On an international level, Pipes acknowledges that conspiracism
retains its force in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There has
been significant suffering in both regions due to conflicts in
which conspiracy thinking plays a large role, and there is nothing
encouraging in that. Pipes's suggestion that rising affluence will
eventually stifle the conspiracy reflex in such places is not
unreasonable in itself--a richer populace will have fewer miseries
to blame on others. But affluence is hardly a safeguard against
irrationality. It is in fact members of the guilt-ridden middle
class who have often conceived the century's most destructive
forces. Indeed, the same historical event that has excited hopes of
rising living standards throughout the world--the end of the Cold
War
--has also intensified ethnic identifications, and that is just the
kind of emotional hothouse in which conspiracism flourishes.
Of course, it will be a better world if Pipes is right. But if conspiracism is indeed an Enlightenment offshoot of the occult understanding of unfairness and injustice--that if evil occurs, an evil power has willed it--then it isn't going anywhere, because it has always been there. Indeed, secularized occultism pervades the modern world in ways we rarely think about, from psychoanalysis (which, as occult historian Peter Washington notes, presents the analyst as a kind of "sensitive" with a sixth sense) to the still-thriving Marxist communications theory (which posits the mass media as powerful mesmerists with their audience in thrall).
As for conspiracy proper, it is and probably will remain the hidden link between mystery and solution, between cause and effect. It offers a world with neither accidents nor unintended consequences, but rather of plans executed by the powerful few at the expense of the victimized multitude. Identify with that multitude, and the central mystery of fate is unraveled. Otherwise, you have to take your chances. No wonder conspiracy's spell is so beguiling.
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