I’ve been following the shooting in Arizona for the last few days, and I’m as disgusted as everyone else is, I’m sure. I’m reading with special interest because of how elements of conventional political conspiracy theories appear in the assassin’s truly disjointed and incoherent worldview.
The elements of truly run-of-the-mill conspiracist thought–at least the stuff that appears in Loughner’s youtube videos–are usually encountered as elements of larger, more complete and fleshed-out narratives. These narratives are really quite well developed, often repeated and reprinted verbatim. Elements in Loughner’s ramblings suggest exposure to a certain type of conspiracist thinking, the gold standard conspiracy: “No! I won’t pay a debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!” In its most general form, this conspiracy theory posits that BAD GUY (pick your favorite demonic Other: the Fed/international bankers/Jews/Illuminati/Boy Scouts) has taken us off of the gold standard in order to impose an easily manipulated fiat currency. In the most popular conspiracy theories, the bad boy is the Federal Reserve, who controls the entire economy, printing money and deflating the value of the paper money in your pocket. (There is far more wrong about this than I can reasonably write about in a quick blog post, but suffice it to say that it is not even the Fed that prints money, rather the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Mega-fail. The Fed can infuse banks’ reserves with cash, but it can also reduce liquidity and does so often.) It’s probably worth mentioning that his statement, “No! I won’t trust in God!” immediately follows his statement about precious metals and that it is at least as much a reference to what is printed on US currency as it is religious expression.
Loughner also has an abiding fear of mind control. Often, this is found on the (super-way-out-there) extremes of conspiratorial thought. Mind control, in conspiracist circles, can range from media control (or just influence) of popular opinion, the softening of the resistance to suggestion through fluoridation, chemtrails or the quality of popular entertainment, to the implantation of subliminal messages in corporate logos and advertisements, to the actual taking over of minds by remote, telepathic or technological means. It includes everything from “political spin” to the belief that one is not thinking one’s own thoughts.
Other signs that Loughner has been influenced by established conspiracy theories include the brief list of favorite reads that includes Animal Farm and Brave New World, Mein Kampf and The Republic, all of which have some authority and currency in white supremacist and far-right separatist circles. Of course, he also includes the Communist Manifesto, which decidedly does not. It occurs to me that if Animal Farm appears on his reading list, he may have picked up notions about how mind control can be achieved through the use of language in Orwell’s other works, including 1984 (consider Newspeak, which is an attempt to limit the types of thoughts it is possible to have) or his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” in which Orwell confronts and criticizes “language as an instrument […] for concealing or preventing thought.” At the same time, I have no confidence that someone with the writing skills like those displayed in his videos or someone whose logic is so jumbled could even be considered a nihilist, since I can’t even be sure that he understood what he had read.
If you look back at Richard Hoffstadter’s classic essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” you see that he attempted to distance the “paranoid style” from clinical paranoia, arguing that the clinically paranoid perceived illusory designs against them personally, while people who participate in paranoid politics perceive threats against a nation and entire way of life. Loughner’s rantings blur these lines. Some of it is especially local and relevant to his life, “The Pima Community College police are unconstitutionally working.” But he also talks about his understanding of the Constitution and other large issues like the currency. Hoffstadter’s essay does not help us much here. I suspect that what happened in Tuscon could be described as the deliberate political act of a disordered mind, but I am at a loss to discern to what degree politics determined his decisions.
In his essay, Hoffstadter tries to make it clear that he does not equate “paranoid” politics with clinical pathology, but the blunt fact remains that the word comes with connotations that may be profitable to explore, and I wonder if there is not some sense in which we could justifiably call conspiratorial political thought pathological. (Of course, that would entail defining “non-pathological” political thought. Yikes!)
FYI, I am going to be bringing back my weekly conspiracy round-up soon. (I tell you, though, I am getting sick of reading about Julian Assange and the damned birds dying off.)
A thoughtful, extended, and ongoing discussion about the role of mental illness is going on at PLoS, at Neuroanthroplogy. Daniel Lende makes excellent points about not presuming that mental illness is the most important issue here. It’s probably the best thing that I have seen on this issue so far.
RJB
UPDATE:
It seems that according to the Washington Post that Loughner was involved with the message boards at AboveTopSecret, and that the people there also saw that something was demonstrably abnormal, even for that site. My favorite comment at the end of the article was a reply to Loughner: “they faked the moon landing yes .. but the mars rover .. i dont think so.”
Also, for Ken–linking Assange to the bird die-offs: HAARP killed the birds using alien technology, the acquisition of which Assange will disclose in the next group of documents. All of these are real theories.
RJB
Skeptical Humanities 
“I tell you, though, I am getting sick of reading about Julian Assange and the damned birds dying off.”
Don’t worry about the bird die-off: it’s been definitively proven that that was caused by the repeal of DADT.
Wow. Can’t argue with that. Because it makes no sense.
B
Well, see, God’s angry at the birds because…uh…their shoulder epaulets are way too pretty.
For a moment, I thought you meant that you had read theories linking Assange and the bird die-off, which would be a pretty neat trick. It might also be a fun party game, something like the Kevin Bacon game. (I myself have a Bacon number of four, although two of the connections are by way of stage shows, not movies.)
For every file that’s leaked, a birdy dies.
Dear RJB,
thanks for your comment on our blog (doppiocieco). I didn’t know you can speak italian.
I’m following you for some years (of course since the HJHOP), and I’m very interested, although not with your academic expertise, in conspiracy theories. In a way, it’s a matter of ecology of mind (you see, in Italy we do have our chunk of woo, health related and not), on the other it’s a political issue. We are rationalists (by the way, in your contry “humanism” has become almost the same as “rationalism”, while our “umanista” it’s someone who studies humanities – like you), on the left of the italian political spectrum, and it’s very unpleasant for us to see the conspiracy ingredient in the recipe of italian anti-imperialist left. This rubbish (chemtrails, seigniorage, Bohemian Grove, and so on) are basically diversions from political reality.
But what can I say, we elected Berlusconi, so how much are we distracted from reality?
Thanks for your attention, and forgive me for my bad english.
Domenico D’Amico
Domenico,
I ringraziamenti per il vostro commento ed io sono felici che lo abbiate seguito al nuovo Web site! Non dico una parola di italiano, benchè sia stato una volta in Italia. Ho comunicato con la gente di Firenze, di Roma e di Venezia principalmente urlando loro nello Spagnolo e facendo i gesti drammatici con le mie armi. 🙂 Tuttavia, uso Babelfish, che mi rende lo sguardo come parlo parecchie più lingue. Siete di destra. La cospirazione è una distrazione sconosciuta dalla politica reale. La gente che ho parlato con la notte scorsa era molto interessata nella politica, edizioni importanti come il traffico umano, ma hanno veduto le edizioni come componente di un ” più grande conspiracy”. Penso che le teorie della cospirazione indichino una direzione sbagliata l’energia well-intentioned. È una vergogna.
“Penso che le teorie della cospirazione indichino una direzione sbagliata l’energia well-intentioned. È una vergogna.”
One of these words is not like the others.
Dear Bob,
Babelfish is a truckload of fun.
In your own words, you have been prowling the streets of Italy shouting in spanish and waving guns at bystanders: the Italian for “arm” (limb) is “braccio”, but “arms” (weapons) is “armi” in Italian. Cool. But the funniest line is “siete di destra”. I think the original was “you are right”, in Italian “avete ragione”. Now, in English “right” defines a side of anatomy, a direction and a political view, but also means good,virtuous, genuine and so on. In Italian we do have the overlap of the spatial and political meaning, but the ethical one demands “giusto” (giusto o sbagliato = right or wrong), unless for the idiom “avere ragione” (to be right). So you write “You are right” and Babelfish translates “you are right-wing” (Siete di destra).[giggle]
Anyway, ciao.
Domenico D’Amico