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The Nature of Conspiracy Theories
Michael Butter
Translated by Sharon Howe
polity
Copyright page
Originally published in German as ‘Nichts ist, wie es scheint’: Über Verschwörungstheorien © Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2018. All rights reserved by and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin
This English edition © 2020 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4081-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4082-2 (paperback)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Butter, Michael, author.
Title: The nature of conspiracy theories / Michael Butter ; translated by Sharon Howe.
Other titles: “Nichts ist, wie es scheint”. English
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A comprehensive introduction to conspiracy theories and their growing presence in the age of the internet”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020008369 (print) | LCCN 2020008370 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509540815 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509540822 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509540839 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Conspiracy theories. | History--Errors, inventions, etc.
Classification: LCC HV6275 .B8813 2020 (print) | LCC HV6275 (ebook) | DDC 001.9--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008369
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008370
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Acknowledgements
It is a great pleasure to thank the many people who ‘conspired’ with me on this project in manifold ways over the past years. Daniel Graf planted the idea for this book in my mind many years ago and finally made me pursue it. Elise Heslinga and John Thompson at Polity were a pleasure to work with. So were Heinrich Geiselberger and Nora Mercurio at Suhrkamp, which published the original German version in 2018. Special thanks are due to Sharon Howe for not getting lost in my overly long German sentences while translating the book. That I felt that I had something to say at all is mostly due to the impact of a number of wonderful colleagues who shared their ideas with me over the years. I am thinking in particular of the members of the COST Action ‘Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories’, many of whom have become good friends over the past years. I am especially indebted to Peter Knight, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg and Claus Oberhauser. I would also like to acknowledge the impact that Andreas Anton has had on my thoughts about conspiracy theories. I mention him only in one endnote (and completely forgot to mention him in the German edition), but his take on conspiracy theories as a form of knowledge had a lasting effect on me. Finally, I would like to thank my research assistants Alexandra Dempe and Hannah Herrera for tracking down references, formatting endnotes and bearing with me when I decided to change something once again.
Introduction, or: What’s the plan?
On 8 February 1920, the Illustrated Sunday Herald published a short speech by Winston Churchill with the title ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People’. In this speech, delivered to Churchill’s old regiment at Aldershot a few days earlier, the future British prime minister reflects on the role of the Jews in the Russian communist revolution of 1917, and the ongoing civil war it has sparked. Drawing on a plethora of anti-Semitic stereotypes, Churchill distinguishes between three types of Jews, ‘two of which’, he suggests, ‘are helpful and hopeful in a very high degree to humanity, and the third absolutely destructive’. The two groups of Jews that Churchill views positively – ‘“National” Jews’ and Zionists – have in common that they subscribe to the spirit of nationalism so prevalent in Europe at the time, and not only among conservatives. The ones he eyes suspiciously are the ‘International Jews’ who he aligns with the menace of communism.1
Churchill
