'One aspect of conspiracy theories...is as a parlor game, "a way to break the ice at parties" '

From (Melchizedek Communique, MC021610) The much ballyhooed release of "Voodoo Histories", by David Aaronovitch prompts the resurrection of the following review of "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture", by Mark Fenster.

...Here's another sociable aspect of "paranoia." There was (or is) a role-playing game called GURPS Illuminati, with a game manager and several players. The manager designs the conspiracy and gives different roles to the players. The players can be investigators, members of various conspiracy groups (like the Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, etc.), or someone marginally intersecting (or stumbling upon) a conspiracy. The game manager is not passive but can intervene, for example by introducing new elements. The game manager "leads them into things slowly, dropping very minor hints that there are mysteries behind the facade of the normal."

The GURPS (Generic Universal Role-Playing System) book explains that players never definitively win the game: "If the Illuminati are really monstrous spiders in a web of intrigue, you can't defeat them. You can only soldier on, struggling to reveal one more layer of the conspiracy, while staying one small step ahead of those who would destroy (or co-opt) you."

"Conspiracy Theory As Play," is one of many perspectives discussed by Fenster in his book. At long last someone has taken an impartial critical approach to the wide-ranging field of conspiracy theories. The usual critiques of the subject are cliches, insults and lame jokes, played like a broken record, (e.g. "conspiracy nuts," "someone call Oliver Stone," "the grassy knoll crowd," etc.) Mainstream journalists assigned to write something about conspiracies must be awfully lazy since they keep writing the same stupid things. Fenster is refreshing in that he has thoroughly studied his subject and does not stoop to "humorous" insults.

On the other hand, Fenster writes from academia, so there's a lot of fashionable ivory tower words like "epistemological valences," "semiotic apparatus," and "heuristic devices" you might conk your head into. At least, though, an academic type is at least now doing more than carefully avoiding serious discussion. As the years go by, other academic turtles might be peeking their heads out and noticing "something was going on back then." This timidity of the ivory tower is alluded to on the back cover of Fenster's book: "I find the issue of conspiracy theory compelling and appreciate Fenster's fruitful approach to what has been mysteriously ignored by the academy," writes one reviewer.

So how does Ph.D. Fenster analyze the conspiracy theory craze of the past 50-or-so years? Basically it is seen as a never-ending quest. Conspiracy theorists keep peeling back layers of the onion but never will get to the core, argues Fenster. They are like Gnostics, searching for some transcendant thing. That's one aspect. On the other hand, Fenster's very title refers to "secrecy in American culture." The government keeps classifying more and more information as secret. The secrecy of the federal government is burgeoning. They won't let loose with the information. A reasonable way for the citizenry to glimpse the hidden truth is for them to theorize. Physicists do that: there's a whole branch of physics called "theoretical physics." But no one is guffawing at the physicists and calling them "physics nuts." There is a core after you peel back the layers of the onion. ...

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