Re: <nettime> THE Q IN QONSPIRACY: QAnon as a Paradigm for Future Social

Hi David,

Myth is game is play. It's the use of the imaginative faculties upon completable tasks. The first instinct! It's where we get our dopamine and, when groups are involved, our oxytocin.

Conservatives always fed their base a pack of lies and expected infinite docile consumption. That fizzled in 2015. Every audience reaches a "boredom point." After that, people start grumbling, fidgeting, or as we say now, "looking at their phones." Talk radio used to scratch the itch but it no longer does. Their fans were restless and needed to stretch their legs. They wanted nothing more than an outdoor spring ritual in the green grass where treats are hidden everywhere. (This terminology is used in video game design to indicate the warm embrace of in-jokes hidden in the game-world, bonding user to designer). Some of us remember the kindly teacher's voice reassuring us "You've Got Mail" -- same thing.

It is absolutely correct that you cannot oppose today's conspiracy theology by saying "that's factually incorrect." Its adherents merely say "aha, you are one of the enemy agents whose devious plan is to tell me my facts are not true. But I've seen these facts with my own eyes!" (By which they mean they saw it on the internet.) Fact is no more the point in conspiracy theology than it is in Herodotus, Dali, a beautiful sunset, or a delicious apple. There is a kind of algebra in imaginative play, such as "let A=1, B=2, and C=4.5," as well as the innocent make-believe of children: "you be the dragon and I'll be the kitty-cat."

There's risk in underestimating the lengths to which such conspiracy buffs will go for fun, like mobbing the Capitol, but there's also risk in overestimating. Barthes' good buddy old pal Calvino knew what Roland knew and took steps in art to respond. We are far from starting at zero. If we abandon the city because of one kitchen fire we may lose the city.

Indirection is sometimes key -- as Calvino made clear on the first page of Six Memos -- or in a long-trusted image, the moon. In chess you don't place all your pieces to defend against a checkmate toward which your opponent has made only the first of ten moves. You interdict with lesser, more achievable measures along the way until the checkmate attempt simply loses momentum; or in a different context, "their currents turn awry."

A major part of such lunar exploration is to look in the mirror.

All best,

Max

PS -- a current hypothesis of mine is the phrase "Meditation Not Violence," as a safety token around the George Floyd trials which have now begun here. It's merely an idea, with no guarantee and no certainty. It's based on the below poem I wrote on March 7th, retitled.

+++++

March 2021

Today while driving to a park I saw

The Second Precinct double-ringed in fence

Up on big concrete blocks, the inner wreathed

In shining helixes of razor wire.

A bramble more filled up the space between.

Something about the heavy mixed with sharp

And bright with dull, the tangle and the wall

Seemed natural, however it was not.

The algorithm choosing war or peace

(Because we humans lack the confidence)

Is blind to what our hearts may wish to do.

It only knows the actions and the fruit.

The partisans of January Six

No longer guard foundations of a state;

In fear of fading myths they turn to ruin.

What terrifies them simply is the vote,

The right of each to have a voice their hell.

Destruction’s what they want! There's nothing left

But wrack to stem the even steps of peace.

When we stay calm, their rabid hatred shows;

Not violence but meditation wins.

+++++

From: nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org <nettime-l-bounces@mail.kein.org> on behalf of d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk <d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2021 7:13 AM
To: Tatiana Bazzichelli <tbazz@disruptiv.biz>
Cc: nettime <nettime-l@kein.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime> THE Q IN QONSPIRACY: QAnon as a Paradigm for Future Social-media-driven Conspiracism

Very much looking forward to this discussion...

The approach of Q's followers (along with myriad other conspiracy
theorists) reflects
the Ninth lesson from historian Timothy Snyder’s text ‘On Tyranny:
Twenty Lessons for the 20th Century’
which begins with the sentence: ‘Investigate. Figure things out for
yourself.’ Worryingly that is precisely
what Q's followers feel they are doing.

The epistemology of these movements could be characterised as a
hermeneutics of un-quenchable suspicion in
which “every official narrative and mainstream institution is suspect
[…] and in which real knowledge is
produced by like-minded strangers working together on the internet “to
do their own research”.”

These are potent grass roots research orientated sub-cultures who
experience the sheer excitement of feeling that they are unmasking a
world of lies and revealing through their own research efforts a network
of hidden causes. This fact that makes it particularly hard terrain
those on the left to contest.

Although not exactly an activist I find it useful to recall Roland
Barthes's evolution thinker from the early days as an unmasker of
'mythologies' to a later understanding that you can’t get rid of a
mythology by telling or demonstrating that it’s a 'myth'. It can only
ever be replaced it with a better myth. Faith in evidence and exposure
is not enough.
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