Popular Culture, Conspiracy Theory, and the Star Trek Text

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The forward progress of society is not automatic and should not be taken for granted. The assassination President John F. Kennedy in 1963 ended his effort to deploy American prestige, power to forward progressive change worldwide. Today, there are political forces seeking to stop progressive social, political, economic change. Whatever their reasons, such forces are conspiring to impose authoritarianism to suppress the publics desire for just, democratic governance, government. The brutality, violence, viciousness, racism (dystopia) of authoritarianism is becoming more and more the hallmark of world politics. Perhaps the most glaring aspect of this dystopia is the fact that the American state has been almost continuously at war for the past roughly 30 years including a sinister, dastardly drone assassination program. One means to obscure the ongoing conspiracy to ultimately impose outright dictatorship on the American people and the rest of the world is to smear, malign critics of this conspiracy as guilt of conspiracy theory advocating, embracing baseless fantasies. Worse yet, proponents of conspiracy theory (by implication) are deemed as psychologically suspect for arguing that political elites are engaged in a process to eliminate all meaningful vestiges of democracy.

Reviews

Popular Culture, Conspiracy Theory, and the Star Trek Text is a timely and provocative book written against a background of contemporary American politics, where so much public discussion revolves around conspiracy theories and allegations of conspiracy. Gonzalez makes an important distinction between conspiracy theories, which are elaborate and unsubstantiated narratives, as compared to actual conspiracies, where corporate and political elites covertly engage in illegal or unethical actions to advance their interests at the expense of the American people. The author deploys the Star Trek text to illustrate how charges of conspiracy theory are frequently deployed by elites to discourage the investigation of elite misconduct and to question the mental state of those who engage in legitimate critical thinking about the corruption of capitalist and state elites. -- Clyde W. Barrow, University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley

Author Bio

George A. Gonzalez is professor of political science at the University of Miami.