Revised
5/16/2011
Canadian
Agenda’s Steve Paikin
interviews Jonathan Kay, author of Among the Truthers
On Friday May 13, Steve Paikin
interviewed Jonathan
Kay, author of Among the Truthers, on the
Canadian Agenda broadcast. The program will be rebroadcast on Monday May 16. A
short version of the interview (14 minutes) is available on the Agenda website:
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=109161&ts=2011-05-13%2020:00:00.0
A critique of the 14 minute interview:
As with most true believers, Mr. Kay is
heavy on psychology
but light on fact in this interview, which discusses his book Among the Truthers.
The book, while ostensibly dealing with
a variety of outlandish beliefs which question the credibility of the federal
government,
places “truthers”, referring to those who doubt the official story
on 9/11, squarely in the crosshairs. The label of “conspiracy theory” is
applied to immediately discredit all of them without further consideration,
which merely means these
are perspectives we are not supposed to think about, regardless
of the facts.
A video clip is presented showing
someone who has been ostracized by everyone around him because of his conspiratorial
beliefs. This is a personal warning to the viewer of the dangers of “conspiracy
theories.”
One piece of apparently factual information which Mr. Kay
provides is a graph showing percentage of public trust in government plotted by
year from 1960 to 2010.
From: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=109161&ts=2011-05-13%2020:00:00.0
The plot shows that with ups and downs,
public trust plummeted again around 2001.
This phenomena
is again treated in a psychological way: conspiracy theories erode public
trust, which in turn generates more conspiracy theories. Mr. Kay fails to make
a rather obvious connection, which is the activity of the federal government
during this time period: fictions about “weapons of mass destruction” used as a
pretext to invade Iraq; the patriot act, which has eroded civil liberties, including
secretive spying on innocent citizens ; the use of torture and indefinite
detention; the lack of any meaningful response in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, the increasing resource gap between the rich and every one else, government and elections increasingly controlled by big money and big
corporations, and little change in direction even with a new administration .
Are these actions deserving of trust? Or are these all conspiracy theories?
Considering the emphasis Mr. Kay places
on psychology, he makes a rather obvious omission, which is a consideration of tribal mind in his
discussion: the average tribe member usually experiences a great deal of internal
distress in questioning the authority of the tribal leader, or in this case the
federal government. It is considered taboo, or unpatriotic, regardless of moral
standing of the authority, which for this reason is usually given the benefit
of the doubt .
However, fact is fact, and when the disparity between the authority’s
claims and perceived facts (called cognitive dissonance) reaches high enough
levels, “conspiracy theories” which are true may arise.