While President Obama continues to seek a civil tone in debate over contentious matters, he appears to be swimming against the current of a traditional American political style, which has been described as the "paranoid" style of American politics.
This is the mindset behind every conspiracy theory made part of the political rhetoric of those across all parts of the ideological spectrum. There are left-wing paranoids, centrist paranoids, and right wing paranoids. All are equally angry and none of them are going to take this crap anymore.
The new Tom Hanks movie, which I have no intention whatever of seeing, brings this to mind. All I needed to know was that it once again raised the historical hysterics over the "secret society" of the Illuminati, and I had to laugh.
Any idea of making American political discourse a civil exchange is doomed to failure, and I think Obama knows that. He isn't really expecting to succeed in changing the nature of political discourse; he merely wants to occupy the high ground so he can preempt the stage, and use the bully pulpit to its best advantage, appearing always as the most reasonable man in the room.
Got to admire the guy's chutzpah; and I think he's adopted a wise strategy for one who has the advantage of Presidential incumbency. He scores debate points just by showing up taking this stand on the need for civil discourse. No one will succeed in branding him autocratic when they haul dissenters out of the room, for it will be the hecklers and rude people who will be seen as having violated the serenity of the President's time with his people.
There is a grand tradition in American politics of paranoia, obsessions with secret societies and conspiracies, and hostility toward various groups on the basis of xenophobia, religious bigotry, and political ideology.
With regard to the Illuminati, it is particularly ironic to see a movie branding these 18th century rationalists as murderous revenge seekers.
As the historian Richard Hofstadter pointed out:
snip:
... panic ... broke out in some quarters at the end of the eighteenth century over the allegedly subversive activities of the Bavarian Illuminati. This panic was a part of the general reaction to the French Revolution. In the United States it was heightened by the response of certain men, mostly in New England and among the established clergy, to the rise of Jeffersonian democracy.
Illuminism had been started in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Its teachings today seem to be no more than another version of Enlightenment rationalism, spiced with the anticlerical atmosphere of eighteenth-century Bavaria. It was a somewhat naïve and utopian movement which aspired ultimately to bring the human race under the rules of reason. Its humanitarian rationalism appears to have acquired a fairly wide influence in Masonic lodges.
Americans first learned of Illumism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of ROOTING OUT ALL RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OVERTURNING ALL THE EXISTING GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. In May 1798, a minister of the Massachusetts Congregational establishment in Boston, Jedidiah Morse, delivered a timely sermon to the young country, which was then sharply divided between Jeffersonians and Federalists, Francophiles and Anglomen. Having read Robison, Morse was convinced of a Jacobinical plot touched off by Illuminism, and that the country should be rallied to defend itself. His warnings were heeded throughout New England wherever Federalists brooded about the rising tide of religious infidelity or Jeffersonian democracy. Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, followed Morse’s sermon with a Fourth-of-July discourse on The Duty of Americans in the Present Crisis, in which he held forth against the Antichrist in his own glowing rhetoric. Soon the pulpits of New England were ringing with denunciations of the Illuminati, as though the country were swarming with them.
The anti-Masonic movement of the late 1820s and the 1830s took up and extended the obsession with conspiracy. At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the 1790s was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultraconservative point of view, the later anti-Masonic movement affected many parts of the northern United States, and was intimately linked with popular democracy and rural egalitarianism. Although anti-Masonry happened to be anti-Jacksonian (Jackson was a Mason), it manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
end snip
Insurgency 101 posits that the best way to hide a conspiracy and make it both simultaneously effective and yet branded as being a ridiculous flight of fancy, is to have people stridently denounce the intentions of a particular group while in its infancy.
Two things usually follow from this. The infant group gets a massive boost in terms of aura and respect, and by imputing certain omniscient and omnipresent attributes to a group, can sometimes have the effect of actually conferring those powers to that very same group. Its the psychology of the self fulfilling prophecy at work here.
Who if not the government by their concern that people not be led astray by illicit drugs in the 60's by their barrage of public service announcements did more to kindle the flames of the free love decade that was the 60's?
By the very same process, paranoi has constructed an illuminated masonic monster, eager with luciferian intent, to dominate and control every facet of existence in this world. After two hundred years of PR claiming this was already so, would it be any surprise if during a lull in the general concentration( due in part by conspiracy fatigue) this very innocuous group of sentimental humanitarians exploited a power vacuum and became the very thing most feared?
Originally posted by ScriabinDid you read the book? Obviously not. Because, if you did, you'd realize that it was more about the Church than about the "Illuminati." The Illuminati is simply used as a vehicle to attack the Church, and the book is fundamentally about the Church's reaction. The Illuminati are just a foil.
The new Tom Hanks movie, which I have no intention whatever of seeing, brings this to mind. All I needed to know was that it once again raised the historical hysterics over the "secret society" of the Illuminati, and I had to laugh.
In any case, the making of the movie was done simply because:
a) The book was a best selling book and the often make movies out of best selling books; and
b) the previous Dan brown book movie, The Da Vinci Code, did very well at the box office and so they figure this one will too.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with American political discourse or whether Americans or anyone else believes these secret societies are real.
I suppose when they make a movie out of Deception Point, you'll come on and tell everyone that Americans believe that an alien invasion is imminent.
Originally posted by ScriabinWho is paying you to say these things or are they forcing you to say them? ðŸ˜
While President Obama continues to seek a civil tone in debate over contentious matters, he appears to be swimming against the current of a traditional American political style, which has been described as the "paranoid" style of American politics.
This is the mindset behind every conspiracy theory made part of the political rhetoric of those across all ...[text shortened]... t one finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
end snip
All joking aside, I think a certain degree of paranoia is healthy. After all, isn't that why the Founding Fathers created the three branches of government with checks and balances? It nothing short of a wise thing to do considering the natural tendency of human nature, don't you agree? It would then behoove one to become nervous if we were to see these checks and balances slowly erode away as the Federal government begins to become more and more centralized and powerful.
Originally posted by sh76Perhaps you might note that the thread concerns Paranoia in American Politics, using the Illuminati as an historical reference.
Did you read the book? Obviously not. Because, if you did, you'd realize that it was more about the Church than about the "Illuminati." The Illuminati is simply used as a vehicle to attack the Church, and the book is fundamentally about the Church's reaction. The Illuminati are just a foil.
In any case, the making of the movie was done simply because:
a) ...[text shortened]... you'll come on and tell everyone that Americans believe that an alien invasion is imminent.
That poorly written commercial fiction product and even more hankneyed, formularized Hollywood adaptation of same merely reminded me of the historical facts. Even John Stewart was astute enough to note how poorly related to historical events is this new film.
Believe it or not, there is a life of the mind that has no need for immersion in the details of bad fiction and other pop culture diversions.
What you are on about has nothing to do with this thread and fails altogether to add anything of interest.
But thanks for sharing.
Originally posted by whodeyWhere do you come up with these quite impenetrable concatenations of random words?
Who is paying you to say these things or are they forcing you to say them? ðŸ˜
All joking aside, I think a certain degree of paranoia is healthy. After all, isn't that why the Founding Fathers created the three branches of government with checks and balances? It nothing short of a wise thing to do considering the natural tendency of human nature, don't y ...[text shortened]... erode away as the Federal government begins to become more and more centralized and powerful.
I can derive no relevant point whatever from what you say here.
Should have known better than to bring up an actual historical series of events, as it simply engenders much incomprehensible blithering.
Originally posted by kmax87Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you.
Insurgency 101 posits that the best way to hide a conspiracy and make it both simultaneously effective and yet branded as being a ridiculous flight of fancy, is to have people stridently denounce the intentions of a particular group while in its infancy.
Two things usually follow from this. The infant group gets a massive boost in terms of aura and respect ...[text shortened]... p of sentimental humanitarians exploited a power vacuum and became the very thing most feared?
Originally posted by ScriabinIt's not "poorly related" to anything historical. It's simply not "related" to anything historical. It's fiction! It's not supposed to be related to historical events. I don't know if Brown meant it to be historical. But I certainly never took it that way.
Perhaps you might note that the thread concerns Paranoia in American Politics, using the Illuminati as an historical reference.
That poorly written commercial fiction product and even more hankneyed, formularized Hollywood adaptation of same merely reminded me of the historical facts. Even John Stewart was astute enough to note how poorly related to historical events is this new film.
I took your bringing up the movie in the context of your OP to mean something akin to, "The fact that this movie/book is popular in the US is just one more symptom of the American paranoia regarding secret organizations like the Illuminati."
If all you meant was "Well, this recent movie reminded me of the llluminati. And, while we're on the subject of fictitious secret organizations, in a completely unrelated vein, those American sure are paranoid and fascinated with this idea of secret organizations..." well, then yes, there was nothing incorrect about that component of your point.
As for what adds something of interest, let the readers decide what they're interested in rather than deciding for them.
Originally posted by sh76You seem to have a rather narrow gauge set of rails there.
It's not "poorly related" to anything historical. It's simply not "related" to anything historical. It's fiction! It's not supposed to be related to historical events. I don't know if Brown meant it to be historical. But I certainly never took it that way.
I took your bringing up the movie in the context of your OP to mean something akin to, "The fact that t ...[text shortened]... let the readers decide what they're interested in rather than deciding for them.
And you clearly find reading for meaning a challenge.
Note that the secret society referenced was not fictional at all.
Nor is the Catholic Church fictional, although everything it is about clearly is apart from its tangible assets.
But, you have delighted me enough. If you have quite finished your digression ...
Originally posted by ScriabinI never cease to be amazed by the arrogance that oozes from the tone of some of the people on these boards.
You seem to have a rather narrow gauge set of rails there.
And you clearly find reading for meaning a challenge.
Note that the secret society referenced was not fictional at all.
Nor is the Catholic Church fictional, although everything it is about clearly is apart from its tangible assets.
But, you have delighted me enough. If you have quite finished your digression ...
The fact that institutions described in the book exist or existed does not mean that the events described in the book have any relevance to history. Next, please tell us that Harry Potter is historical because England is a real place.