson in the 1890s - could become such a vicious right-wing demagogue such a short time later. The answer may be that the person did not “switch” from the left to the right at all, but was the same all along – a populist who aligned with the left on some issues, but with the right on many others. Their underlying analysis was never truly anti-capitalist in most cases, but against specific capitalists, or monopolies, or particular branches of capitalism. Close-reading of these popular "left" thinkers who later shifted right would likely real a consistency in their thinking over time. We don't always see it because many of us just “want to believe” that socialist analysis is more prevalent in popular culture than it is. But, like specific anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories in general represent “the socialism of fools.”

 Conspiracy theories themselves will more often lead to right-wing xenophobia and anti-Semitism than to leftist analysis of power. Regardless of whether the theory is held on the right or the left, conspiracy theory always leads to an impoverished account of how power works, and thus leads to bad political strategies, if not outright right-wing xenophobia. My point here is not that there are no left populists or that left populists couldn’t change over time and develop better analysis, but that there’s no point in protecting that bad analysis, as if a left critique would somehow hurt the left, or align with power, or as if conspiracy theory were a kind of necessary step on the way to radicalization instead of a problem to be solved.

And with that, here are my recommendations for category 10:

 

1. Naomi Klein’s book Doppelganger was the blockbuster in this category for 2023. It’s the most personal of her books, beginning with her experiences of being confused with Naomi Wolff, the former feminist who became an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and now regularly appears on Steve Bannon’s show. This book will be especially interesting for anyone interested in public people (such as Klein’s former colleagues Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald, who are never mentioned in this book) who have made what seem turns from left to right in recent years.  She draws on Quinn Slobodian’s work on what is called “diagonalism” in Germany to explain this phenomenon. Klein’s statement that conspiracy theorists “get the feelings right but he facts wrong,” is a pithy and helpful framing of what goes wrong with conspiracy theories.

2. A related book, which I haven’t read, but know a lot about because I listen to their podcast regularly is Derek Beres, Matthew Remski’s and Julian Walker’s Conspirituality: How New-Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat. The podcast and the book try to explain how health and wellness influencers became increasingly conspiratorial around the Covid-19 pandemic. This book will likely be the best one to read if you are interested in anti-vax politics or Yoga cults, or trying to figure out how legitimate critiques of “big pharma” can go awry.

3. One of the most frequently cited academics on the phenomenon of “conspiracism,” and included in the notes of many journalists’ accounts is Joseph Uscinski, who has written a number of books on conspiracy theories for a variety of audiences. The shortest and most accessible of these is probably Conspiracy Theories: A Primer. He’s also the editor of a very big (500+ pp) collection called Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them that provides a good survey of differing academic arguments about conspiracy theory, from the Hofstadter supporters to the populist critics of “conspiracy panic.” As with most anthologies, the quality of these pieces varies, but this is a decent book for getting a sense of how social scientists in general write about conspiracy theory and belief. Uscinski’s own most controversial claims are that conspiratorial thinking exists equally on the left and right, and that the amount of conspiracy theorizing hasn’t changed in the last few years. He bases these claims on polls that he’s conducted – so everything rests on whether his polls are reliable.

4. Katheryn Olmstead’s Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 is another academic book that has become nearly canonical in scholarship on conspiracy theory. Her general argument is that conspiracy theories by lay-people are related to the existence of real conspiracies and deceptions by people in power, so much of her book cites both the conspiratorial language of the government itself and the existence of actual conspiracies that have justified people’s paranoia.  This book is limited by its focus on the United States and to my view, is overly populist in its approach. That said, it’s still very much worth reading. The book was originally published in 2009, but the new anniversary edition (2019) includes a chapter on the 2016 election, and I’d be curious to see whether Olmstead has become less sanguine about conspiratorial thinking in recent years.

This week's theme song is Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" 

5. Political scientists Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum’s A Lot of People Are Saying: the New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy offers a counter-point to Uscinski’s argument that conspiracism exists equally on the left and right and makes the argument that conspiracy thinking is more common, and more dangerous than ever, on the far right. Although it is written by two political scientists, this is a short and punchy little book written for a popular audience. I haven’t read it, but it’s in my TBR pile right now.

5. Much denser is Thomas Milan Korda’s . Conspriacy of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America. He also takes the position that conspiracy theories are more a characteristic of right-wing thought, adopting Richard Hofstadter’s concept of “pseudo-conservatism” in his introduction. Korda’s is the first major historical account of American conspiracy theories by an academic since Olmstead’s. He’s not a historian, but a political scientist, and I haven't read this, but he seems to fall on the more liberal, anti-populist side, winning praise from Michael Barkun.

6. While it’s not entirely about conspiracy theories, I’m including Peter Pomerantsev’s book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible on this list because of how well it explains the rise of popular conspiracism in Russia, given the prominence of Russian disinformation efforts internationally. This book is based on the author’s work at Russian television station in the 1990s and connects conspiracism and the Russian government’s use of media. Pomerantsev has also written a new book called This is Not Propaganda – you can hear him talk about it with Joey Ayoub on his podcast, The Fire These Times

7. If you want to understand both the origins of Alex Jones’s infamous theory that the Sandy Hook preschool shooting was a “false flag” and how that affected the families of children killed there, read Elizabeth Williamson’s Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy

9. Journalist Anna Merlan’s Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and their Surprising Rise to Power is an informative, deftly written, and entertaining overview of recent conspiracy theories, beginning with 9/11 conspiracy theories and including discussions of Seth Rich theories, Pizzagate, Sandyhook, anti-vax theories, and UFOs.  Merlan also includes a chapter on “Russiagate.” The book came out in 2019, so it doesn’t include anything about covid-19 or the 2020 election, but it’s got a good general analysis of Trump’s uses of conspiracy theories and the broad appeal of conspiratorial thinking.

10. Mike Rothschild’s The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, a Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything was the first of a handful of left reporters’ books on QAnon to come out. It’s a good guide to understanding the phenomenon and its basic history on the internet. Although Rothschild does seek to identify the main people driving the “Q” movement, he is also interested in the rank and file members and how they come to believe in these bizarre theories. He writes about people who “have fallen down the rabbit hole” with sympathy and gives advice to readers who are seeking to help relative and friends leave the “Q” cult.  He continues to be interested in conspiracism’s impact in society. His new book Jewish Space Lasers is about the Rothschild family and conspiracy theories about them. (As he says in his by-lines, he’s no relation).  

11. Kelly Weill’ s Off the Edge: Flat-Earthers, Conspiracy Culture and Why People Will Believe Anything is a journalists’ account of Flat-Earth conspiracy theories. This book is super interesting as an exploration of how conspiratorial thinking works, how communities are built around conspiracy beliefs, and how the internet works to spread even the most bizarre conspiracy theories. Weill also writes with practical goals, and includes a discussion of various debunking techniques and methods that every day people can use to combat conspiracism.

12. Graphic novel champion and comic writer and artist, Will Eisner’s last book was his comic history of the creation and circulation of the infamous forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s called simply, The Plot It’s a really remarkable achievement in graphic story-telling and includes a comprehensive bibliography and notes, as well as introduction by Umberto Eco.

13. Of all the fictional accounts of conspiracy theories, I most recommend Umberto Eco’s Foucault's Pendulum. Eco has himself been interested in the problems of conspiracy theory and has written extensively about fascism in culture, particularly in response to the rise of the European New Right. I read this book over 30 years ago, in between my shifts as a linecook, but I remember it as being something between a wild romp and a philosophical exercise.