Among the Truthers

by Kay, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780062004819
• ISBN10: 0062004816
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-17
• Publisher: Harpercollins

Summary

From 9/11 conspiracy theorists and UFO obsessives to the cult of Ayn Rand and Birther crusaders, America is suffering from an explosion in post-rationalist ideological movements. In Among the Truthers, journalist Jonathan Kay offers a thoughtful and sobering look at how social networking and Web-based video sharing have engendered a flourishing of new conspiracism. Kay details the sociological profiles of ten brands of modern conspiracists-the Failed Historian, the Mid-Life Crack-Up, the Damaged Survivor, the Campus Revolutionary, the Stoner, the Clinical Case, the Puzzle Solver, the Christian Doomsayer, the Cosmic Voyager, and the Egomaniac-in a compelling exploration of America's departure from reason and what it means for the very future of rational discourse as the nation steps further into the 21st century.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Introduction: Stumbling on the Truthers	p. 1
Don't Call Them ôNutbarsö	p. 4
Some Caveats	p. 19
The Truth Movement and Its Ancestors
American Conspiracism: A Brief History	p. 25
Programmed for Conspiracy	p. 25
Populism and Paranoia: How Politics Shaped American Conspiracism	p. 33
The Men in Black: How Technology Shaped American Conspiracism	p. 51
The Emergence of ôFlowchart Conspiracismö	p. 57
Warrant for Genocide, Blueprint for Paranoia	p. 65
A Dark Fairy Tale	p. 67
Singularity	p. 71
Boundless Evil	p. 76
Incumbency	p. 81
Greed	p. 83
Cui Bono?	p. 87
Hypercompetence	p. 89
Covering Their Tracks	p. 93
False Flags and Lava Lamps: The Birth of a Conspiracy Movement	p. 99
Ken Jenkins: Videographer, Flower Child, Truther	p. 99
Operation Northwoods and Its Legacy	p. 106
Project for the New American Century: A Modern Northwoods	p. 116
ôShow Me the Birth Certificateö: Conspiracism in the Age of Obama	p. 121
Joseph Farah: Birther Extraordinaire	p. 121
Drinking Tea in Nashville	p. 124
Enter the False Prophet	p. 135
Glenn Beck and the New Populism	p. 138
Meet the Truthers
Why They Believe: A Psychological Field Guide to Conspiracists	p. 149
The Midlife Crisis Case	p. 151
The Failed Historian	p. 159
The Damaged Survivor	p. 170
The Cosmic Voyager	p. 179
The Clinical Conspiracist	p. 183
The Crank	p. 187
The Evangelical Doomsayer	p. 196
The Firebrand	p. 199
The Church of Conspiracism	p. 205
Enter Satan	p. 205
The Devil's Legacy	p. 211
Lives of the Prophets	p. 215
The Cultic Milieu	p. 218
Accessories to Trutherdom
Democratizing Paranoia: How the Web Revolutionized Conspiracism	p. 227
The Legacy of Flight 800	p. 227
Muckraking 2.0	p. 230
Through the Internet's Looking Glass	p. 238
The Revolution Will Be Televised	p. 250
History Belongs to the YouTube Victors	p. 258
Tin-Foil Mortarboards: Conspiracism's Ivy League Enablers	p. 261
Jacques Derrida's Hall of Mirrors	p. 261
Among the Antiracists	p. 273
Lessons from the Yale Law Journal	p. 279
The Protocols Revisited: The New Face of Anti-Semitic Conspiracism	p. 285
Showdown in the Bowery	p. 285
Conspiracism's Hateful Sidekick	p. 289
A New Home on the Left	p. 294
The 9/11 Effect	p. 300
Jews Drift Right	p. 305
Confronting Conspiracism	p. 309
A Pound of Cure	p. 309
An Ounce of Prevention	p. 316
Index	p. 329
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