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| political paranoia: The Paranoid Style in American Politics Richard Hofstadter, 2008-06-10 This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States. |
| political paranoia: Power, Politics, and Paranoia Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Paul A. M. van Lange, 2014-05-29 Powerful societal leaders - such as politicians and Chief Executives - are frequently met with substantial distrust by the public. But why are people so suspicious of their leaders? One possibility is that 'power corrupts', and therefore people are right in their reservations. Indeed, there are numerous examples of unethical leadership, even at the highest level, as the Watergate and Enron scandals clearly illustrate. Another possibility is that people are unjustifiably paranoid, as underscored by some of the rather far-fetched conspiracy theories that are endorsed by a surprisingly large portion of citizens. Are societal power holders more likely than the average citizen to display unethical behaviour? How do people generally think and feel about politicians? How do paranoia and conspiracy beliefs about societal power holders originate? In this book, prominent scholars address these intriguing questions and illuminate the many facets of the relations between power, politics and paranoia. |
| political paranoia: Phantom Terror Adam Zamoyski, 2015-02-10 For the ruling and propertied classes of the late eighteenth century, the years following the French Revolution were characterized by intense anxiety. Monarchs and their courtiers lived in constant fear of rebellion, convinced that their power-and their heads-were at risk. Driven by paranoia, they chose to fight back against every threat and insurgency, whether real or merely perceived, repressing their populaces through surveillance networks and violent, secretive police action. Europe, and the world, had entered a new era. In Phantom Terror, award-winning historian Adam Zamoyski argues that the stringent measures designed to prevent unrest had disastrous and far-reaching consequences, inciting the very rebellions they had hoped to quash. The newly established culture of state control halted economic development in Austria and birthed a rebellious youth culture in Russia that would require even harsher methods to suppress. By the end of the era, the first stirrings of terrorist movements had become evident across the continent, making the previously unfounded fears of European monarchs a reality. Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly-omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I. We still live with the legacy of this era of paranoia, which prefigured not only the modern totalitarian state but also the now preeminent contest between society's haves and have nots. These tempestuous years of suspicion and suppression were the crux upon which the rest of European history would turn. In this magisterial history, Zamoyski chronicles the moment when desperate monarchs took the world down the path of revolution, terror, and world war. |
| political paranoia: Racial Paranoi John L. Jr. Jackson, Richard Perry University Associate Professor of Communication and Anthropology John L Jackson, Jr Jr., 2010-10-19 In this courageous book, John L. Jackson, Jr. draws on current events as well as everyday interactions to demonstrate the culture of race-based paranoia and its profound effects on our lives. He explains how it is cultivated and reinforced, and how it complicates the goal of racial equality. In this paperback edition, Jackson explores the 2008 presidential election, weaving in examples ranging from the notorious New Yorker cover to Saturday Night Lives political parodies. |
| political paranoia: Paranoia Joseph Finder, 2013-07-30 PARANOIA JOSEPH FINDER Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice for a friend, he finds himself charged with a crime. Corporate Security gives him a choice: prison - or become a spy in the headquarters of their chief competitor, Trion Systems. They train him. They feed him inside information. Now, at Trion, he's a star, skyrocketing to the top. He finds he has talents he never knew he possessed. He's rich, drives a Porsche, lives in a fabulous apartment, and works directly for the CEO. He's dating the girl of his dreams. His life is perfect. And all he has to do to keep it that way is betray everyone he cares about and everything he believes in. But when he tries to break off from his controllers, he finds he's in way over his head, trapped in a world in which nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted. And then the real nightmare begins... From the writer whose novels have been called thrilling (New York Times) and dazzling (USA Today) comes an electrifying new novel, a roller-coaster ride of suspense that will hold the reader hostage until the final, astonishing twist. Now a major motion-picture starring, Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman. |
| political paranoia: Conspiracy Nation Peter Knight, 2002-02 An intriguing interrogation of America’s long-running obsession with conspiracy theories Why are Americans today so fascinated by Area 51? How did rumors that the AIDS virus originated as a weapon of biowarfare emerge? Why does the Kennedy assassination provoke heated debate over fifty years after the fact, and why did Donald Trump’s birther theories only serve to increase his popularity with voters? The origins of these ideas reveal important facets of American culture and politics. Placing conspiracy thinking at the center of American history, and challenging the knee-jerk dismissal of conspiratorial thought as deluded and often dangerous, Conspiracy Nation provides a wide-ranging survey of conspiracy theories in contemporary America. In the 19th century, inflammatory rhetoric about slave revolts, the well-publicized specter of the black rapist, and the formation of the Ku Klux Klan all worked as conspiracy theories to legitimate an emerging sense of national consciousness based on an ideology of white supremacy – one that still persists today. In our contemporary world, panicked responses to increasing multiculturalism and globalization yield new notions of victimhood and new theories about conspiratorial plans for global domination. Offering up a provocative array of examples, ranging from alien abduction to the novels of DeLillo and Pynchon to Tupac Shakur's paranoid style, Conspiracy Nation documents and unearths the workings of conspiracy in the contemporary moment. Contributors: Clare Birchall, Jack Bratich, Bridget Brown, Jodi Dean, Ingrid Walker Fields, Douglas Kellner, Peter Knight, Fran Mason, John A. McClure, Timothy Melley, Eithne Quinn, and Skip Willman |
| political paranoia: Nationalism as Political Paranoia in Burma Mikael Gravers, 1999 This study examines the complex relationship between nationalism, violence and Buddhism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Burma, bringing us to present-day Burma and the struggle by Aung San Suu Kyi for a new Burmese identity. |
| political paranoia: Paranoia Luigi Zoja, 2017-03-16 Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be – more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse. This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology. |
| political paranoia: Political Paranoia Robert S.. Robins, Robins, Robert Sidwar Robins, Robert S. Robins, Jerrold M. Post, 1997-01-01 Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, M.D., experts in political psychology, document and interpret the malign power of paranoia in a variety of contexts - in political movements like McCarthyism; in organizations like the John Birch Society; in leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and David Koresh; and among extreme groups that commit violence in the name of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Indeed, Robins and Post show that the paranoid dynamic has been aggressively present in every social disaster of this century. Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality, explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary history, and examine the conditions that must exist before the message of the paranoid takes root in a vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and genocidal violence. |
| political paranoia: Paranoia and Modernity John C. Farrell, 2018-09-05 Don Quixote is the first great modern paranoid adventurer.... Grandiosity and persecution define the characters of Swift's Gulliver, Stendhal's Julien Sorel, Melville's Ahab, Dostoyevsky's Underground Man, Ibsen's Masterbuilder Solness, Strindberg's Captain (in The Father), Kafka's K., and Joyce's autobiographical hero Stephen Dedalus.... The all-encompassing conspiracy, very much in its original Rousseauvian cast, has become almost the normal way of representing society and its institutions since World War Two, giving impetus to heroic plots and counter-plots in a hundred films and in the novels of Burroughs, Heller, Ellison, Pynchon, Kesey, Mailer, DeLillo, and others.—from Paranoia and Modernity Paranoia, suspicion, and control have preoccupied key Western intellectuals since the sixteenth century. Paranoia is a dominant concern in modern literature, and its peculiar constellation of symptoms—grandiosity, suspicion, unfounded hostility, delusions of persecution and conspiracy—are nearly obligatory psychological components of the modern hero. How did paranoia come to the center of modern moral and intellectual consciousness? In Paranoia and Modernity, John Farrell brings literary criticism, psychology, and intellectual history to the attempt at an answer. He demonstrates the connection between paranoia and the long history of struggles over the question of agency—the extent to which we are free to act and responsible for our actions. He addresses a wide range of major authors from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, among them Luther, Bacon, Cervantes, Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Swift, and Rousseau. Farrell shows how differently paranoid psychology looks at different historical junctures with different models of agency, and in the epilogue, Paranoia and Postmodernism, he draws the implications for recent critical debates in the humanities. |
| political paranoia: Understanding Paranoia Martin Kantor, 2004-06-30 The only guide currently available on paranoia, this work offers a method for understanding, coping with, and treating this widespread and neglected condition, which can result in serious social consequences from isolation to violence in schools and the workplace. |
| political paranoia: Armageddon and Paranoia Rodric Braithwaite, 2018-02-09 Former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of the definitive account of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Sir Rodric Braithwaite offers here a tour d'horizon of nuclear policy from the end of World War II and start of the Cold War to the present day. Armageddon and Paranoia unfolds the full history of nuclear weapons that began with the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and now extends worldwide. For decades, an apocalypse seemed imminent, staved off only by the certainty that if one side launched these missiles the other would launch an equally catastrophic counterstrike. This method of avoiding all-out nuclear warfare was called Deterrence, a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Still, though neither side actively wanted to plunge the world into nuclear wasteland, the possibility of war by misjudgment or mistake meant fears could never be entirely assuaged. Both an exploration of Deterrence and the long history of superpower nuclear policy, Armageddon and Paranoia comes at a time when tensions surrounding nuclear armament have begun mounting once more. No book until this one has offered so comprehensive a history of the topic that has guided--at times dominated--the world in which we live. |
| political paranoia: Empire of Conspiracy Timothy Melley, 2016-12-01 Why, Timothy Melley asks, have paranoia and conspiracy theory become such prominent features of postwar American culture? In Empire of Conspiracy, Melley explores the recent growth of anxieties about thought-control, assassination, political indoctrination, stalking, surveillance, and corporate and government plots. At the heart of these developments, he believes, lies a widespread sense of crisis in the way Americans think about human autonomy and individuality. Nothing reveals this crisis more than the remarkably consistent form of expression that Melley calls agency panic—an intense fear that individuals can be shaped or controlled by powerful external forces. Drawing on a broad range of forms that manifest this fear—including fiction, film, television, sociology, political writing, self-help literature, and cultural theory—Melley provides a new understanding of the relation between postwar American literature, popular culture, and cultural theory. Empire of Conspiracy offers insightful new readings of texts ranging from Joseph Heller's Catch-22 to the Unabomber Manifesto, from Vance Packard's Hidden Persuaders to recent addiction discourse, and from the stalker novels of Margaret Atwood and Diane Johnson to the conspiracy fictions of Thomas Pynchon, William Burroughs, Don DeLillo, and Kathy Acker. Throughout, Melley finds recurrent anxieties about the power of large organizations to control human beings. These fears, he contends, indicate the continuing appeal of a form of individualism that is no longer wholly accurate or useful, but that still underpins a national fantasy of freedom from social control. |
| political paranoia: Psycurity Rachel Jane Liebert, 2018-10-26 Across the world, the rhetoric and violence of white supremacy is rising up. Yet, explanations for white supremacist attacks typically direct attention toward an unreasonable, paranoid state of mind, and away from the neocolonial security state that made them. Offering a response to US expressions of white supremacy, Liebert reads paranoia as a dis-ease of coloniality by following its circulation within the ultimate place of reason, indeed a key arbitrator of it: Psychology. Through reflexivity, interviews, participant observation, scientific artefacts, and public art, this unique work seeks to argue for and experiment with unsettling the entwined coloniality of Psychology and the current political moment, joining with struggles for a world where it is not only white lives that matter. Tracing the spinning cogs and affective coils of the prodromal movement – a program of research that, capturing potential psychosis, illustrates the serpentine workings of a control society – Liebert argues that, within a context of psycurity, paranoia hides as reasonable suspicion, predicts the future, brands threatening bodies, and grows through fear, thereby seeping into the cracks of white supremacy, stabilizing it. Catching this argument as itself enacting psycurity, she then engages the more-than-human to search for paranoia’s decolonizing, otherworldly potential; one that may revive the psykhe – breath – of psychologies too. Calling for psychologies to leave Psychology’s comfort zone and make space for imagination, this performative, interdisciplinary work will engage students, researchers, and activists from an array of disciplines who wish to examine a critical and creative response to present-day racism and fascism. |
| political paranoia: The Illuminoids Neal Wilgus, 1993 |
| political paranoia: Conspiracy Culture Keith A. Livers, 2020-10-01 Contemporary Russia stands apart as one of the most prolific generators of conspiracy theories and paranoid rhetoric. Conspiracy Culture traces the roots of the phenomenon within the sphere of culture and history, examining the long arc of Russian paranoia from the present moment back to earlier nineteenth-century sources, such as Dostoevsky’s anti-nihilist novel Demons. Conspiracy Culture examines the use of conspiracy tropes by contemporary Russian authors and filmmakers including the postmodernist writer Viktor Pelevin, the conservative author and pundit Aleksandr Prokhanov, and the popular director Timur Bekmambetov. It also explores paranoia as an instrument within contemporary Russian political rhetoric, as well as in pseudo-historical works. What stands out is the manner in which popular paranoia is utilized to express broadly shared fears not only of a long-standing anti-Russian conspiracy undertaken by the West, but also about the destruction of the country’s cultural and spiritual capital within this imagined Russophobic plot. |
| political paranoia: Quotients Tracy O'Neill, 2020-05-12 Two people search for connection in a world of fractured identities and aliases, global finance, big data, intelligence bureaucracies, algorithmic logic, and terror. Jeremy Jordan and Alexandra Chen hope to make a quiet home together but struggle to find a space safe from their personal secrets. For Jeremy, this means leaving behind his former life as an intelligence operative during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. For Alexandra, a high-powered job in image management for whole countries cannot prepare her for her missing brother’s sudden reappearance. In a culture of limitless surveillance, Jeremy and Alexandra will go to great lengths to protect what is closest to them. Spanning decades and continents, their saga brings them into contact with a down-and-out online journalist, shadowy security professionals, and jockeying technology experts, each of whom has a different understanding of whether information really protects us, and how we might build a world worth trusting in our paranoid age. |
| political paranoia: Conspiracy Culture Dr Peter Knight, Peter Knight, 2013-04-15 Conspiracy theories are everywhere in post-war American culture. From postmodern novels to The X-Files and from gangsta rap to feminist polemic, there is a widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the paranoid delusions of far-right crackpots. Indeed, they have become a necessary response to a risky and increasingly globalized world, in which everything is connected but nothing adds up. Peter Knight provides an engaging and cogent analysis of the development of conspiracy culture, from 1960s' countercultural suspicions about the authorities to the 1990s, where a paranoid attitude is both routine and ironic. Conspiracy Culture analyses conspiracy narratives about familiar topics like the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order, as well as more unusual ones like the conspiracies of patriarchy and white supremacy. Conspiracy Culture shows how Americans have come to distrust not only the narratives of the authorities, but even the authority of narrative itself to explain What Is Really Going On. From the complexities of Thomas Pynchon's novels to the endless mysteries of The X-Files, Knight argues that contemporary conspiracy culture is marked by an infinite regress of suspicion. Trust no one, because we have met the enemy and it is us. |
| political paranoia: Plots against Russia Eliot Borenstein, 2019-04-15 In this original and timely assessment of cultural expressions of paranoia in contemporary Russia, Eliot Borenstein samples popular fiction, movies, television shows, public political pronouncements, internet discussions, blogs, and religious tracts to build a sense of the deep historical and cultural roots of konspirologiia that run through Russian life. Plots against Russia reveals through dramatic and exciting storytelling that conspiracy and melodrama are entirely equal-opportunity in modern Russia, manifesting themselves among both pro-Putin elites and his political opposition. As Borenstein shows, this paranoid fantasy until recently characterized only the marginal and the irrelevant. Now, through its embodiment in pop culture, the expressions of a conspiratorial worldview are seen everywhere. Plots against Russia is an important contribution to the fields of Russian literary and cultural studies from one of its preeminent voices. |
| political paranoia: Even Paranoids Have Enemies Joseph H. Berke, Stella Pierides, Andrea Sabbadini, Stanley Schneider, 2006-04-10 'Even paranoids have enemies' is the reply Golda Meir is said to have made to Henry Kissinger who, during the 1973 Sinai talks, accused her of being paranoid for hesitating to grant further concessions to the Arabs. It is used as part of the title of this book to highlight the complex relationship between paranoia and persecution.The politics of the Middle East, the pressures within Japanese society, the dynamics of the drug scene, racism, and the effects of mechanical thinking in institutions and cultures all serve to illustrate in this book the intimate connections between paranoia and persecution. Contributors examine the ways in which paranoia and persecution are experienced at the individual, institutional and macrosocial level. They draw on theoretical perspectives from a range of disciplines in an exploration of both the psychological impact of paranoid processes and the extent to which these processes are rooted in political and cultural exigency. |
| political paranoia: Paranoid Science Antony Alumkal, 2018-10-23 Explores the Christian Right’s fierce opposition to science, explaining how and why its leaders came to see scientific truths as their enemy For decades, the Christian Right’s high-profile clashes with science have made national headlines. From attempts to insert intelligent design creationism into public schools to climate change denial, efforts to “cure” gay people through conversion therapy, and opposition to stem cell research, the Christian Right has battled against science. How did this hostility begin and, more importantly, why has it endured? Antony Alumkal provides a comprehensive background on the war on science—how it developed and why it will continue to endure. Drawing upon Richard Hofstadter’s influential 1965 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Antony Alumkal argues that the Christian Right adopts a similar paranoid style in their approach to science. Alumkal demonstrates that Christian Right leaders see conspiracies within the scientific establishment, with scientists not only peddling fraudulent information, but actively concealing their true motives from the American public and threatening to destroy the moral foundation of society. By rejecting science, Christian Right leaders create their own alternative reality, one that does not challenge their literal reading of the Bible. While Alumkal recognizes the many evangelicals who oppose the Christian Right’s agenda, he also highlights the consequences of the war on reality—both for the evangelical community and the broader American public. A compelling glimpse into the heart of the Christian Right’s anti-science agenda, Paranoid Science is a must-read for those who hope to understand the Christian Right’s battle against science, and for the scientists and educators who wish to stop it. |
| political paranoia: Change They Can't Believe In Christopher S. Parker, Matthew Barreto, 2014-10-26 How the political beliefs of Tea Party supporters are connected to far-right social movements Are Tea Party supporters merely a group of conservative citizens concerned about government spending? Or are they racists who refuse to accept Barack Obama as their president because he's not white? Change They Can’t Believe In offers an alternative argument—that the Tea Party is driven by the reemergence of a reactionary movement in American politics that is fueled by a fear that America has changed for the worse. Providing a range of original evidence and rich portraits of party sympathizers as well as activists, Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto show that the perception that America is in danger directly informs how Tea Party supporters think and act. In a new afterword, Parker and Barreto reflect on the Tea Party’s recent initiatives, including the 2013 government shutdown, and evaluate their prospects for the 2016 election. |
| political paranoia: Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia Francis Wheen, 2012-05-31 Strange Days Indeed tells the story of how the paranoia exemplified by Nixon and Wilson became the defining characteristic of western politics and culture in the 1970s. |
| political paranoia: Making Sense of the Alt-Right George Hawley, 2017-09-19 During the 2016 election, a new term entered the mainstream American political lexicon: “alt-right,” short for “alternative right.” Despite the innocuous name, the alt-right is a white-nationalist movement. Yet it differs from earlier racist groups: it is youthful and tech savvy, obsessed with provocation and trolling, amorphous, predominantly online, and mostly anonymous. And it was energized by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. In Making Sense of the Alt-Right, George Hawley provides an accessible introduction and gives vital perspective on the emergence of a group whose overt racism has confounded expectations for a more tolerant America. Hawley explains the movement’s origins, evolution, methods, and core belief in white-identity politics. The book explores how the alt-right differs from traditional white nationalism, libertarianism, and other online illiberal ideologies such as neoreaction, as well as from mainstream Republicans and even Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The alt-right’s use of offensive humor and its trolling-driven approach, based in animosity to so-called political correctness, can make it difficult to determine true motivations. Yet through exclusive interviews and a careful study of the alt-right’s influential texts, Hawley is able to paint a full picture of a movement that not only disagrees with liberalism but also fundamentally rejects most of the tenets of American conservatism. Hawley points to the alt-right’s growing influence and makes a case for coming to a precise understanding of its beliefs without sensationalism or downplaying the movement’s radicalism. |
| political paranoia: A Dangerous Stir Mark Wahlgren Summers, 2012-12-01 Reconstruction policy after the Civil War, observes Mark Wahlgren Summers, was shaped not simply by politics, principles, and prejudices. Also at work were fears--often unreasonable fears of renewed civil war and a widespread sense that four years of war had thrown the normal constitutional process so dangerously out of kilter that the republic itself remained in peril. To understand Reconstruction, Summers contends, one must understand that the purpose of the North's war was--first and foremost--to save the Union with its republican institutions intact. During Reconstruction there were always fears in the mix--that the Civil War had settled nothing, that the Union was still in peril, and that its enemies and the enemies of republican government were more resilient and cunning than normal mortals. Many factors shaped the reintegration of the former Confederate states and the North's commitment to Reconstruction, Summers agrees, but the fears of war reigniting, plots against liberty, and a president prepared to father a coup d'etat ranked higher among them than historians have recognized. Both a dramatic narrative of the events of Reconstruction and a groundbreaking new look at what drove these events, A Dangerous Stir is also a valuable look at the role of fear in the politics of the time--and in politics in general. |
| political paranoia: Paranoia Gareth Hanrahan, 2010-04 The mandatory enjoyment of Paranoia's 25th Anniversary continues! With this ultra-high-security book, players can forget the troubles of the little people of Alpha Complex. No more hose jobs as Troubleshooters, no more policing the madness that is Alpha Complex as a Blue Clearance Trooper. No, the life of a High Programmer is one of luxury! As High Programmers, players will enjoy the fruits of their labours (and those of everyone else) as the pre-eminent leaders of Alpha Complex. There is no way their plans will be scuppered by Alpha Complex's nightmarish bureaucracy. No way that rival High Programmers will seek to bring about their demise. No way that the citizens below them will revolt. No way that the Computer will find even more insane challenges that cannot possibly be completed. No way at all. Uh huh. |
| political paranoia: Paranoia Daniel Freeman, Jason Freeman, 2008-10-23 Are we living in a uniquely paranoid age? Catalysed by the threat of terrorism, fears about others have reached a new intensity. The roll call of apparent dangers seems to increase by the day: muggers, child abductors, drug dealers, hoodied teenagers. Crime has apparently reached such high levels that CCTV cameras are required in every town centre, and parents are so fearful that many children never go out alone. Until recently, no one suspected just how common paranoia was. But new research suggests that around a quarter of us have regular paranoid thoughts, and probably lots more have them occasionally. Paranoia is so prevalent that there 's a very good chance that all of us will, at some point in our lives, be among the 25%. Yet, although paranoia is as common as depression or anxiety, most of us know almost nothing about it. What is paranoia? What causes it? Are some people more prone to paranoia than others? Are we more paranoid now than we used to be? How should we deal with our paranoid thoughts? And how can we reduce the amount of paranoia in our society? Co-written by one of the world 's leading psychologists of paranoia, and drawing on the latest scientific research, this lively and accessible book answers these key questions, highlighting for the first time the central role of paranoia in our world today. |
| political paranoia: Conspiracy Cinema David Ray Carter, 2012 While they remain marginalised by the mainstream media, conspiracy theories are a growing influence on the contemporary political imagination, thanks mostly to the unprecedented phenomenon David Ray Carter has entitled `conspiracy cinema' - documentaries, freely available over the internet, that present a conspiratorial explanation for an event or series of events, including everything from 9/11 to the Kennedy assasinations, the moon landings to HIV. |
| political paranoia: Publicity's Secret Jodi Dean, 2018-08-06 In recent decades, media outlets in the United States—most notably the Internet—have claimed to serve the public's ever-greater thirst for information. Scandals are revealed, details are laid bare because the public needs to know. In Publicity's Secret, Jodi Dean claims that the public's demands for information both coincide with the interests of the media industry and reinforce the cynicism promoted by contemporary technoculture. Democracy has become a spectacle, and Dean asserts that theories of the public sphere endanger democratic politics in the information age.Dean's argument is built around analyses of Bill Gates, Theodore Kaczynski, popular journalism, the Internet and technology, as well as the conspiracy theory subculture that has marked American history from the Declaration Independence to the political celebrity of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The author claims that the media's insistence on the public's right to know leads to the indiscriminate investigation and dissemination of secrets. Consequently, in her view, the theoretical ideal of the public sphere, in which all processes are transparent, reduces real-world politics to the drama of the secret and its discovery. |
| political paranoia: The Paranoia Switch Martha Stout, 2007-09-04 On September 11, 2001, the Fear Switch in our brains got flicked. How do we turn it off and reclaim our lives? Five years after September 11, we're still scared. And why not? Terrorists could strike at any moment. Our country is at war. The polar caps are melting. Hurricanes loom. We struggle to control our fear so that we can go about our daily lives. Our national consciousness has been torqued by trauma, in the process transforming our behavior, our expectations, our legal system. In The Myth of Sanity, Martha Stout, who until recently taught at the Harvard Medical School, analyzed how we cope with personal trauma. In her national bestseller The Sociopath Next Door, she showed how to avoid suffering psychological damage at the hands of others. Now, in The Paranoia Switch, she offers a groundbreaking clinical, neuropsychological, and practical examination of what terror and fear politics have done to our minds, and to the very biology of our brains. In this timely and essential book, Stout assures us that we can interrupt the cycle of trauma and look forward to a future free of fear only by understanding our own paranoia—and what flips the paranoia switch. |
| political paranoia: A Conspiratorial Life Edward H. Miller, 2022-02-23 The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group’s paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch’s political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society’s rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it’s hard to deny that we’re living in Robert Welch’s America. |
| political paranoia: The Problems of Genocide A. Dirk Moses, 2021-02-04 Historically delineates the problems of genocide as a concept in relation to rival categories of mass violence. |
| political paranoia: The Paranoid Apocalypse Richard Landes, Steven T. Katz, 2012 This text re-examines 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion's' popularity, investigating why it has persisted, as well as larger questions about the success of conspiracy theories even in the face of claims that they are blatantly counterfactual and irrational. |
| political paranoia: Conspiracy Culture Dr Peter Knight, Peter Knight, 2013-04-15 Conspiracy theories are everywhere in post-war American culture. From postmodern novels to The X-Files and from gangsta rap to feminist polemic, there is a widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the paranoid delusions of far-right crackpots. Indeed, they have become a necessary response to a risky and increasingly globalized world, in which everything is connected but nothing adds up. Peter Knight provides an engaging and cogent analysis of the development of conspiracy culture, from 1960s' countercultural suspicions about the authorities to the 1990s, where a paranoid attitude is both routine and ironic. Conspiracy Culture analyses conspiracy narratives about familiar topics like the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order, as well as more unusual ones like the conspiracies of patriarchy and white supremacy. Conspiracy Culture shows how Americans have come to distrust not only the narratives of the authorities, but even the authority of narrative itself to explain What Is Really Going On. From the complexities of Thomas Pynchon's novels to the endless mysteries of The X-Files, Knight argues that contemporary conspiracy culture is marked by an infinite regress of suspicion. Trust no one, because we have met the enemy and it is us. |
| political paranoia: The Honey and the Hemlock Eli Sagan, 1994 Examining Athenian democracy as an object lesson for democracy in general, and invoking Freud as his guide in this task, Eli Sagan explores the startling contradictions in the society of Athens: its delicious honey and its deadly hemlock. |
| political paranoia: Psychopathology and World Politics Ralph Pettman, 2012 This unique work looks at the relationship between psychopathology and world politics. What happens when the brain/mind ceases to function properly? How does this impinge on world affairs? What is to be done, for example, when a leader ceases to act in a seemingly sane fashion and yet still commands the loyalty of those who maintain him or her in office? What is to be done when a leader's advisers seem rational but are clearly not? Indeed, what is to be done when a whole society goes insane? This is to raise more questions than a single work can adequately answer.In lieu of a comprehensive account, which would be beyond the scope of one study, what this book does is first describe psychopathology in general terms and its relationship to world affairs. It then looks at denial in particular and at ?speaking the truth? as a potentially therapeutic antidote, especially in relation to nuclear weapons. It follows this by looking at delusion in general and at what being ?in touch? with reality might entail with regard to a so-called ?failed state?. With topics ranging from Hitler's mental health to the continuing threat of nuclear Armageddon, this book is a valuable contribution to the field of international politics and modern psychology, and will hopefully lead to a better understanding of contemporary world affairs and the global issue of conflict resolution. |
| political paranoia: Technical Manual United States. War Department, |
| political paranoia: War Department Technical Manual , 1940 |
| political paranoia: Training Publication United States. Department of the Army, 19?? |
Politics, Policy, Political News - POLITICO
On POLITICO Tech, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves joins host Steven Overly to discuss how his state is trying to seize the AI moment, from energy production to workforce training. Plus, they …
Politics - Wikipedia
Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among …
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POLITICAL Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of POLITICAL is of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government. How to use political in a sentence.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked a federal judge to temporarily limit President Trump's use of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday …
Politics - The Washington Post
4 days ago · Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration …
POLITICAL | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
Politics means the activities of the government or people who try to influence the way a country is governed. We use a singular verb with it: … Free trade is an ongoing political issue because it …
Politics, Policy, Political News - POLITICO
On POLITICO Tech, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves joins host Steven Overly to discuss how his state is trying to seize the AI moment, from energy production to workforce training. Plus, they …
Politics - Wikipedia
Politics (from Ancient Greek πολιτικά (politiká) 'affairs of the cities') is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among …
Politics | CNN Politics
Politics at CNN has news, opinion and analysis of American and global politics Find news and video about elections, the White House, the U.N and much more.
Politics: Latest & Breaking US Political News | AP News
Read breaking political news today from The Associated Press. Get the updates from AP News so you won't miss the latest in US political news.
Politics, Policy and Political News & Updates | Fox News
The latest breaking political news from Fox News. Check out all US politic news happening now. Read political stories and updates happening across the nation and in the world today.
POLITICAL Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of POLITICAL is of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government. How to use political in a sentence.
Politics: Latest news and headlines | NBC News
Find the latest political news stories, photos, and videos on NBCNews.com. Read breaking headlines covering Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and more.
Politics News: Political parties, election news, policies, and news ...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked a federal judge to temporarily limit President Trump's use of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday …
Politics - The Washington Post
4 days ago · Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration …
POLITICAL | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
Politics means the activities of the government or people who try to influence the way a country is governed. We use a singular verb with it: … Free trade is an ongoing political issue because it …
