All Embracing But Underwhelming…

COCK-UP OR CONSPIRACY
BBC Radio 3
PRESENTER: GUNNAR PETTERSSON
PRODUCER: JULIAN HALE
REC: 16.01.91
TX: 13.02.91 2140-2220
PROG NO: 90FQ0392LB0
TAPE NO: SLN1O3/90FQ0392

‘Conspiracy theories have one unique selling point. At a single explanatory stroke coincidences form a pattern, chaos is given meaning and the chapter of accidents reveals an author. A kind of dot-to-dot approach to history, the conspiracy theory joins up the jumble of numbers finally to reveal the shape of monstrous intent: it all connects.’
(Simplification hypothesis)

‘But where the conspiracy theorist sees evil design, the cock-up theorist sees no more than bumbling, accident-prone human beings trying more or less successfully to cope with a brutally capricious world. The only thing that connects is the one cock-up following on another.’

‘Although it often grows surprisingly heated, sooner or later the argument descends into a quarrel over the interpretation of details, and it usually ends in a rather unsatisfactory draw. One is then left with the feeling that it wasn’t really so much about all the details, as a conflict between two fundamentally different philosophies, or at least two psychological types who view the world in diametrically opposed ways.’
(False dilemma)

‘Indeed, from an historical point of view, it is no accident - to coin a phrase - that conspiracy theories of an elaborate, global kind seem to have emerged at the end of the 18th century, particularly in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The explanation for this could be twofold. On the one hand that, from 1789, history seemed to “accelerate” and in doing so tore apart the previous comforting categories. Reality became modernity, limitless and fragmentary, and demanded explanation and simplification. Consequently, the revolutionary turmoil was blamed on Jews and secret societies like the Freemasons and the Illuminati.
‘The other part of the explanation might simply be that, with the Enlightenment and the secularisation of life and society, the vacuum left by God had to be filled. Conspiracy theories are a result of having abandoned one set of beliefs and replacing it with a new form of explanatory myth.’
(Rise of the CT…)

‘One of the most curious aspects of these anti-semitic theories is of course that they have appeared in societies where there are relatively few, if any, Jews. Poland is a case in point. Another is that of Japan where there are virtually no Jews at all: a recent book published there, about a Jewish world conspiracy, sold half a million copies.
…
‘Nonetheless, it seems equally obvious that blame-placing is by no means the only explanation for conspiracy theories. After all, they also occur where the subjects of the conspiracy simply aren’t there and no particular blame presumably need be placed: again, Japan comes to mind. And they crop up even though no particular disaster has occurred, such as the UFO cover-up theory.’
(They become popular in these other locales but surely it’s their origin that is more interesting…)

‘(GP [Gunnar Pettersson]:) So how would you then define conspiracy?
‘(Haines [Joe Haines, journalist]:) I think there are three criteria. One is loyalty, another is legality, the third is the target: is it a proper target? For example, it would be perfectly proper for a group of army officers and security service personnel to plan together to destabilize or destroy the IRA. But were those same officers, of all the services and both the security services, to band together in order to destabilize the properly elected government, that would be disloyal, illegal, the wrong target - a clear conspiracy.’
(Distinction of conspiracy)

‘Now, historians broadly agree that conspiracies have had a limited impact on history: the effects have been either temporary or trivial.’
(Julius Caesar as a counter-example or is this the overdetermination story ala ‘Making History?’)

‘Is it a theory at all? Where the conspiracy theorist sets up more or less verifiable, more or less ridiculous propositions - the cock-up theorist doesn’t really have an awful lot to say for himself. Once you’ve established that accident and incompetence rule, not much remains to be elaborated on. Perhaps it isn’t so much a theory as a slightly pessimistic attitude - which sounds like a profound insight into the futility of our best-laid plans, but never does so without at least a hint of complacency.
‘If the cock-up argument has a weakness it is precisely that somewhere in the background there is that really rather outrageous generalisation. Certainly we’re all bumbling
fools, yes there are probably a million cock-ups every day. But if we’re allowed to generalise in that way, it’s equally true to say that human beings also manage to produce intricate patterns and designs - not least in politics -that we also like to plan together, to act in accord - and to conspire. And it shouldn’t come as complete news that we often get away with it.’
(Critique of the Cock-up Theory)