Although conspiracy as a totalizing, instrumental entity might not exist, . . . relatively secretive, and at times quite open, concentrations of power, built through economic and social connections among elite groups, do. Conspiracy theory is thus ideological in that it substitutes the populist discourse of an antagonism between the people and powerful elites for the analysis of specific structures of power and the processes of struggle, particularly, though not exclusively, concerning class. . . . Conspiracy theory as a theory of power, then, is an ideological misrecognition of power relations, articulated to but neither defining nor defined by populism, interpellating believers as “the people”120 opposed to a relatively secret, elite “power bloc.” Specifically, [conspiracy theories] ideologically address real structural inequities, and constitute a response to a withering civil society and the concentration of the ownership of the means of production, which together leave the political subject without the ability to be recognized or to signify in the public realm . . . (Fenster, 1999: 63, 67)
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 06:10:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015