The Cambridge Conspiracy
Consider a scenario where Cambridge engages in a conspiracy to exclude dissidents from academia. The idea is to contain dissident views by limiting them to a few individuals who are under control. These fake intellectuals will divert attention or even infiltrate activist groups. They will crowd out the real thing inside and outside academia. More generally, this system will work as check-and-balances to exercise power through the management of coalition formation.
Most of this is achieved without any drama. Only superficial knowledge of social systems is required to appreciate the most salient aspects of this particular one. It is known that those who produce and reproduce the foundations of the world view of a considerable share of the population are produced and certified in academia. Therefore, this institution is of strategic interest for the management of mental conceptions of the citizenry. Ultimately, these conceptions are the basis for decision making at the individual level, which by no means is overlooked by the Cambridge Conspiracy (CC). However, the most prestigious triumph of the CC is that their certified knowledge and individuals have been promoted to officialdom. The operating systems of civilization have been updated to be compatible with the certified information provided by CC, and furthermore imposed as a requirement at the higher echelons of decision-making institutions.
One of the marvels of the imperial system of education is that it has a peer-review system in place to ensure the quality of intellectual output. This system has a tremendous prestige due to its association with the natural sciences. The imperial system of review is wisely employed to the so-called social sciences and humanities (SSH) where the categories neither true or false, not falsifiable, and not useful are predominant when strict criteria are employed. To explain the potential of such situation, it is convenient reconnect to reality. Around half a decade ago, an education bureaucrat asked for my advice regarding a dilemma. After a couple of questions it became obvious that the bureaucrat was trapped between two conflicting directives which were to be codified. This as you may imagine, is a formidable cognitive load on those who are programmed to command and obey according to script. My advice was however a message of optimism, as such conditions are a gift with tremendous opportunity. If it was a true paradox, virtually anything could be argued, and anything follows from a contradiction. In other words it was a position to assert a preferred course of action. Either as an avant-garde leader or as a coalition builder who aimed for a beneficial consensus.
In the same manner, the arbitrariness of the SSH gives the judges of the review procedure more freedom to decide what is deemed to be high quality compared to the natural sciences. The object of scrutiny may be contradictory or not even false, and still be regarded as brilliant. By the same token, the criteria for quality assessment in the SSH is naturally a construction less connected to true, false and falsifiability.
Once again, facts are stranger than fiction. Central tenets in mainstream economics have been proven to be rubbish as they are not even true if you assume that the underlying assumptions of the theories are true. Only recently, after hundreds of years of capitalism, and perhaps even thousands of years after some of these issues where first understood by the ancients, some recognition of the marginalised critics of establishment dogma can be traced. In the humanities, some of the most prominent post modernists have more or less been proven to be imposters. Their thoughts are even worse than in economics as they are not even false. In some instances, central parts of the theorising is just a mishmash of fancy words, seemingly completely devoid of meaning.[2]
The point is that there is plenty of room for interpretation, thus it will be difficult to make individuals accountable for modest biases against particular set of ideas or people. Costly investments over long periods of time and fierce competition erodes bargaining position. Therefore, even subtle signals will be enough to ensure a great deal of conformity. This conclusion does not presuppose that most will think that the standards have been lowered. It follows that prestigious institutions will exert tremendous power over the domestic affairs of foreign nations through intellectual domination alone. For instance, if certain networks can influence the likelihood of publishing in journals, and the countries in question have made their decision-making bodies compatible with certified knowledge from the CC, then it follows that these networks are in effect determining the likelihood of someone being recruited at the higher echelons of power in foreign nations through the journals alone. This is a very general and by all means elegant human-resource management system, with potentially considerable national security, and geopolitical implications. It gives the emperor a way to exert force which disregards geographical distance as the fierce competition for the same hierarchy of journals bridges strategic institutions all over the globe. Minor gestures are potent enough to influence the lives of millions through a chosen few.
The strategy to rig the publications clearly fulfils (i) for aforementioned reasons, (ii) because it will be very difficult to spot for the vast majority of the world’s population, and will even be difficult to prove, especially if referring to a CC. (iii) When the target is perceived as the beneficiary, this condition is fulfilled in most conceivable settings, especially if the benefit of the doubt is not a suspicious proposal. Thinking about the externalities and negative transfers, then from the perspective of rivals and the public in general, (iii) is also fulfilled in most settings. The public will most likely remain ignorant, and protest from the raided competitors could even be turned against them and labelled as insufficiency-related jealousy, misguided aggression and so forth.
It is hard to see how Dentith and Orr’s definitions would be of any help here. Clearly, this conspiracy could be deemed as ‘Diverse’ – conspirators with incentives to be loyal to the empire, would work in foreign countries in all sorts of occupations (exactly as in the real world). Of course, as an artefact of extraordinarily vague definitions, one could also argue that this conspiracy indeed is ‘Monolithic’ due to the overarching framework. It is well-known, among other things due to good access to diplomatic cables that the US Empire is built around similar contacts surrounded by secrecy and numerous plots, even though we do not have updated leaks on it at the moment. If such structure is deemed diverse, then it would obviously be the case that such diverse conspiracies can be sustained for long periods of time, especially considering its tremendous impact on planetary affairs. This would be in conflict with the claim that large ‘Diverse’ conspiracies cannot be sustained. It would on the other hand be intriguing if the authors deemed it to be ‘Monolithic’ considering the monumental ideological implications. Either way, such labels would not explain anything.
Dentith and Orr’s definitions appear to be like borders alien to theoretical coherence, and have already caused all sorts of troubles when imposed in practice. The cables show that diplomats were sharp enough to present different plans for different contacts in accordance with their own agendas. Nevertheless, it is by no means obvious that all involved were sharp enough to figure out the complex array of goals pursued over time, and thus agree on similar perceptions about a given course of action they agreed to conspire on. I have already argued that this causes all sorts of problems when using the philosophers’ concepts. Ultimately their version of secrecy and conspiracy leads to conflicts which cannot be overcome without surrendering to an apologetic definition which would equate democratic and transparent popular resistance against those in power, with a covert ‘conspiracy against the public’. When the PDAP are used, no such confusion emerges, they can be used to categorise and explain why a course of action is or fails to be, a viable conspiracy.
In reality, the signals are less subtle. Those in power can afford to leave elegance to the tailor to make a timely impression. For instance, the ban on WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables on top ranking journals in the social sciences, threats about using them, and the torture of the founder of this independent media outlet through the legal system. Such behaviour would of course induce shock waves in the system under consideration. Under such conditions, gifted people become highly skilled at a writing style which minimizes the political friction vis-à-vis, those who are in charge. Pressure could even make some reluctant to position themselves as neutral, in fear of making too big of a statement.
It is also common knowledge and well-documented that intellectuals opposed to the US and its democratic allies in underdeveloped countries have been viciously persecuted and wasted by covert means through intelligence operations which involve several jurisdictions around the globe. Low-intensity warfare and economic terrorism against democracies in order to promote US influence involves diverse networks engaged in sabotage among the more affluent. I do not think it is advisable to insist on referring to such facts as conspiracy theories, considering the current propaganda value of doing so in favour of those who essentially are historical revisionists. Even if the stated intentions of such endeavour are benign. It would be a high price to pay for the shaky definitions of Dentith and Orr, for example. The insights of the philosophers can be communicated perfectly well without insistence on a particular label.
One of the beauties of the system is when those gifted enough to see through the system, work with strictly technical problems under fierce competition that consume all their time and keeps them from challenging status quo. It is also common knowledge that most people will conform under the influence of social cohesion, and the usual incentives such as employment, wages and career opportunities or various form of ideology. The few who resist may then be subject to the CC’s more sinister side.
The discussion on dispositional and situational explanations is fundamental to the understanding of homogeneity, and superficial diversity or radicalism of published material in elite institutions. The propaganda model (Herman & Chomsky, 2002) provides something similar to an Archimedean point in this discussion, as it is one of the empirically most successful theories in the social sciences and humanities. This theory predicts journalistic conformity towards the elite opinion without any reliance on conspiracies as normally understood. Nevertheless, as I have argued elsewhere (Echeverría, 2018), it is possible to infer from the tenets of the Propaganda Model (PM) that it is ludicrous to believe in an explanation which excludes extraordinary measures to keep people in line in the field of journalism, a stance which I choose to call the Maxim of the Rational Rebel when applied to institutions in general. There is also plenty scattered information which points towards that direction but one of the strongest case studies in the discussion about the political economy of journalism and conspiracies is by Boyd-Barret (2004). He reminds of an impressive CIA operation involving hundreds of people from different professions, among these, 90 journalists in senior positions. His investigative journalism regarding false claims of weapons of mass destruction to legitimise the destruction of Iraq, makes a convincing case for a sixth CIA filter as an addition to the Propaganda Model. It is my understanding that it is one of the few additions to the PM that makes sense.
Famous dissident theories like the Propaganda Model (PM), and in many respects the work of Karl Marx, are built around notions of how institutions and economic forces outside the control of individuals affect the behaviour of these institutions and the system as a whole. For instance, if emphasis on situational explanations regarding the interaction between journalists and the government is predominant among both establishment and dissident intellectuals, then government spies would get virtually full intellectual camouflage. Establishment intellectuals would deny obedience towards the elite, and those seeking to explain it with respected interpretations of dissident theories, would have to rely on abstract institutional analysis, with less emphasis on secret plots within these institutions. One of the reasons for this is that these theories wisely rely on data that establishment institutions generate.
The PM is for instance highly reliable when predicting journalistic obedience towards foreign policy to advance the US Empire, such as invasions. However, its institutional explanation barely outlines what is going on inside institutions. Nevertheless, this is exactly when one would assume that spies in these institutions are most active conspiring to ensure such obedience. Such plots will thus be concealed by the PM’s elegant abstractions.
At this stage, if (i)-(iii) are fulfilled in the dealings of the CC, it seems reasonable to propose that many would even be under the impression that the system had a great deal of natural diversity as they are conditioned by education which has obeyed these principles for generations. More to the point, data generated by the system would seem to be deceptively close to what one would expect from what is advertised as the official functioning of the system. Furthermore, an ever expanding set of explanations about how the system works would be directed towards theories which do not postulate something akin to a CC. Theories which rely heavily on quantifiable data would have a hard time finding suitable support for a CC, especially considering that much of the certified data is generated by institutions as prominent as Cambridge. Moreover, the softer theories are vague enough to deal with as described above if such course of action is deemed necessary or virtually by default if they are too far from established parameters. If dissident theories explain how institutions operate to satisfy the needs of those in power in terms of structural factors, especially around sectors which are connected to the unseen masters, then the CC would have even more cover. After all, ideas are constantly discovered and rediscovered. Thus, (iv)-(vi) are also arguably fulfilled under normal circumstances.
Cambridge’s Sinister Orwellian Time Travel
As the reader may already have inferred, this section would not be complete without alluding to Cambridge’s Orwellian Sinister Time Travel (COSTT). It is common knowledge that this spell can manage the expectations about the future by control of the perceptions of today, through the alteration of the perceptions of the past. The power derived from such practices is of course spectacular, and I do not have the intention of revealing all contingencies, as it would spoil much of the excitement of unexpected discoveries. I will however not refrain to analyse this class of strategies altogether, as it is a feasible path to enslavement under the pretence of freedom.
The future is not enough for the CC. It has managed to make one of the most creative social scientists of all time to appear as a petty imitator of thinkers from diametrically opposed ideological affiliations. To fully appreciate how this alteration of the past was achieved, it is instructive to review how the CC manages the present. One core strategy of the CC is to vacuum clean true dissidents via the web, mobile phones etc. or by a network of academics and associated thieves throughout the world, at all levels of education. The ideas of the dissidents will be given to fake dissidents or even be randomised over a group that seems suitable to carry out the task, up to several degrees of separation. One principle is to decouple dissident views from the logical structure of the theory, and of course appropriate the structure. A related course of action is the perhaps more well-known procedure to burry serious real-life examples in unnecessary technical language, and from there, mix these with trivial ones in the name of clarity of exposition when needed. These practices expand the ways these theories can be allocated and promote self-censorship via the imperial system of review. In this manner, new generations of dissidents will have little room if they do not come up with new theories, and if they do, they will be intercepted and appropriated by the Cambridge Conspiracy (CC) if necessary.
A less heartless common-knowledge Newtonian approach, is to promote a reaction for each action from an activist. A more skewed variety is to take ideas from the radicals, give them to reactionaries, and then compensate the radical with the ideas from hopeless cases (who refuse to yield), preferably those that are not radical at all but technical or trivia etc.
It is straight forward to see that (i) is easily fulfilled, (ii) as well in analogy to previous examples, and (iii) is also easy to arrange as the victim may not even become aware of what has happened. In general, the idea may be carried out before or after the mimics or never. Moreover, the victim may become aware of the CC-mimics before he carries out the idea, after or never. In the last case ({Never, Never}), (iii) is fulfilled trivially. This corresponds to a case when the idea for instance is postponed, and is expressed by the CC on a different platform at the margins, and the original never becomes aware of the copy. The cases when the original manages to complete the plan before the CC-associates are less damaging but the victim has still suffered the risk and may have to share prestige and revenues with the copy who may argue independent discovery. It can be very difficult to prove otherwise.
The aim from the offenders is of course to be on top of the race, and in such state, the victim will have incentives to remain silent, and few incentives to bring it up for two important reasons. The victim may have very good reasons to believe it was an unfortunate coincidence. On the other hand, if the victim suspects foul play, it may still be virtually impossible to prove. Furthermore, it is the victim who can be blamed and prosecuted, as this manoeuvre essentially frames the victim, and is a basis for persecution or extortion.
Ideas in general will be stolen by CC in the same manner if possible but there are certain limits. To name a few, one is that it is simply better to recruit top scientists to promote research in a wide range of cases. It would make no sense to offend the community by signalling disastrous low-yield working environment by engaging in disputes over ideas if it spoils the opportunities of future streams of revenues from the best. In a context of rivalry between powerful networks with control over resources, top scientists may be protected by competing powerful entities. This does by no means guarantee just outcomes in terms of rewards without a CC.
Furthermore, ideas relevant to top-secret projects would be an exception, and would be at risk to be treated as in the dissident case. There is furthermore a natural compatibility with the intelligence and business community. A wide range of commercial applications would thus also be eligible, especially from dissidents, in order to deny them resources, and still be able to hail the presumably social-welfare-maximizing wonders of free competitive markets, which justly reward the most creative and able entrepreneurs through efficient resource allocation. From an initial stock of refined information and reliable means of surveillance, little else than reputation alone would keep most of these practices working with few disturbances or disputes that would even come close to serve as evidence in favour of a theory about something akin to a CC.
To tarnish the legacy of an historical figure was however easier in the distant past in some respects as the more direct variety of COSTT was feasible. The notes of the historical dissident giant was of course intercepted by the secret police of the time, and other fanatic upper-class networks, which explains how he lost some of his legacy to competitors through means already described. The other thing was to forge notes of other thinkers, contemporary and historical ones. Without a mechanical analysis of all possible contingences, it is possible to see that such endeavour could be made credible when the number of academics was much smaller, and the network of references had isolated nodes over extended periods of time. In a map of isolated nodes, new isolated ones could be added without causing suspicion on work which was not accessible to the vast majority, and just read by a few. Claims of whole seminars could be arranged by a conspiring clique with power and reputation.
Today, things are not that simple. Of course, deep fake and control of imperial servers may make an original appear as a parrot by the same token. It is just a matter of changing times and dates of the tweets in threads throughout the web were they are not easily spotted by the victim. In such manner, analysis by forensics can be evaded for a considerable amount of time, and perhaps never be invoked. The surveillance system would of course take care of business through monitoring in real time as it would ensure that the dissident never was offline, and the secret police would work as complements to take care of hand-written notes off-grid, either by micro cameras or burglary.
So-called paradoxes are however a known feature of fictitious time travel. One of the great anomalies of giving away too much of the dissident giant to his ideological rivals on the opposite side was of course that these started to appear as more radical than the dissident himself at a closer analysis dealing with fundamental problems. That was not an issue for a long time because most people were forced to physical work 16 hours a day and were treated like cattle. Among the few who had the time to read, only a few would keep records, nearly all of them belonged to the CC, which also owned the printing technology of the day and could thus controlled the editing and the volumes.
Things are vastly more complicated today as it is virtually impossible to target a dissident by materialising a single paper without a sizeable risk of potentially huge collateral damage. All kinds of paradoxes could emerge, some of these could be given an explanation if taken one by one. The overall impression could however have a potentially devastating effect on the reputation of the institutions under the influence of the CC. Because there is usually no need for micro management, relatively free experts from unexpected fields could become enraged or start to ask serious questions which could cause turbulence with unexpected consequences. In other words, (ii) is difficult to fulfil as the collateral damage may cause experts within the CC’s own ranks to protest. Moreover, the very best and most creative within the ranks of the experts will tend to have the strongest incentives to distance themselves from practices which may take away prestige resulting from hard work. This seems to be a case where third parties may react before the victim.
This would especially be the case if a rational rebel took precautions and circulated future material years before it would be published. This would give both the CC and resistance movements opportunity of strategic interaction under incomplete information. Sufficient to make inferences about the inner workings of the empire – a way to make a map over its mimics, fake activists, their strategies to crowd out, response time, adaptation, cover ups etc. As dissidents are marginalised anyway, it would be a win-win prospect for the rational rebel and his true allies.
Moreover, if no one reacts, those outside the borders of the empire or the few pockets of resistance left, would then be inclined to see such uncommented anomalies as a signal from which they could infer that a huge conspiracy was more likely than they previously thought. Perhaps even as a sign of widespread incompetence and collusion among imposters. Clearly it is always possible to pretend no one has noticed but the subjects would still begin to discern otherwise invisible structures, and could lose the respect for their superiors due to the hypocrisy, incompetence and remarkably blunt social design. A very dangerous gambit, a special case Machiavelli warned about with unparalleled clarity. These practices are therefore not advised by the rational strategists of the empire, some of which advocate severe reprimands for such recklessness in order to prevent the most obvious signs of stupidity within their ranks to manifest in public.
In reality, ideas will travel for better or worse. Bitter rivalries and disputes over the tremendous prestige of fundamental ideas have been fought throughout history, over new discoveries and between countries especially. Illicit transfers of fundamental ideas decided the whole post-war geopolitical setup. Most academics have heard at least one such story regarding more modest ideas in their collegial neighbourhoods, and it has been said that it is the oldest joke in academia. Industrial espionage at a planetary scale and population control is a prospect that one of the architects of the modern system of mass surveillance exposed as an ongoing reality. Such statements have been confirmed with more tangible evidence by world-renowned whistle blowers, journalists and analyst. The treatment of these dissenters has been exceptionally harsh considering that the abuse is from democratic states.[3] I have personally had parts of my unpublished notes quoted by strangers as an insulting threat, and that is far from the worst credible witness statements about snooping and harassment I have heard about in this corner of the world.
If the PDAP are obeyed, and as most of these strategies are over a set of advanced ideas, only a negligible part of the world’s population will be able to discern foul play, in contrast to the very likely proposition that most people around the world, will be affected by the subtle influence of the CC.
There are nevertheless instances when the CC could be tempted to conjure new material. Marginal subjects with virtually no references in one direction could be used. Incidentally, this coincides with virgin soil where a bunch of labels may work as a claim on new fields of study. A cohesive enough clique of conspirators surrounding a topic could pull it off. Furthermore, CC tools and intercepted notes could be used to predict the words used by the rebel, and then claim that the rebel clearly has engaged in plagiarism.
Even under such dismal circumstances, there is a hope in hell. A rational rebel could still manage to get on top with a little luck and the old insight that a conspiracy is only as strong as its weakest link. The rational rebel would begin by finding out who that imposter is, show that the imposter’s work is rubbish by picking it apart. If such endeavour is successful, it is a matter of straight-forward statistics to show that that it is highly unlikely that the imposter came up with a correct idea, which just happens to be the same as the dissenters’, amidst complete failure otherwise. In such state of the world, it is the imposter who has something to explain not the rebel. An overkill would involve showing that the imposter’s work is just an assortment of scattered ideas which fail to assemble as a coherent whole. This latter aim would however be problematic when confronting so-called theorists whose work are like an obscure horoscope, which could have similarities with all kinds of research, without meaning anything. All of this would just be a bonus at this stage.
There is no poetic justice in the system outlined above, in terms of a single deterministic trajectory that implies self-inflicted damage, such as an overall erosion of cognitive capacity or lowering of the standards. In principle, the guardians of the system could improve the matching of ideas and safety. Full transparency is compatible with new discoveries, and even dissident views, as I have illustrated above. However, unanticipated events, ideological fanaticism and corruption could deform humankind with such system in place.
Back to reality. it is finally time to summarise some of the findings. Dentith and Orr’s concepts have been shown to collapse on their own and do not support a coherent framework suitable for analysis of conspiracy and secrecy. One of the more piquant details of their confusion, is that they managed to classify a whole set of theories as ‘prima facieunlikely’ on the basis of arbitrary or vague labels. This is a practice which Dentith usually condemns (see e.g. Dentith, 2014).
The PDAP are not a conspiracy theory but a framework which can be used to analyse such phenomena and theories. From this foundation, it is among other things possible to infer that not only are powerful conspiracies viable, they are moreover expected to emerge, and are sources of conflict. The Cambridge Conspiracy illustrates that a massive conspiracy with global influence can be sustained and remain unseen if the PDAP are obeyed. It is an example where adherence to (i)-(iii) results in an organization where (iv)-(vi) are sustained. Although some may consider the results unexpected and unrealistic, facts seem to be stranger than fiction as usual.
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