Hope and Fear. Modern Myths, Conspiracy Theories and Pseudo-History. By Ronald H. Fritze. Reaktion Books. 2022. 271pp.
It is an idea frequently expressed that people need myth to make sense of their own lives and the world around them. Otherwise why would we have worship of non-existent gods, devotion to human leaders sometimes considered divine themselves, or the idea that one’s accidental country of birth somehow makes that place superior to others? In Hope and Fear Ronald Fritze investigates such myths, such ‘invented knowledge’, as he calls it, and does so in a way that manages to be both massively scholarly in its detailed and comprehensive analysis of the phenomena in question, exhilarating, and indeed often entertaining in the reflections and observations it throws off.
On the one hand, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, the author asks questions like: ‘Is a secret and corrupt Illuminati conspiring to control world affairs and bring about a New World Order? Was Donald Trump a victim of massive voter fraud? Is Queen Elizabeth II a shape-shifting reptilian alien? Who is doing all this plotting?’ On the other hand, the depth of his knowledge and serious analysis of fringe ideas and conspiracies throughout history is little short of breathtaking in its detail and profundity. His study ranges from enduring earlier myths such as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Knights Templar and the ‘Red Jews’ to later myths of race and nation such as the rise of ‘national sovereignty’ as ‘a source of pride and comfort’ for citizens of newly established states and the continuing belief among some in the anti-Semitic and entirely discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the 20th century, he examines, among much else, the Nazis’ pseudo-science of Aryanism, and persistent fascination with the so-called alien landings at Roswell in New Mexico. And over most recent times he considers theories of 9/11 as an ‘inside job’, Obama’s supposed ‘foreign’ birth, the contortions of QAnon, ‘Covid hoax’ notions and Alex Jones’s outrageous fictions. He concludes that when such ‘junk knowledge’ spreads, ‘facts, reality and truth fall by the wayside’ and what people come to believe ‘bears little or no resemblance to scientific or historical reality’. So, for example, belief in anti-Trump voter fraud, though conclusively and incontrovertibly debunked, continues to survive against all the evidence via a process the author calls ‘belief perseverance’ which persists even in the face of solid contradictory information and facts.
What to make of all this? Clearly belief in myth, conspiracies and pseudo-history has a long record in human affairs and seems to occur especially at times of tumult and social upheaval, perhaps an expression of despair by people who feel impotent to influence events or their own lives. People engage in ‘confirmation bias’. They cherry-pick the evidence to support their beliefs in wonder, domination conspiracies or the supernatural, or they simply engage in wishful thinking, and fevered imagination takes precedence over any rational thought leading in some cases to what the author, in his chapter on the rise and ideology of Nazism, calls ‘a road to perdition’.
It is true, as history has shown and this book ably illustrates, that this can lead to whole societies going down such roads. And this may seem depressing. But perhaps a gleam of light is to be found in the fact that, in the most socially and economically advanced parts of the world, the kind of myths, conspiracy theories and pseudo-history portrayed here are rarely shared by whole populations as often as they were in the past. What happens now rather is that they tend to exist among a certain segment of the population, usually a particularly downtrodden one, who find their own existences particularly confusing, stressful and alienating and so seek consolation in conspiracy theories often coupled with retrograde political beliefs, which, as the author points out, tend to have an affinity for each other. So maybe we should see just a little progress here in terms of social development providing at least the ground for progress of the wholly different, non-conflictual and cooperative way of organising human affairs that socialists advocate and look forward to.
Howard Moss
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