[Newspoetry] Conspiracy as an Extreme Theory of Governance

[emerick at chorus.net]

In the Washington Post article today, "Conspiracy Theories Flourish on the Internet By Carol Morello" we are treated to the ritual mockery of conspiracy theories.  On the same day, we also see published yesterday's "story"  -- 
(already long foreshadowed and much leaked)  -- on the Final Report of the Iraq Survey Group.

Basically, there were no snarks in Iraq, never have been for years, and no snark production facilities or programs of any kind had any but the most minute existence -- but we still think Saddam dreamed about having snarks, and talked about them constantly.

Man is always at risk of self-delusion -- of falling into the possession of his own wild fantasy dreams.  For lesser men and women may just dream of raw-wild-sex -- but, greater women and men dream more symbolicially.  They dream in images they most often fail to understand because they never interpret, as by kaballah or tarot or Freud, the sex-symbol substitutional calculus.   Now, Freud later vastly expanded this calculus to incorporate additional drives by introducing additional subtle complexities in the drive-conflict-resolution analysis beyond the "moral-imperative versus animal-instinctive" conflicts managed by Ego in the simple SuperEgo vs Id(iot).

Saddam dreamed of weapon snarks, the way Bush dreams of his own weapons.  But, notice how they differ -- for Saddam has masculine weapons of thrust and penetration-- whereas George is wholly prophylactic in his choice of weapon systems and weapon usages to dream about.  Who else but a wimpy, mother-dependent George would dream of the big missile shield, or of making the MidEast safe(r) for sex -- ooops, I mean -- commerce?  (Although, there is commerce and there is sex, there is also sex commerce -- so it isn't truly necessary to oopsie-daisy my error. (Let Freud figure out what I hid(e) her(e) on a slipped-tongue.)

So, what the WP says is quite entertaining.  "Conspiracy theories must all fail.  They all presume things that aren't even closely true as approximations to the ways of the real world.  For instance, they assume unanimity among, perfect information in and ultimate power for the alleged conspirators.  But, everyday, the newspapers tell us that power is everywhere distributed and rarely concentrated in the hands of any group for long.  Everyday, the newspapers tell us that information asymmetries are less characteristic of the alleged power holders, as an alleged group, than information inadequacies -- that their intelligence is faulty at best, flawed, inconsistent, incomplete, delayed behind the actual events they might have portended had they been even remotely decipherable, in the context of events.  And, finally, everyday, the newspapers tell us, again and again, to the point of a litany, how "divided" the power holders are, into different warring camps and factions -- of !
 how little they agree, of the sheer improbability of the super-majority's unanimity, for more than a momentary cohesion, as a transient and unstable state of affairs.

But, here's the inference that is harder to believe, though it seems to be truer, too.  Does the discrediting of conspiracy theory prove too much?  Do not the same arguments simply tell us that relying on the idea of management, by others, of vital aspects of one's life-world -- the idea on which any "theory" of government must itself exist, if government were to prove to be a useful institution -- is a premise that always fails, and may fail catastrophically, besides its constantly disappointing lesser, everyday failures?

The myth of power is that it falsely proclaims to add value to any life-process other than the ones of those who walk in the ways of power.  And, underneath our skin, we probably know what all the powerful would truly do to all of the rest of us, if they thought that there was nothing that truly checked them in their id-impulses toward rape, slaughter and servitudes.  (For they have long ago obliterated, in their own conscious thinking, any need to heed the SuperEgo -- thinking its global test is but a reliquary of some mythical antiquity that has to be pleased to fool the people, to keep the people fooled.)

Ah, now I have scratched the irritation that symbolically became an inspiration for this story.  I scratched where itched and it was good, very good.