Age of conspiracies

This picture has been buzzing round the internet immediately after the Boston bombings. Who is this man?

The Boston bombings are compelling firstly because they are awful to contemplate but secondly because they are, as of yet, motiveless (if it was Al-Qaeda we would have been told straight away). The President initially did not even call the bombings and act of terrorism, then he did, but he still upset some people.

For the time being there is room for myth-making and pareidolia. What was that man doing on the roof? What would anyone do on a roof?

There are immediate psychological reasons for embracing conspiracy theories, the solidarity of the initiated, perverse reassurance about human agency and so on.  There are political reasons why one may promote a conspiracy theory, or conspiracism in general. Fear and projection are key stimulating factors for right wing populist movements, the tributaries of fascism.

The unacceptable attributes of the self, in this case a political body, for example a nation or a race, are projected on the enemy, who is always more powerful, cunning and prolific. Triumph over the enemy requires urgent action, great passion is mobilised, and it becomes a transforming force. It helps also when you find attributes of the enemy within the political body, these people become ‘traitors’ and can be dealt with peremptorily (btw – is anyone else spotting a similarity between this and the SWP CC’s epistemology of internal debate? – a leap I appreciate, but word has it Alex Callinicos turned up at a CC meeting with a copy of the infamous Facebook conversation and started ranting about conspiracies).

There is a short Marxist rider to this, we live in the age of public life, where all the formal decisions about society are taken in the open, yet society seems to career down strange, unwarranted paths beyond any apparent human control. Noam Chomsky contrasts conspiracy theories to institutional analysis. Conspiracies fill the gap left by the absence of the theory of class rule, the nature of the state. Perhaps this means they are part of the operation of bourgeois hegemony? In which case more consideration is necessary.

Thoughts for the brain: assassinations?

Has anyone written a study of assassination? The culture of public slaying seems to wax and wane. Of course it is connected past civic culture and levels of social conflict. But were there more assassination attempts in revolutionary Russia than in revolutionary Germany, I’m not sure?

John Lennon’s killing was the last of the wave of post-war American assassinations. There are conspiracy theories about his death, they’re amongst the flimsiest out there, and that’s saying something. On the face of it his death was enigmatic, almost meaningless. Mark Chapman spent some time in New York before killing John Lennon. He watched David Bowie perform in the Elephant Man three days before and even took a picture of him leaving the theatre. He could have killed almost anyone in the public eye (Lennon was the easiest to find apparently).

Chapman’s apparent mental delusion stemmed from pronounced childhood sensitivity, exposure to psychedelic drugs and conversion to Presbyterianism. But a crucial factor was surely The Beatles music and their place in the 60s counter culture. It has been well explained by Ian MacDonald, The Beatles lyrics to begin with were deeply simple expressions of the music, happy, sad, excited etc. Under Bob Dylan’s influence particularly, their lyrics became more personal and more topical but, mostly a pot-pourri of fragments and allusions; this engagingly jumbled approach to writing encouraged clue hunters, pattern-finders and pseuds to pour over song lyrics. In the heady atmosphere of the 60s the fascination grew into rumours and outlandish theories, not least the Paul Is Dead theory.

Mark Chapman was apparently enraged by Lennon’s various blasphemies, in music and in print, angry enough to kill him. But he was one of many people to fixate on The Beatles. I remember reading in a Q Magazine interview once George Harrison telling of the time he bumped into the pilot who used to fly The Beatles round America on tours. He said one thing they never told the band, the plane was frequently riddled with bullet holes. If it seems strange that Chapman would harbour the urge to kill ten years after Lennon left The Beatles and five years after he stepped out of public life, well… it is odd. This is part of why conspiracy theories exist, to rationalise the parts of life that seem to be deterministic chaos. John Lennon was alive and well then he was dead: why? Any reasonable explanation will probably die with Mark Chapman.

It is a small wonder more pop stars and, more broadly, celebrities have not died this way.