Interviewer: Conspiracy theories, which have become quite popular
Amongst those people whom identify as 'progressive'
I know you've been fairly critical of those ideas
Why do you think that they're popular now?
Well, first of all, there are conspiracies. You know... no question about it.
In fact sometimes, take say... sometimes they have big effects
Like, take the suburbanisation of America
Huge government, state, corporate, social engineering projects
Which were largely dedicated to maximising the inefficient use of fossil fuels
With everything that goes along with it, oh yeah, it may destroy the species, so it's not insignificant...
But it did start as a literal conspiracy of General Motors, Standard Oil of California and Firestone Rubber
To buy up and destroy the fairly efficient electric transport system in Los Angeles and other cities
Destroy it and turn it into the monstrosity that we have.
Okay, that was a conspiracy. In fact they were taken to court
And, you know, fined a couple of thousand dollars.
But... looking for something hidden, that's sort of beneath the surface
That's really running things... I think that's... sometimes it's true
But, usually in my view, it turns out to be mythology
And I think it comes from a sense that: "I don't like the way things are so there must be some hidden hand somewhere that's manipulating and controlling it"
Whereas when you look closely I think you just see the normal workings of institutional structures
That makes you, of course, raise questions about the nature of the society, who we are, how we tolerate it and so on.
So, for example, it's appealing to believe that, say, John F. Kennedy
One of the main figures in conspiracy theory - what are called conspiracy theories -
It would be nice to believe that he was just a fantastically wonderful guy who was gonna do all kinds of great things
And they shot him down, just 'cause he was so wonderful and the world was going off, you know, hell in a handbasket ever since then
That's a comforting feeling.
It's less comforting to recognise what, I think, the documentary record demonstrates and the historical record,
That he was kind of a hawk who was a politician, you know, trying to gain power by the usual techniques
So he was kind of affable and friendly and smiled, and knew how to butter people up.
But, if you take a look at what he was doing he was pretty horrible, he was one of the worst, most dangerous creatures of the 20th century
And, fortunately didn't happen to blow up the world but he came pretty close to it.
That's a less comforting position, I happen to think it's largely true
Same with Barack Obama.
But, you can see the appeal of trying to find -
Take say Obama: there's a widespread feeling on the 'Left', you know, Middle-Eastern commentators and so on,
That he's really dedicated, doing wonderful things, it's just that dark forces are preventing him
So we just have to hope that he's going to overcome the dark forces.
Like a hero in a fairytale and somehow he'll get rid of the witches and dragons and everything will be nice.
I, I don't think that there's any truth to that.
I think he's exactly what he seems to be and there... and nobody's going to ride in on a white horseback and get rid of the dragons and the witches.
We've got to do it ourselves.
Interviewer: Right, so, would you say that conspiracy theories in general are not particularly helpful for radical politics and radical action?
If they're inaccurate, I mean if they're accurate as they sometimes are, sure, that helps explain the World.
But most of what happens, it's kind of a c- I mean, you know
In a sense it's a conspiracy if the board of directors of General Motors get together and decide "Okay here's our plans for next year"
It's kind of a conspiracy but we don't call that a conspiracy theory because it's the normal working of institutions
And similarly when the, you know, take say during the second world war, the high state department planners and comparable figures from the private sector
Like the Council of Foreign Relations did meet and extensively discuss the nature of the post-war world
And laid plans which were pretty well executed.
Well this happened to be public; but is it a conspiracy?
You know, they got together, they worked out plans, they later implemented them in small groups of people
With special interests, not the interests of the population, but exposing that makes perfect sense.
It's not what's called a conspiracy theory because that's the way institutions operate.
And that makes sense, you know.
On the other hand this.... take... I don't like to use the term because there are conspiracies
It's called a conspiracy theory if we don't like it or something, it's not the way to look at it.
What you have to ask is whether the theories or the conspiracy are accurate.
So let's take say the idea that the Bush administration plotted to blow up the World Trade Centre
That attracts huge support, maybe a third of the population believes it and
Very dedicated groups of people, many of them on the 'Left' are just committed to that
Is it plausible? I mean, suppose that the... let's say somebody conspired to blow up the World Trade Centre. We know what they did; they blamed it on Saudis .
I mean, would the Bush administration blame it on Saudis, thereby shooting themselves in the... you know, in the feet?
I mean if they wanted to bomb Iraq. So if they'd organised it, they would have blamed it on Iraqis
Then they'd have no problem at all getting Congressional authorisation, a UN resolution, you know, NATO would join in
And everybody would say "Fine, let's invade Iraq"
Instead, whoever did it blamed it on Saudis. Well, that absolves the Bush administration, surely: outright insanity.
Why harm your relations with a valued ally instead of blaming it on the people you want to invade?
So it's already a barrier to, you know, entertaining the possibility and the elaborate work that goes into, you know:
"Is there nano-thermite in building seven?" or whatever it is, it's kind of a side point yeah maybe there was, maybe there wasn't.
Unless you have pretty sophisticated knowledge of civil engineering and structural architecture you can't make a judgment as to whether it means anything.
But there are obvious, clear phenomena that the theory has to deal with somehow, and doesn't.
And if it doesn't then I don't see any reason to take it seriously.
So yes, then it becomes one of these kinds of conspiracy theories that just mislead and misdirect energy and so on
In fact it wouldn't surprise me if, say forty years from now, we get declassified documents, which show that the Bush administration was very sympathetic to these theories.
It was diverting energy from real crimes into things that are basically a wild goose chase
Actually we had documents like that from- about the Kennedy assassination
So there are Pentagon advisory documents which advise the Pentagon, the government, to periodically leak information about the Kennedy assassination
Basically so as to keep people out of their hair. You know, let them follow those nonexistent leads instead of asking us questions that we really don't want to answer.
Interviewer: So, real conspiracy theory there.
And there we have the actual documents. But it wouldn't shock me if there are similar things about 9/11 conspiracies.
I mean they do have an immediate effect, they draw a lot of energy and effort away from major crimes, the crimes which are a lot worse than blowing up the World Trade Centre.
So that's convenient for the powerful.
And since the theories seem to have just major logical problems that I don't see how they can confront, like what I mentioned, it does seem to be the kind of theory that misleads and misdirects.
And I think it's not hard to see why it's popular.
I mean, some terrible things are going on. There should be some dark hand behind it.
We hate Bush and Rumsfeld for good reasons, so, maybe they're behind it.
