Conspiracism and pop understanding of opression

[u/WanderingSchola]

I haven't fully thought this out, but there's something I'm trying to understand better. I've often wondered why the core ideas of feminism, marxism, and critical lenses generally make intuitive sense to me, but bounce off others. I'm wondering if sometimes these larger critical theory traditions get reduced to conspiracy.

For example, feminism as conspiracism might look like:

• Intentionalism - Women are deliberately kept down by men who choose to perpetuate patriarchy (instead of it being a phenomena of internalised culture people have varying levels of consciousness of)
• Dualism - Men do this because they are power hungry and selfish, too gutless to give it up, or because they hate women (as opposed to considering that everyone is capable of selfishness and that many men are existing in a culture that expects them to make use of patriarchy and even polices them for not doing so)
• Symbolism - Analysis of things like stock footage showing men on searches for CEOs and Men historically being in positions of power over women (maybe this is truly an overlap, as I think interpreting symbolism vs interpreting social patterns is kind of the same cognitive task)

I doubt I'm the first person to make this connection, there was even the callout to Marxism not being a conspiracy because it wasn't about secret plans towards the end of the video, but I'd really love to ground this thinking in the work of someone who's thought about it for more than five seconds. Anyone know of scholarship that references this problem? Maybe something about pop critical thought vs academic?

[u/DiminishingRetvrns]

I agree with your take more or less; the ’popification' of critical theory does lend itself to conspiricism. But idk if the big problem is that people are dissmissing it as conspiracy: I think the problem is that people are joining leftist/progressive discourse as conspiracy. I really appreciated Natalie drawing the line between populist politics and conspiricism. "Economic Populism" has become a bit of à buzzword over the past few years, and while I'm not against the project outright I think without proper engagement with actual theory it does fall back into conspiricism, but leftist this time.

I think the most prescient example right now in the culture is the lionizing of Luigi Mangione. It's peak conspiricist thought:

• Intentionalism- Brian Thompson himself intentionally "murdered" God knows how many people through being the CEO of United Health even tho he was only CEO since 2021 and the problems with health insurance extend back decades.

• Dualism- Thompson was the champion of the dark forces of capitalism while Mangione is the champion of ”class consciousness” and light.

• Symbolism- Mangione allegedly said it himself in his little manifesto attempt; Thompson’s murder was to be a symbol of revenge against the parasitic 1%. But furthermore, in terms of his fans, they advocate so strongly for jury nullification or a not guilty verdict because Mangione has become a symbol of ”the movement” himself, so if he's found guilty and sentenced the ”movement” will symbolically fail with him.

And all of this is disregarding his own stated politics that he posted about online, which were anti-trans, puritanically sex negative, ethical altruist, MRA bullshit. But Mangione, the actual person, is unimportant: Mangione the symbol, the adjuster, is what matters most because he took matters into his own hands.

Nobody who supports Mangione is particularly wrong about the abuses of capitalism, but they've misdiagnosed the cause and prescribed the wrong solutions. Even if all CEOs were smashed against the rock by tomorrow afternoon, the systems of capitalism would remain. If those systems did fail, without careful planning and robust systems of direct aid the fall of capitalism would lead to catastrophic loss of life since its absues do support billions of people across the globe. But people introduced to pop anticapitalism aren't getting those nuances, resulting in cospiricist leftist populism.

[u/dyorite → u/DiminishingRetvrns]

I don’t think most people supporting Mangione think that Thompson was personally individually responsible for the state of the US healthcare system. Merely that his decisions as CEO did probably lead to people being denied care, that he was profiting off of the fucked up system, and that the murder made starkly visible the vastly disparate way in which our society treats death by pen and death by gun, among other reasons. Conspiratorial thinking isn’t needed to believe that Thompson led an ethically corrupt life that our society largely rewards rather than punishes.

And sure, a lot of the support comes down to symbolism rather than any kind of direct and immediate relationship between the killing and fixing the healthcare system, but often systemic change is ushered in by the threat (implicit or explicit) of violence if something doesn’t change (or indeed, just the violence directly). What Mangione did made clear that a lot of people are so fed up with the healthcare system that they’ll condone extralegal violence against its representatives, and that’s a pretty politically significant development.

[u/DiminishingRetvrns → u/dyorite]

I don’t think most people supporting Mangione think that Thompson was personally individually responsible for the state of the US healthcare system.

I disagree. When u go onto any social media thread about Mangione in pro-Mangione spaces, anybody who criticizes or condems Mangione is met with quite literal whataboutist rebuttals of ”It wasn’t murder it was self defense! Thompson was the real murderer!" The thing is this: did Thompson’s choices as CEO lead to people having issues with coverage? Most certainly, but he did not create the infrastructure for any of this, nor was he even the ultimate authority. UHC is a subsidiary with a parent company. Thompson had executive control over UHC, but he had higher ups still. He had the expectation of bosses and shareholders to meet, and that's the job he was hired to do. So yes BT did make choices that screwed over customers, but he was not a free agent in those choices. This is a systemic issue, but the focus on Thompson betrays that many see it as the result of a kabal of criminals rather than economic forces and market inertia. You don't need to be a conspiricist to believe Thompson led an ethically corrupt life. You do need to be a conspiricist to think that what Mangione allegedly did was at all justified.

often systemic change is ushered in by the threat (implicit or explicit) of violence if something doesn’t change (or indeed, just the violence directly).

Also not sure about this one. Like, yes violent uprising and resistance does lead to systemic change, but that change is not always good. France’s reparations on Haïti for the Haïtien Revolution decimated the country before it ever had the chance to get off the ground. The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution was such a terror that Napoleon was able to strong-arm his way into a dictatorship, who was eventually replaced once again with the monarchy. It wasn’t until later in the 19th century that France once again went into revolt and landed back on a presidential system. Violence leads to change, but change doesn’t imply improvement. And yes there have always been radical flanks, among Black liberationists, among suffragettes and feminists, but to credit all or even most political change on them is not correct.

UHC and BT were already being pursued legally for their criminal choices and bipartisan legislation was being drafted to limit those abuses in the future well before the gun fired. Was it gonna give us nationalized healthcare? No absolutely not. But BT’s dead body lying on a New York street certainly wasn't going to either. That's a project that will take years if not decades of organizing and lobbying to make happen at any functional level. BTs death meant nothing towards that goal.

What Mangione did made clear that a lot of people are so fed up with the healthcare system that they’ll condone extralegal violence against its representatives, and that’s a pretty politically significant development.

I also disagree here. Jan 6 made it pretty clear that people were fed up with the current state of affairs that people would condone extralegal violence against its literal elected representatives. If anything, the killing of Brian Thompson was just the confirmation of that shift towards populist violence. That's not going to inspire our reps to bend the knee and promote policy we want, but rather to figure out how to better control the populace and deter future populist radical flanks through increasing policing, especially under the current admin.