The Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracies serve moral purposes, but to what effect?
There’s a conceptual difference between a “conspiracy theory” and a “conspiracy” — it is whether the teller believes it to be true.
A “theory of conspiracy” is another thing, entirely; and what I am about to try to elucidate.
Conspiracies are located at the nexus of information and power: Information that confers power, and power that produces (secret) information. Information management is daily activity for Goffman’s discreditable persons, which may explain why shame is so often the ostensible explanation for why information must be kept secret. It says to me we are playing on the same theoretical field of information control and identity.
Donald Rumsfeld’s recital of the cross-tabulation of knowledge and knowing:
There are known knowns: There are things we know we know. There are also known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
Those who theorize conspiracies work in the fourth box, the unknown known—what they know, that others do not.
It’s the desire to make sense of the world that drives knowledge. It is the desire to hold power over the world that drives the imagination of conspiracies: To know beyond the known. At once acknowledging one is less powerful by all apparent measures but at the same time more powerful than “they” because of knowing the truth.
Part of the problem with the concept of conspiracy in society is that it happens all the time. At root, all conspiracies are simply private agreements and actions. Our auto insurance companies “conspire” with the state to share information about our driving that sets rates. People conspire to hold surprise parties for each other. Students conspire against teachers and teachers conspire against students. It turns out the intention of the conspiracy is more important than the people involved, the words being used, or the actions planned and executed.
Alleged conspiracies that have been proven false demonstrate flawed estimations more so than theories. Despite the complexity of the operations alleged there is usually a very simple theoretical model for what we call a “conspiracy theory:” A series of prepositions that are presumed to be true and which necessarily follow each other. In this case, cause-and-effect is the theory, and the “conspiracy” is the subject of a cause-and-effect analysis, built of any number of fallacies.
There is no doubt very powerful corporations and individuals are making arrangements that will affect many millions of other people’s lives into the future, and none of those people to be affected will have a particular say in the matter. These discussions will not be open to the public, and then, suddenly, there will be advertising for a new film, toy, or food product that turns up everywhere. This activity is considered to be a coordination of interests, or “doing business,” and the normalcy of such behaviors spares the participants from critique. Adopting a critical perspective on social class relations may make the reinterpretation of the same action seem like a conspiracy, perhaps, though the practice of commerce is largely out in the open.
Shame seems to matter. Conspiracy has to include some element of the normal-stigmatized relationship. Those engaged in the conspiracy are believed to be hiding their true motivations, along with their actions, and do so because to be caught would render them discredited. Somehow or another, this discrediting is thought to be enough to topple the entire arrangement.
While the Heritage Foundation (and its predecessors in the John Birch Society and the Federalist Society) went and published Project 2025, thus disclosing their desired overthrow of the U.S. government, their actions otherwise share all the elements of a conspiracy. Leverage existing positions of power in the Judicial and Legislative branches to assist the Executive in wiping out all forms of social support as quickly as possible, without any plan for replacement, to reduce or eliminate checks and balances to ensure consolidated power in the Executive, to privatize all social services and charity, to break unions, minimize the influence of the electorate, to force women out of public life, and to privilege white men and Capital in all social relations.
Yet plans being made by a small number of people to control the world is the classic conspiracy theory.
By making Project 2025 public, the plan that was privately cooked up by a few dozen people to control the United States government for their own advantage does not appear as a conspiracy. The brazen disregard for civil rights and equality—the foundations of civic life in the liberal nation-state—are not something the authors are ashamed of, and since they have no shame, there must not be a conspiracy.
Meanwhile questions are being asked about the degree to which the cuts in federal weather forecasting may have interfered with the full and timely reporting of flood risk to people in Texas this past weekend. These questions about public actions have been countered by assertions “Democrats control the weather.”
Questioning whether the actions corresponding with the Heritage Foundation’s plan, that were witnessed by all who paid attention to DOGE, could be responsible for the outcome in Texas has been met with claims the actual source of the floods was a small group of people, practicing power secretly.
The social purpose of alleging conspiracy seems to have less to do with the truth-claims that may be made than the moral claims one makes.
On a related note: Pam Bondi announcing in February that she had Jeffrey Epstein’s client list “on my desk” and “thousands” of photos documenting child sexual assault on Epstein’s property and then shortly after releasing “Phase 1” of the documents (including previously-released flight records listing “D. Trump” as a passenger on Epstein’s plane to the island seven times), makes this week’s over-denial of any client records look like hiding evidence. Ghislaine Maxwell must be surprised Epstein had no clients, since she’s doing 20 years in prison for making arrangements for them
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