Among the Truthers
A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground
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3.5 • 14 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From 9/11 conspiracy theorists and UFO obsessives to the cult of Ayn Rand and Birther crusaders, America is suffering from an explosion in post-rationalist ideological movements. In Among the Truthers, journalist Jonathan Kay offers a thoughtful and sobering look at how social networking and Web-based video sharing have engendered a flourishing of new conspiracism. Kay details the sociological profiles of ten brands of modern conspiracists—the Failed Historian, the Mid-Life Crack-Up, the Damaged Survivor, the Campus Revolutionary, the Stoner, the Clinical Case, the Puzzle Solver, the Christian Doomsayer, the Cosmic Voyager, and the Egomaniac—in a compelling exploration of America’s departure from reason and what it means for the very future of rational discourse as the nation steps further into the 21st century.
How did America’s trust in its own institutions collapse, and who are the new prophets of political paranoia?
The Erosion of Trust: An incisive look at why faith in government and media has collapsed, creating fertile ground for outlandish theories to take root.False Flag Operations: A sobering history of state-sponsored deception, from historical precedents to the modern-day belief that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.Ten Conspiracist Profiles: A fascinating sociological breakdown of the key archetypes driving these movements, from "The Failed Historian" to "The Mid-Life Crack-Up."The Age of Misinformation: A critical analysis of how social networking and web-based video have become powerful engines for spreading paranoia and what it means for the future of rational discourse.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kay, the managing editor and columnist at Canada's National Post newspaper, delivers an insightful (and slightly scary) exploration of America's conspiracy movements. Focusing primarily on the Truthers (who believe the U.S. government engineered the September 11 attacks) and to a lesser extent, the Birthers (those who claim President Obama is a foreign-born Muslim), Holocaust deniers, and JKF assassination theorists he argues that we must take these movements seriously, however outr they may seem, for the disturbing anti-intellectual trend they epitomize: a "nihilistic distrust of government" and a "rejection of logic and rational discourse." Kay, who spent three years immersing himself in conspiracy culture, traces America's flourishing conspiracism back to Greco-Roman times and explores the technological developments that allow conspiracy theories to flourish: Web sites and message boards where Truthers and Birthers can get news "tailored to their pre-existing obsessions." Kay, although generally a fair-minded conservative, reveals that he isn't immune to conspiracy theories himself: he excoriates the rise of multiculturalism and feminism in the academy for prompting a "reconstruction (and in some cases wholesale invention) of history according to the viewpoint of women, blacks, gays... a project that replaced the historian's once unquestioned goal of objective truth with an explicitly political, Marxist-leaning agenda aimed at empowerment and solidarity-building."
