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Episode 180: Havana Syndrome and the Power of Mainstream, Acceptable Conspiracy Theories

Added 2023-05-03 14:05:51 +0000 UTC

"I Was A Teenage Conspiracy Theorist," The Atlantic magazine playfully titled a 2020 essay. "Choose your reality: Trust wanes, conspiracy theories rise," reported The Associated Press in 2022. "Do You Know Someone Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories? We Want to Hear About It," wrote The New York Times last year.

Fears of "conspiracy theories" are a common trope in the U.S. media, a worry that's grown more acute with the rise of QAnon, anti-vaxx sentiment, anti-semitism and a host of other dangerous theories that unduly rot brains throughout the country. To a great extent, this understandable: Many ideas that meet the definition of "conspiracy theories" are, indeed, baseless and dangerous and can direct people's political energy and resources into wasteful, racist, and downright stupid rabbit holes.

But that fact shouldn't delegitimize or foreclose all skepticism of those in power, but too often the term "conspiracy theory" is used to do just that. Repeatedly, media lump together so-called conspiracy theories, regardless of their accuracy, rationale, and ideology: at once, UFO chasers, QAnon, and the Black Panther Party being subject to FBI disruption are somehow placed in the same category of paranoid kooks. At the same time, unproven, and often debunked ideas advanced by media that also meet the definition of "conspiracy theories" — such as Saddam Hussein being behind 9/11 or so-called Havana syndrome — are treated as unassailable, meriting ongoing investigation, limitless resources, and of course, utmost solemnity.

On this episode, we detail the double standards applied to conspiracy theories inside and outside of the realm of U.S. corporate media. We’ll examine the development of the concept of conspiracy theories and the media's selective invocations of the term to discredit real grievances directed at American power and the U.S. government, and moreover, how power-friendly conspiracies — namely those focused on Enemy States like the Havana Syndrome narrative — are permitted to fester and grow without pushback because their red yarn dot connecting implicates the right lists of Acceptable Bad Guys.

Our guest is Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic.

Guest

Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) is a staff writer for Jacobin magazine and the author of the book Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden (Verso, 2020)

Show Notes

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

Richard Hofstadter | November 1964 | Harper's Magazine

Conspiracies Pushed by Atlantic’s Editor Excluded From Atlantic’s Denunciation of Conspiracy Theories

Adam Johnson | August 10, 2017 | FAIR

‘Havana syndrome’ not caused by energy weapon or foreign adversary, intelligence review finds

Shane Harris and John Hudson | March 1, 2023 | The Washington Post

Pentagon Requests $36 Million For Havana Syndrome

Ken Klippenstein | April 20, 2023 | The Intercept

Most ‘Havana Syndrome’ Cases Unlikely Caused by Foreign Power, C.I.A. Says

Julian E. Barnes | January 20, 2022 | The New York Times

Washington’s “Havana Syndrome” Promoters Have a Lot to Answer For

Natalie Shure | January 28, 2022 | The New Republic

A Declassified State Department Report Says Microwaves Didn’t Cause “Havana Syndrome”

Dan Vergano | September 30, 2021 | BuzzFeed News

U.S. diplomats in Cuba have unusual brain syndrome, but there's no proof they were attacked, study says

Richard Stone | February 15, 2018 | Science

The French Revolution as Illuminati Conspiracy

Livia Gershon | September 28, 2020 | JStor Daily

I Was A Teenage Conspiracy Theorist

Ellen Cushing | May 13, 2020 | The Atlantic

British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797–1802

Michael Taylor | Spring 2014 | Eighteenth-Century Studies

Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism

Eric K. Ward | June 29, 2017 | Public Eye

On the Origins of the Blood Libel

Matthew Wills | October 8, 2021 | JStor Daily

The first use of the term “conspiracy theory” is much earlier — and more interesting — than historians have thought.

Mike Caulfield | December 24, 2018 | Hapgood

Book Review: The Rhetoric of Conspiracy in Ancient Athens

Andrew Wolpert and Victoria Pagán | March 14, 2007 | Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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