[garbene]

Care to elaborate? It’s abundantly clear to me that disinformation and conspiracy theories is a major, and probably the biggest, threat to democracy. I mean, shit, there was a major effort to undermine the U.S. elections resulting in a violent insurrection and there isn’t any sign of this slowing down.

[jl2718]

How exactly is it clear to you? Is there overwhelming historical precedent? Is there a relevant physical or mathematical law? Have you done a simulation of all the different threats to determine which is the worst? What other threats have you deemed lesser: war, famine, disease, genocide, invasion, monetary collapse, cultural decline, criminality, dysgenics, poverty, environmental destruction, global warming?

Or is this just the latest fashionable idea backed up by “I’m smart” and maybe something you were told by your preferred source of information?

Meta: The personal reply here is only due to the personal claim made in the antecedent, and I deemed it relevant as a test case of the essential point being argued, although I’ll accept other viewpoints on appropriateness.

[Amezarak]

This is effectively an essentialist view of disinformation, which has arisen particularly since 2016 alongside all the other essentialisms (e.g., those mentioned by Zizek in his first book.) If only we eradicate disinformation, then - a millenarian utopia awaits us? No: disinformation, conspiracy theories, they are all one of the necessary antagonisms that are integral to democracy, you cannot get rid of them and still have democracy.

Disinformation and conspiracy theories are not new. The mass communication of disinformation of conspiracy theories are not new. Concerns about 'designing men' riling up the masses with 'disinformation' go back to the Constitutional Convention in America, complete with concrete examples. And, of course, it goes back to prehistory more generally. It isn't a new problem. The communication mediums available to the ruling elite have more or less always been exploited by others.

So why are we so worried now? Why are people describing a low-level riot in such drastic terms? Nearly all the 'violence' was perpetuated against other rioters, nor was the violence unprecedented even in the past year - we have footage of fires burning as other rioters sought to storm the White House just months prior! At no time was the United States government ever in actual peril, nor did the vast majority of people present have any designs against it, as confirmed by the FBI and DoJ, not exactly prone to understating threats when they have an opportunity to unleash the power of the state against someone. A 'democracy' of the United States is not a desk in the Speaker's office or a podium. Even had the United States Congress been subjected for some brief hours to angry constituents, the consequences for 'democracy' would have been...zilch. Business would have carried on as usual.

But more importantly, why is the violence linked to disinformation? This is the nearly universal narrative. And indeed, it isn't a new one - events for the past four or five years have been almost exclusively linked to the ignorant being bamboozled by conspiracy theories and disinformation. (There was a much lower-level rumbling of this prior, but the volume has been turned up to eleven.) There are two major factors: we're coming out of an atypical period in which the elite (now a managerial elite, but not important here) had what seemed to be an unusual degree of control over communication media, and in which 'democracy' is increasingly seen to be an Orwellian nonsense term; the US government is less democratic in practice than ever. More people can vote, but none of them get what they want.

The elite, very unusually in history, had an astonishing degree of control over broadcast media: television and radio. This did grant them an usual level of power in shaping the narrative and the belief of American citizens, but not as much power as they thought. In fact, conspiracy theories and disinformation were as rampant in the past century as they have ever been. But because regular people had little control over the levers of broadcast media which was not only produced by but consumed by the elite, they didn't see this. As income inequality and other factors increased, the elite became increasingly divorced from 'Middle America' or whatever you want to call them - more and more was seen, not just by the middle and working classes through the lens of television, but by the elite. The control over broadcast media gave them the idea that 'this is all there is', but there was a whole world of social life and social beliefs they they did not only not agree with but did not even see as a motive force. Even mass riots and protests could be dismissed as the actions of one political fringe or another. Not only could they be dismissed, they could be erased. Nobody remembers the 1999 WTO protests anymore.

This was well and good until the advent of the Internet. Calls to hinder free expression on the Internet have been there since the beginning. People were, for example, not particularly pleased by President Mbeki's AIDS denialism blogging. But until 2016, the Internet did not threaten the US elite, so these calls were not taken seriously. Indeed, the US elite actively cheered on the ability of people on the Internet to transform power structures internationally. Revolution in the MENA region? Great! Think your elections are fake in Eastern Europe or South America? Here's your platform! But then, inevitably, the two factors converged: regular people saw their concerns continue to diverge from their 'democratic' overseers even as the Internet gave them a publishing platform that, crucially, was read by the elite. Twitter and newspaper comment sections did more damage to the self-conception of the ruling elites than anything else, as they realized for the first time in decades that there was a major disjunction between their beliefs and those of the people they ruled.

In a truly democratic society, this would engender some self-reflection. How can we chart a course between the populist vision of the working and middle classes and the 'sensible', 'technocratic' policies of the managerial elites? People voted for Trump and supported him not because they were 'Republicans' - little of the population is 'Republican' in a meaningful sense. Most of them would just as soon have chucked the Republican party out of the window. They didn't do it because of 'disinformation'. (Indeed based on the astonishing number of false stories based on anonymous sources and politicization of nonpartisan events, it seems likely that as many people voted against Trump based on disinformation, but for some reason this is not given much focus.) They did it because they harbor a deep-seated, implicit grievance against the non-representative governmental policies of the US managerial elite, which is composed of both parties. Issues like free trade, immigration, population churn, opioids, the environment (separable from climate change), forever wars, and wealth inequality transcend these party concerns, and none of them will be substantively addressed by any government policy, at least in a direction that most people want. That's why there were riots.

But the reaction to mass discontent has not been to try some sort of rapprochement, it's been frenetic, hysterical censorship and tight control of the narrative of broadcast media. It's been the militarization - troops continue to occupy the area - of Washington DC. It's been increased domestic surveillance. It's been mass distraction via issues that do not actually matter to anyone, but which can be used to stir up strong feelings. But even as this reaction commences, even as people continue to not get what they voted for, we're told this is 'democracy'. Well, 'democracy' doesn't mean anything. The immense federal bureaucratic apparatus will continue to do what it does no matter who is elected into office - the same apparatus of which high level functionaries - generals - bragged they they successfully lied to the President in order to keep troops in the Middle East. It also will not matter which party holds power in Congress - people will not get what they voted for. And people know this. Things are only mildly more hopeful at a local level, where the main driver behind entrenched elite control of institutions is more often tied to population churn. In some important respects, the US regime already resembles the regimes that this NYT article is celebrating the overthrow of. In terms of material comfort, Americans have it very well, yes, and we are able to employ more subtle means that outright disappearing someone - but in many ways the American corporate-government complex no longer represents, or cares to represent, American citizens.

In short: what exactly does democracy mean to you?

A long post on a dead thread, probably never to be read - oh well.

[garbene]

Thank you for this thoughtful and detailed response. I did, in fact, read it and it gave me some food for thought.

[jl2718]

Your post assumes the existence of a ‘ruling elite’ which is the tautological feed stock of nearly all ‘conspiracy theories’. But our system is very complicated. There are supposed to be checks and balances at every level that comprise a type of Sybil resistance to rife dishonesty and exploitation from one person no matter how wealthy or to what position they were elected. Thus it would take a conspiracy, or at least some level of coercion or bribery, to subvert our system. Is it really just a bunch of hard-working impeccably-honest people engaged in fierce competition against each other at the top, as we were told to assume in Econ101? Or is it more like cooperative game theory where normal people are not players, but the game itself. Or is it something different altogether, not motivated by profits, but by ideology, something secret and anathema to those not in on it? It seems that the latter is simultaneously most celebrated and feared, that ‘the elite’ would use their power to manipulate us into something of their liking, “to serve man”, presented as broad selfless gestures of benevolence and philanthropy. It seems today that all voices of power are engaged in a constant rally of fear-mongering, hatred, and censorship against the few voices screaming, “it’s a cookbook”. Sometimes I wonder whether this is a clear implication of something wicked, or just a profitable form of madhouse entertainment, full of social illusions.

[Amezarak]

I don't believe in the existence of some mass, organized conspiracy going on behind closed doors, although I'm sure smaller 'conspiracies' happen from time to time - for example when tech CEOs conspire to form illegal non-poaching agreements and foolishly commit it to writing.

It's simply the upper-crust of the managerial class, all mostly similarly acculturated, pursuing their own class interests and looking out for their own, and listening to the same public signals everyone else can see. No coercion or explicit bribery is necessary, although there is plenty of money flowing around. Though typically ideological/cultural commitment is more than sufficient, remuneration typically consists simply of the knowledge that considerations are on the table - play the game and you will be assured a successful career for yourself and for your family and friends, whether that consists of board memberships, government jobs, NGO/charity placements, consultancies, media placement, or simply ascending the career ladder at your company. None of this is usually explicit. Playing along, even if you don't personally believe in it (which most do - it's self interest) sends a valuable social signal. Nor am I assigning a moral value to this behavior. It would not even be a social issue if it wasn't for the increasing gap between the managerial class, especially the managerial elite, and the rest of the country.

There are supposed to be checks and balances ideally, but no such ideal system exists or ever has existed. In the sense of the System as a whole, no checks and balances were ever designed; if we limit ourselves to the American federal government, the system has long since grown into something else beyond its original design - not because of some grim ideological conspiracy as conservatives would have it, but because the growing complexity of society necessitated it. (An important factor in the increasingly undemocratic nature of the government is the sheer scale and complexity of society.) The impact is the same, though, and the checks-and-balances people are taught in civics misrepresent the nature of the government and practically exclude altogether the interrelated nature of the government and large corporations.

[swirepe]

I read it, and I bookmarked it. You gave me a lot to think about. Thanks for that.

I think one thing you may have overlooked is the blinding power fear has, and how disinformation can also be used to spread fear. People aren't just unhappy because they aren't getting what they want, they are terrified. Terrified people do, say, and believe things they otherwise wouldn't.

I guess fear isn't new. Maybe it's the push notifications.