The most well-known and controversial solution to the paradox of fiction is Kendall Walton’s, according to whom pity of (say) Anna Karenina is not genuine pity. Walton’s opponents argue that we can resolve the paradox of fiction while preserving the intuition that our response to Anna is ordinary, run-of-the-mill pity; and they claim that retaining this intuition explains more than Walton’s approach. In my view, the arguments of Walton’s opponents depend on idiosyncratic features of examples involving purely fictional characters like (...) Anna Karenina. What is really at issue is the fact that we respond emotionally to fiction in ways that are not explained by our beliefs, but instead by what we imagine. That this is the crux of the paradox of fiction becomes clear only when we consider fictions about real persons and events. And I contend that once we turn our attention to these cases, Walton’s theory proves significantly more explanatory than the opposition. (shrink)

In this article I take the US television series Mad Men as an exemplary ‘approximation’, a term I adopt to signal the way in which certain texts construct a changeable, fluid ‘truth’ resulting from collisions, exchange and dialectical argument. Approximations are layered, their formal layerings mirroring a layered, multifaceted argument. Mad Men integrates and represents real historical events within a fictional setting, and act that suggests that an event or action can never be finished, fixed and not open to reassessment. (...) Specifically, this article examines ‘The Grown Ups’, Episode 12 of Season 3, which charts the events of 22 November 1963, the day Kennedy was assassinated. Although we might be able to bring to mind the images and conspiracy theories that have been made available since, these images were not available at the time. Mad Men as a series always strives to represent its historical milieu as authentically as possible, so the characters re-enact 22 November 1963 as authentically as possible by watching only what was on television that day. The contemporary backdrop to these events, including the resonances of ‘9/11’ through Mad Men, inform and collide with the authenticity on the screen. (shrink)

The distinction between misinformation and disinformation becomes especially important in political, editorial, and advertising contexts, where sources may make deliberate efforts to mislead, deceive, or confuse an audience in order to promote their personal, religious, or ideological objectives. The difference consists in having an agenda. It thus bears comparison with lying, because lies are assertions that are false, that are known to be false, and that are asserted with the intention to mislead, deceive, or confuse. One context in which disinformation (...) abounds is the study of the death of JFK, which I know from more than a decade of personal research experience. Here I reflect on that experience and advance a preliminary theory of disinformation that is intended to stimulate thinking on this increasingly important subject. Five kinds of disinformation are distinguished and exemplified by real life cases I have encountered. It follows that the story you are about to read is true. (shrink)

The philosopher Quassim Cassam has described a concept called ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (capitalized) that includes several ‘special features’ that distinguish such theories from other theories positing conspiracies. Conspiracy Theories, he argues, are unlikely to be true. Indeed, he implies that they are, as a class of ideas, so unlikely to be true that we are justified in responding to them by criticizing the ideology they are (presumed to be) associated with, rather than engaging them solely on their individual epistemic merits. This (...) article argues that Cassam’s ‘special features’ are ambiguous. Under some interpretations, they are not epistemically problematic. Under other interpretations, they do not fairly describe many of the theories Cassam treats as examples of Conspiracy Theories. In the end, there seems to be no interpretation of these features that would justify the inference that theories Cassam treats as Conspiracy Theories, including JFK Conspiracy Theories, can be reasonably dismissed on account of having these features. (shrink)

This paper begins with a puzzle about certain temporal expressions: phrases like ‘Jones as he was ten years ago’ and ‘the Jones of ten years ago’. There are reasons to take these as substantival, to be interpreted as terms for temporal parts. But it seems that the same reifying strategy would also force us to countenance a host of less attractive posits, among them fictional counterparts of real things (to correspond to such phrases as ‘Garrison as he was in the (...) movie JFK') and much more. I argue that there is a better way: we need only the idea of pretense or make‐believe to make sense of claims embedding such phrases, leaving us with no reason, so far, to accept an ontology of temporal parts. (shrink)

The following interview was conducted on July 13, 2009 at the JFK Institute for Graduate Studies, Freie Universität in Berlin, shortly after a conference, entitled “Class in Crisis: Das Prekariat zwischen Krise und Bewegung,” at which Harvey delivered a keynote address. The conference, organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, engaged the political, socio-economic, and conceptual dimensions of the so-called precariat class. The precariat (das Prekariat or la précarité) is typically defined by short-term employment, persistent marginalization, and social insecurity—something of a (...) fragmented urban underclass whose precariousness is increasingly evident in traditionally middle-class economic life. While the concept of the precariat has yet to take root in English-language social theory, the work of Loïc Wacquant (who also delivered a keynote at the Berlin conference), for example, has been popularizing it. (shrink)

The era of post-modernity has completely changed the way that we see, recognize and question the world, and what we accept to be true. During and after the 1960s many witnessed the rise of a greater multiplicity of local narratives. Prior to this, the grand narratives of the past, such as religion, the Enlightenment, and science were taken as whole, singular truths. However, such metanarratives tend to ignore the individual experiences that do not fit neatly into categories constructed by major (...) institutional authorities. This disconnection from the personal pushed more people to doubt, in favour of the narrative where the Self is visible and heard. It can be argued that this revolution in thought, and meaning and narrative-making in America grew after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. By examining Jean-Francois Lyotard’s theory of postmodernity, and those who expanded on his ideas, we can highlight how the assassination of JFK marked the onset and rise of the postmodern conspiracy theory. This includes the deconstruction of trust, the breakdown of “objective” reality and identity markers as well as the use of new mass media technologies, such as the film camera and the television. (shrink)

Lizard people, chemtrails, Illuminati, toxic fluoride in the water, radio-controlled chip implants, Jewish cabals, secret NASA technology, poisoned vaccinations, the shooting down of Pan Am Flight 103, government-sponsored brain washing, one-world government, JFK killed by the CIA, JFK killed by the mafia, staged moon landings, alien bodies hidden in military bunkers, Paul is dead, Tupac is alive. Conspiracy theories are endless. Not only are there many of them, but each theory is awash in details that connect innumerable dots. In thinking (...) about how to combat the more insidious kinds of conspiracy theories, legal scholars Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule make the case that conspiracists simply need to be... (shrink)

In the late 1980s and 1990s, American popular culture has been increasingly rife with conspiracy narratives of recent historical events. Among cultural producers, filmmaker Oliver Stone has had a significant impact on popular understanding of American culture in the late twentieth century through a series of docudramas which reread American history through the lens of conspiracy theory and paranoia. This paper examines the films of Oliver Stone-in particular Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, and Nixon-asking why they have (...) achieved popularity and brought about catharsis, why they are the subject of attack, and why it is useful to look beyond the debate about truth and falsehood that has surrounded them. It analyzes the ways in which Stone's status as a Vietnam veteran allowed Platoon to be accorded the authenticity of survivor discourse, whereas JFK and Nixon were subject to almost hysterical attack, not only because of Stone's assertions of conspiracy, but also because of his cinematic style of tampering with famous images. Taking these films as its point of departure, this paper examines the role of images in the construction of history, the form of the docudrama, the reenactment of historical images, fantasies of history, and ways in which paranoia is part of the practice of citizenship. (shrink)

The past fifty years have been a time of immense change in Ireland, as the country has moved from a traditional to a modern society. The introduction of electricity, the 'quiet revolution', was accompanied by changes in attitudes to Church, sex, relationships, property, emigration - to life in general. In that short time people have absorbed massive change, often enthusiastically, though perhaps with the occasional pang of regret for the 'old ways'. Here we see the faces, the landscapes and the (...) life of that recently disappeared Ireland - Jack Lynch, JFK, Grace Kelly, Dev, de Gaulle, the Troubles, folk traditions - alongside the new faces and the new styles of our modern society. (shrink)

… eschatology. Imagine: it’s a sunny morning of January 20, 1961 in Washington D. C. JFK is delivering his presidential inaugural speech. He has just taken his oath of office. All of people is listening to him with attention and admiration (somebody perhaps with envy and hate). It’s his complete gesture (henceforth CG), the CG both of a man and of a nation. Recognition of identity through change [A=B] takes place, from the very beginning of the presidential address, as recognition (...) of the iden... (shrink)

The following interview was conducted on July 13, 2009 at the JFK Institute for Graduate Studies, Freie Universität in Berlin, shortly after a conference, entitled “Class in Crisis: Das Prekariat zwischen Krise und Bewegung,” at which Harvey delivered a keynote address. The conference, organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, engaged the political, socio-economic, and conceptual dimensions of the so-called precariat class. The precariat (das Prekariat or la précarité) is typically defined by short-term employment, persistent marginalization, and social insecurity—something of a (...) fragmented urban underclass whose precariousness is increasingly evident in traditionally middle-class economic life. While the concept of the precariat has yet to take root in English-language social theory, the work of Loïc Wacquant (who also delivered a keynote at the Berlin conference), for example, has been popularizing it. (shrink)