The Counterenlightenment

His pockets were stuffed with fifty different kinds of conflicting literature – pamphlets for all seasons, rhetoric for all reasons. When this man handed you a tract you took it no matter what the subject: the dangers of atomic power plants, the role played by the International Jewish Cartel in the overthrow of friendly governments, the CIA-Contra-cocaine connection, the farm workers’ unions, the Jehovah’s Witnesses (If You Can Answer These Ten Questions ‘Yes’, You Have Been SAVED!) the Blacks for Militant Equality, the Kode of the Klan. He had them all, and more, too.

– Stephen King, The Stand

The man (although not really a man) in the extract above is Randall Flagg, an agent of chaos and destruction who brings down a plague on twentieth-century America. If Flagg (or is it Walter O’Dim?) stalked our land today, the tracts in his jacket would be different. He would offer you a DVD explaining how 9/11 was arranged by the US government, a pamphlet revealing how reflexology can cure cancer, another that let you know that condoms cause AIDS (or one that said that AIDS doesn’t exist) a leaflet pointing out the holes in the theory of evolution, a text by ‘Dr’ Gillian McKeith demonstrating that human beings are capable of photosynthesis, a newspaper report linking the MMR vaccine to autism, a copy of the Da Vinci Code, an internet printout proving conclusively that the Holocaust is a myth perpetuated by international Zionism. Flagg is a purveyor of counterknowledge, and today his irrationalisms are taken much more seriously.

Damian Thompson demolishes all these theories and more in his fantastic book Counterknowledge, which I wholeheartedly recommend. If his work sounds like a Louis Theroux style goggle at the fringes of thought, Thompson will make you think again. Fringe ideas are taken increasingly seriously. The government spends millions of pounds on building homeopathic hospitals, despite the fact that homeopathy has no medical value; charalatans like Gillian McKeith are given their own TV series and treated as experts in their fields; London houses publish books explaining that China discovered America in 1421 and that Jesus’s descendants are alive and well in France; a former government minister, Michael Meacher (also a onetime candidate for Labour leadership) subscribes to 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Conservatives would say that the popularity of counterknowledge is caused by the decline of traditional religion. Humans have an innate need to believe, and in the absence of churches they will turn to cultic superstitions. The fevers started in the 1960s when social revolution destroyed the authority of the family and the church. If you don’t believe in God, you’ll believe anything.

Personally, I agree with Francis Wheen: if you believe in God, you’ll believe anything. State-sanctioned faiths (and what is a religion but a very successful cult?) don’t keep the lid on popular delusions; they set a precedent, ripping open the lining at the edge of rational thought. Let’s face it, if you can believe that a virginal woman gave birth to the son of God, who is later killed only to be brought back to life – then acupuncture and healing crystals will be quite easy to get your head around. Why favour one form of counterknowledge over another?

In any case, the phenomenon is indulged across the political spectrum. (If you don’t believe me you should read a copy of the Daily Mail, a newspaper whose mission is – in Ben Goldacre’s words – to divide the world’s inanimate objects into those that either cause, or cure, cancer.) There’s a widespread disillusionment with rationalism and Enlightenment values, which are now associated with the Iraq project and seen as concepts of a purely Western elite determined to impose ‘our’ idea of democracy and human rights across the world. (The quotemarks around the word ‘our’ are an essential part of the argument.) The Enlightenment is for hopeless idealists, corrupt politicians, fuddy-duddy Oxford professors and militant atheists.

Above all the Enlightement is mainstream, and people despise the mainstream. The mainstream is McDonalds and Ian McEwan and George W Bush. The mainstream is hated above all else, which explains the strange convergences of thought between ostensibly opposed fringe groups like the SWP and Hamas,  between American creationists and fundamentalist Muslims, and between leftwing 9/11 deniers and Neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers. They will unite to defeat the common enemy; rational, secular thought. Anything that’s against the mainstream can’t be all bad.

People trying to explain the appeal of irrationalism will inevitably turn to psychological analysis. Imagine being a 9/11 Truther or a believer in homeopathy. You have unearthed a vast, hidden conspiracy that most of the world has completely missed. Either it is the conspiracy of PNAC engineering the Twin Towers demolitions as a pretext to declare war against the Middle East, or a secret plan by the medical/scientific/pharmaceutical establishment to cover up the healing powers of alternative medicine so they can carry on selling useless drug treatments.

You can dismiss the testimony of most doctors, scientists, physicists or engineers because their very experience and qualifications show that they are part of the elite and therefore have an interest in covering up the scam. Indeed, any contradictory evidence can be ignored – it will have been planted. Your own lack of evidence doesn’t bother you; obviously, the conspirators are going to cover their tracks. The proof is the absence of proof.

Most people reject your explanations because they are brainwashed by the corporate media, or too scared or stupid to see the truth. Only you, and a handful of fellow Truthers, are smart enough to see through the lies. What a boost! And presumably, when the conspiracy is found out, your greater intelligence and heroism will be recognised and you will be given the power and rewards such qualities accord you.

Finally, I think that the conspiracy minded are people in need of reassurance. They can’t handle the random, the chaos of life, the disasters that can come out of a clear blue sky. It is more comforting to believe that George Bush destroyed the Twin Towers than Osama bin Laden. It’s more comforting because we can vote Bush out, and put him in jail. 9/11 conspiracy theories send a message of subliminal succour: don’t worry, don’t worry, your government is in control. Sssshhh…

This is borne out by the way that, in rejecting the mainstream, fringe intellectuals will throw their weight behind another mainstream – often one much worse. Gavin Menzies, who wrote a book explaining how the Chinese discovered America, is now supported by senior officials of the totalitarian regime and does speaking tours of China’s universities. Indeed, the Enlightenment itself was bitterly opposed by the establishment of the time, which hated the idea of ordinary people gaining rights and freedoms.

Purveyors of counterknowledge are not revolutionaries. They are reactionaries, seeking comfort and status from their dark dreams.