Historical Comment

I've been thinking a bit lately about conspiracy theories and their place in shaping the American political character. This is prompted in part by the endless calls by the McCain campaign to Barack Obama to answer the questions being raised about his association with William Ayers, even long after Obama has answered those questions. The suggestion that Obama harbors socialist tendencies also hints at some sinister associations of which no real evidence has been proffered. Why are some of us susceptible to falling for such allegations of dark secret factors that are assumed to be more powerful than the actual public record and utterances of our leaders (or prospective leaders)?

One can go back to the first half of the 19th century to see a couple of the earliest versions of this phenomenon, with the Slave Power Conspiracy and the Mason Conspiracy. The first asserted that powerful southerners, who basically owed their wealth and hence political clout to the production of their slaves, were calling the shots on national policy. As is usually the case in conspiracy theories, there's some circumstantial evidence to make a case for such an assertion, such as the fact that of the first twelve presidents (through 1850), nine were southerners (perhaps a function of the 3/5's compromise in the Constitution, which increased Southern representation to the Electoral College based on the slave population). The reality, as is usually the case, is more complicated. Southern interests were often supported by northern allies in Congress due to the economic links between the regions, not as a result of a cabal of slave-owning puppet-masters manipulating decisions behind the scenes.

The Mason Conspiracy was prompted in part by the boom in fraternal organizations in the same period, and the fact that many of them conducted their official "business" in secret. The boom happened to correspond with an era of increasing immigration, universal manhood suffrage, industrialization, and urbanization, all of which contributed to a general sense that things were changing in dramatic ways in certain parts of the country. This also fed the Papist Conspiracy theory, a counterpart to the Mason Conspiracy theory, which suggested the growing numbers of Irish immigrants were coming to take over the country on behalf of the Pope. The Masons were subjected to similar charges, though their allegiance apparently was to a some ill defined notion of secular humanism, which had marked them as enemies of the church going back to their Medieval European roots. It was widely suggested that many of our national leaders were Freemasons (which was probably true) and in the service of some sinister plot, the goal of which had to be dangerous to the democratic body politic, otherwise, why are they keeping it a secret?

The point is, this type of nonsense seems to periodically take hold of the public imagination, and lends itself to the kind of coded charges made by politicians in campaigns ("What do we really know about Senator Obama?" is a tacit charge that he's hiding something). I have a theory (not of the conspiracy type) that this phenomenon is actually a response to the nature of the American political system, namely democracy. Given the generally messy way that things function in our system (with all these endless debates, arguments, campaigns, etc., which at best lead to compromises rather than definitive answers to perceived problems), it's easy to lose sight of who, if anyone, is really in control. In the absence of a clear-cut leader (like a dictator or king, or an oligarchy), we're sometimes left to wonder if anyone is truly in charge. When that doubt is prompted by frustration that things are not going your way, it may be inevitable to imagine some group of enemies secretly plotting the destruction of your version of society. I think pols kind of understand this, and a big measure of their integrity is whether they play to those unwarranted fears, or do their best to defuse them. I think that distinction is on eminent display in the current campaign.