The Anarchism of Fools: Conspiracy Theory as a Substitute for Social Critique
Conspiracy theory continues to enjoy a generally positive reception within many sectors of the contemporary North American anarchist movement. As this presentation will argue, conspiracy models of social reality consistently distort and obfuscate the power relations they purport to explain. Instead of examining or refuting specific instances of conspiracy thinking within the popular anarchist milieu, this analysis will concentrate on the logical structure of conspiracy theory as such, and attempt to illuminate its psychological, political, philosophical, and historical roots.
This is a recording of a presentation given by Peter Staudenmaier at the 2004 Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Peter Staudenmaier is an anarchist historian whose work focuses on modern European right-wing thought. He teaches at the Institute for Social Ecology.
Listen to the presentation here: Part 1, Part 2.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 9:04 am and is filed under U.S., conspiracism, antisemitism, anarchism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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