Parenti’s critique of Chomsky. Conspiracy theory dismissal.

I, like Parenti, agreed with some points of Chomsky but I disagree with Chomsky regarding the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11 and other issues.

Understanding Deep Politics featuring Michael Parenti – Youtube

27:35

So the term conspiracy theory is used to dismiss, one; the idea of a conscious design by policy makers, two; a hidden but knowing intent, three; a secret plan for a secret interest.

The term conspiracy theory is applied in two dimensions, the first dimension focuses on specific actions and events like an assassination, an act of terrorism, a mysterious disappearance of giant skyscrapers, a dirty deal in business which is an illegal one or the second ascription is to dismiss an entire class interest an entire social and ideological agenda, that rulers do not rule from secret intent. Do you get the difference? I mean one is about specific actions and the other is about the whole system in structure. This explains why somebody like Noam Chomsky who does very good and very valuable work, this is not to take away anything from him in other areas but I’ve had differences with him over the JFK assassination. Noam Chomsky, Alexander Coburn, Chip Berlet they denounce this conspiracy theory and they said you’re a radical you don’t go looking at these little hokey-pokey secret plots most of them imagine even if you might be real so what, because there’s the larger bigger picture you got to look at. He’s surprised and they are surprised to find out that they themselves are thought of as conspiracy theorists. There are people who think Noam Chomsky is a conspiracy theorist because of that second use of the term that is using it to mean a whole class power systemic intent that’s directed toward certain kinds of forces. Behind the left’s rejection of the concept of conspiracy theory in academic circles is this structuralist functionalist debate that’s gone on, many of you have not heard about this structural functionalist debate over the years. You have every reason to be grateful that you haven’t, it shows that you have been wasting your goddamn time on this issue. Well, the debate goes something like this: if you try to explain things through incidental or idiosyncratic analysis this is very poor analysis you know. If you try to say well the Spanish-American war happened because McKinley was all sort of scared and weak and Teddy Roosevelt was a real bombastic and these personalities of the actors and that brought the war on or King Louie gave aid to the American revolutionaries because I forget somebody killed his pet cat and he got angry at the guy and so further than somebody, you know little incidental stories like this or personalities and such. That is a very limited and dubious analysis of trying to explain historical phenomena. That the more impersonal and the more systemic then the more radical and the more systemic the less volitional, the broader is the scope when you have a systemic analysis and the deeper is the depth of your analysis, it is assumed. But what they’re assuming here you see is a conflict between structural factors and functional factors, volitional factors where people are consciously acting as actors with conscious intent. Because in fact the structure plays itself out through volitional forces, you have to have volitional forces. The CIA structuralist or is it functionalist, functionalist in other word is discarded, conspiracy theory is discarded as a form of functionalism and Michael Abbot and Noam Chomsky had an article on that in Z Magazine. They call himself structuralists, that they have structure and I had a I had a contract on a book I was writing at the time against Empire with Common Courage and he didn’t want to go on with the with the project and I canceled it with him and I switched it over to City Lights as my publisher. He said on the phone this was after I had written that thing onJFK assassination, he said well you’re a functionalist and I’m a structuralist you know. And I had other words for what he was and what I was sounding, something like structuralism functionalist. I said you’re a functionalist structuralist mother! And I’m saying what is wrong with these guys, you see in academia academics are never happier than when they can choose sides and dichotomize an issue. Well you’re a structuralist I’m a functionalist or you you’re a something other ist and i’ma this ist and then they choose up and they start fighting and they have little, you’re a behavioralist and I’m an intentionalist, your this and this, that’s when they’re really happy. And of course most of the time these things aren’t mutually exclusive. The CIA as I started to say the CIA is a structured conspiracy operation you know. You can say, is the CIA a systemic agency that’s part of a whole overriding class interest that must mobilize power in a certain way and does these things and operates that way or is it a bunch of conspirators who are doing that and and there are those of us who say: why can be both? Doesn’t A and B serve each other perfectly well? But as I say if you’re so busy choosing up sides to keep yourself busy, they have too much time on their hands. History plays out functionally within the confines of structural developments. Did you get that down? That’s a direct quote from Michael Parenti okay… Here’s another thing for some people: conspiracy theory by definition cannot be proven true, because when it’s proven true it’s declared to no longer be a conspiracy theory but a fact. I mean I’ve had arguments with people on the phone and I realize I said: So then the conspiracy theory does apply. What conspiracy theory that’s a fact, you know you prove to me that that’s a fact. I said: But that’s a conspiracy fact. It’s people colluding in secret to pursue illegal and unlawful and immoral goals with the intent of advancing the interests of people who are not acknowledging their association to this action…” -Michael Parenti