Archaeology and Uses of the “Paranoid Style”.
A Critical epistemology
Key words : Paranoid style – Hofstadter – Conspiracy theory – Critical approach – Social uses – label
Abstract :
The publication in 1965 of Paranoid Style and Other Essays by Richard Hofstadter is commonly American historian formulated a systematic perspective of the paranoid style: radical critics toward the neoliberal system and its dominants = irrationality = populism = conspiracism = antisemitism. Through a critical epistemology sprinkled with several examples, this communication aims then to deconstruct in three points this approach and highlight its uses and the programmatic/political effects it implies.
First, I will argue that the “paranoid style” plurifactorial genesis is directly entwined with Hofstadter's personality for political (“Witches hunting” context), academic (Hoftstadter was a “consensus historian” with a psycho-pathological approach of social facts) and personal (former communist turned into a liberal and then a first generation neo-conservative) considerations and issues.
Secondly, an interesting comparison could be raised with pioneers researches led on rumors after the WWII (Knapp 1944 ; Allport Postman 1947) and the uses of the “paranoid style” in their inclination to consider those social phenomenon as pathologies of the social body.
Finally, I will examine the “paranoid style” posterity and its political uses nowadays which convey a conservative approach of conspiracism. Academic works tend to reduce this phenomenon to irrationality (Davis 1971 , Wood 1983, Pipes 1997, Coal 2005, Walker 2014) or antisemitism (Taguieff 2004, 2005, 2006, 2013 ; Ho Jin 2014 ; Reichstadt 2015). In any case, in this systemic vision, every radical critics formulated toward the neo-liberal system tend to be consider as conspiracy theory.
Complete program: https://famaossaconsulting.com/2018/03/09/perspectives-on-contemporary-legend-a-bruxelles-le-programme/