proposal

The Founding of America and Conspiracy Theories

From the time around the 2016 US presidential election, terms like "post-truth" and "conspiracy theory" began to gain currency.1 Ten years have passed, but the ominous reality foreseen by such words has only intensified, with no signs of improvement.

The subject of this essay is whether the phenomena upholding the Trump administration can be explained from the perspective of the founding history of the United States, and, if possible, how. Proposing the theme in this manner may seem unusual. At first glance, the two may look unrelated, or that a stark contrast is obvious between the glorious founding of the United States, with the Declaration of Independence as nucleus, and the dismal state of American politics today. Ordinary people may tend to lament the demise of the American founding spirit after a lapse of 250 years.

However, closer inspection of America's founding history would indicate that such a simplistic assessment is inappropriate—the truth is the opposite. Many founding historians (particularly those following the lineage of Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood) have pointed out that the founding history of America was fraught with various conspiracy theories.2, 3 Given this, examining the founding history, laden with conspiracy theories, may enable a comparative analysis of contemporary American politics, which is similarly abundant with conspiracy theories.

Undertaking the task of comparing past and present―an unsuitable task for a historian, the present author traces the development of conspiracy theories in America's founding history, adopting an abstract political-theoretical discourse, and then discusses the so-called "democratic retreat" in contemporary America (and in many developed countries, including Japan). The author was motivated to write this essay by the seriousness of the current situation and the deplorable reality that academia offers only superficial discourse and stunts, and is unable to respond sincerely to the issues before us.

According to previous studies,4 conspiracy theories surrounding the founding of America were narrower in meaning than today's nonsensical conspiracy theories, primarily referring to a style of thinking that "a single ruler is secretly plotting to confiscate freedom of many citizens and to impose tyranny." Bernard Bailyn's classic work, "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" (1967), argues that this style of thinking during the founding era of America had its origins in British rule during the colonial period (particularly the rule of governors sent from Britain). This essay aims to reexamine and elaborate on this classic understanding of America's founding history.

The political thought associated with conspiracy theories in the lead-up to American independence can be analyzed along the following five phases, which are considered to be applicable to the development of many conspiracy theories.

A: The Shaping of Conflict Axes

First, the birth of partisan conflict. Partisan conflict is inherent to politics, but the question here is along what axis of conflict the parties are formed. For example, in contemporary Japan, conflict arises between political parties. Conflict may arise between different races, ethnicities, religions, or genders (these are not mutually exclusive, but some of them may overlap). Certain attributes are first recognized; groups are then formed around them, and afterward conflict emerges between these groups. Thus, the bone of contention is prepared, and partisan conflict arises.

There are two possible sequences: groups are formed around certain attributes, and then conflict arises between them; conversely, some personal conflict or a conflict of interest precedes, and the formation of attributes or categories follows.

In the context of American independence, conflict developed in Britain along several overlapping axes. First, it should not be overlooked that fixed parties had already been formed in Britain: the Whigs and the Tories. Approximately 100 years before American independence, on the eve of the Glorious Revolution, England was divided between those willing to submit to the power of the Stuart monarchy and those who supported the power of Parliament. The Glorious Revolution gave a twist to this partisan conflict, dividing the Royalists into those who supported the new joint monarchs William III and Mary II and those who continued to support the former king, James II. In addition, when Whig rule stabilized under Robert Walpole's long premiership from the 1720s, the factious conflict erupted between those who supported Walpole and those who did not. Disagreement also occurred over the specific form of colonial rule.

George III's ascension to the throne in 1760 gave rise to a dominant faction, known as the "Friends of the King," and a faction that preferred a more parliamentary and democratic approach to politics. Criticism of George III's entourage grew within some quarters of Parliament. The partisan and factional conflict in Britain overlapped with conflict in colonial politics.

Edmund Burke's "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents" (1770) was a contemporary description of this partisan and factional conflict in the British homeland. Burke described one characteristic of British politics at the time as the "double cabinet." He argued that the king's courtiers and the cabinet as a political institution were distinct, and that the former held political power. This complex formation of parties and factions was a defining feature of British politics throughout the 18th century. The same was true for the American colonies, where there were Royalists who fervently supported the king and others who prioritized colonial autonomy. Thus, parties and factions formed in the colonies the way they did in the British homeland.

B: Conflict of Discourses

The next phase is a stage where a conflict between discourses supports conflict. Conflict manifests itself in concrete human actions. The primary political means to take are discourse or violence; in many cases, discourse aims at persuasion, while violence aims at domination or annihilation.

A conflict of discourses arises when a speaker sincerely believes in his discourse and seeks to persuade others or to have himself understood by them. However, many political discourses are used as an instrument by a speaker who does not necessarily believe in them, solely to persuade others and to achieve his objectives. In that case, the speaker employs rhetoric to weave discourses.

How a listener judges the other person's speech―false or true, for example―varies considerably depending on the context. Even if conflict arises between them, as long as it does within the allowance of mutual trust, the listener will trust in the other person's discourse. If this happens on the level of a partisan conflict, the conflict will remain a conflict of discourses. Conversely, in many cases, trust in each other's discourse is not attainable, leading to mutual distrust.

When British politicians, who ended the Seven Years' War with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, initially proposed new economic policies, they considered the move as an extension of the colonial policies that had been in place since 1748. However, the colonists did not see it that way, but as a sudden shift from the so-called "Salutary Neglect." Consequently, they initiated a conflict of discourses, highlighting Britain's mistakes. Initially, their protest was successful, and as a result, the Stamp Act of 1765 was repealed. Yet, Britain continued to implement a series of oppressive policies against the colonies, including the Declaratory Act (1766) and the Townshend Acts (1767).

As a consequence, various individual political pamphlets were published, and the debate became complicated. The logic of colonial resistance was diverse, ranging from the argument for "no taxation without representation," the natural right of emigration, to dominion theory. Each argument was subject to objections from supporters of the mother country's policies. Eventually, it became difficult to see who was arguing with whom and how, due to the long distance and time difference between the mother country and the colonies.

C: Mutual Distrust

Inundated and confused by conflicting discourses, even the parties concerned lose sight of what and where there is conflict. The accumulation of conflicting discourses, coupled with the persistent failure to improve partisan divisions, solidifies and rigidifies parties and factions. The flood of information thus deepens the divide between opposing sides, accelerating mutual distrust. Borrowing today's terminology, it might be called polarization.5 Incidentally, the flood of information may appear something new with the advent of social media and generative AI, but it has been occurring at any time throughout history.6

As distrust between two different parties (or factions) grows at an accelerated pace, it leads to a situation where one party no longer takes the other's discourse at face value. The discourse that the party fabricates for the purpose of persuasion is no longer taken literally by the other party. As a result, each party comes to read between the lines of the opponent's discourse.

In the late 1760s, distrust and jealousy increased in British and American politics. This was because, despite persistent backlash from the colonies, Britain stubbornly refused to respond.

Amid this situation, the colonists concluded that there was a consistent design or plan behind Britain's repeated unreasonable policies; Britain was trying to deprive the colonial people of freedom and to subjugate them to servitude. Thus, the colonists became inclined toward conspiracy theories.

D: Conspiracy

As partisan polarization intensifies and mutual distrust persists amid an influx of information, many rational thinkers tend to seek simplified explanations. The result is conspiracy theories. As is often said, conspiracy theories are not a style of thinking stemming from a lack of intelligence, but rather a trap into which intelligent, logical thinkers can fall.7 When faced with an adverse situation and a deluge of information, yet still striving to understand reality rationally, one may paradoxically come to believe unrealistic explanations. Repeated questions like "Why don't people from the other party understand what I say?" or "Why can't they understand things so obvious?" ultimately lead him to the thought: "Someone must be manipulating them." Otherwise, he thinks, the situation cannot make sense.

During the struggle between Britain and its colonies, the suspicion that someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes first turned to the people around the king, who were equivalent to today's cabinet. Burke's earlier mentioned argument is an example along this line of thinking. Meanwhile, Britain issued a rebuttal along opposite lines, claiming that malevolent colonial politicians had deceived Royalists into turning against the mother country.

A prime example of the line of thought that explains the path from mutual distrust to conspiracy theories is found in Thomas Jefferson's "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" ​​(1774). The following passage, in particular, is a typical pattern of conspiratorial thinking:

"...that rapid and bold succession of injuries which is likely to distinguish the present from all other periods of American story... a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery..."8

The King's proclamation in the fall of 1775, on the other hand, was diametrically opposite to this statement. In response to a petition from the colonies to terminate the fight in the name of the King that had broken out in Massachusetts, he vehemently reacted, stating that some malevolent politicians in the colonies were driving the subjects to rebellion. As is well known, at this point, politicians in the American colonies gave up on King George III and began to earnestly consider the path to independence.

E: Single Personality Worship and Self-Hostility

Conspiracy theories are an attempt to grasp politics rationally amid a deluge of information, but when, nonetheless, incomprehensible political situations unfold, they will generate two other attitudes to address those situations. One of them is single personality worship.

As the divide between opposing parties deepens to the point where nobody can discern what discourses conflict, people start to believe that someone is controlling everything behind the scenes. Paradoxically, this concern about a hidden person changes to a quite strong focus on just one, visible person. Whether people favor that person or not, it is the same thing: they attribute the cause of everything to that one person.

The other resulting attitude is self-hostility. Amid a deluge of information, one's skepticism toward one's own cognitive judgments deepens, and ultimately, one will judge about nothing and fall into an inner conflict. This is a process of dismantling self-recognition within infinite relativization.

While the latter attitude is often obliged to keep silence, the former attitude appeared in many discourses in 1776. A prime example is the Declaration of Independence. Today, the Declaration of Independence is often cited as the origin of human rights ideas; however, this is not the way it was received in its time. The section that attracted the most attention was its lengthy criticism of King George III. The fact, which attracts little attention today, is that roughly two-thirds of the Declaration of Independence is devoted to criticism of George III.

It has been a hard task to assess this section, for scholars could not determine the veracity of many of the criticisms against the king. However, considering this section from a different angle helps understand the real nature of the Declaration of Independence―from the perspective that Jefferson and the other participants in the Continental Congress were under the spell of conspiracy theories. From this perspective, the excessive focus on George III can be interpreted as a reversal of the Royalists' worship of one man, the King, which allowed Jefferson and others to blame everything on the king's conspiracy. This is not the author's original interpretation; David Armitage, for example, also assessed the Declaration of Independence as "the culmination of a theory of conspiracy" that was prevalent among the Founding Fathers.9

This style of thinking among the Founders was carried over into the post-Declaration of Independence era. During the war with Britain, the Founders suspected their own allies of colluding with the enemies, and accusations of espionage, such as the Silas Deane case, were abundant. At the Constitutional Convention, when discussing the specific powers and term of office of the president, concern was expressed about the possibility that the president might collude with foreign countries and bring in foreign troops. When the draft Constitution was finalized in September 1787, those opposed to ratification criticized that the new Constitution aimed to establish one-man rule.

Ironically, as the United States developed afterward, the Declaration of Independence became mythologized. The inveterate condemnation of King George III, which occupies a large portion of the Declaration, was treated as an addendum, and "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" came to be accepted as the Declaration's cardinal message.

Conclusion

In this way, it is only by demystifying the founding of America that we can compare it with contemporary American politics. Then, what message does the founding history have about contemporary American politics (and politics in other developed countries)?

The most important approach is to consider political perception,10 not what are in conflict, but how they are in conflict.11

In today's world of increasing political polarization, a typical solution is to analyze what is in conflict first and then attempt to obliterate the conflict. This creates a pseudo-unity by combining multiple opinions into one (such as "public opinion"). Yet, this is ultimately pseudo-unity, and many things incompatible are rendered invisible under the slogan "Let's all get along." Some advocate dialogue and compromise, but this is little different from an attempt to build a pseudo-unity.

The other approach is to analyze a conflict, keeping it visible. The first step in this process is to articulate more about how the conflict unfolds. More specifically, as discussed in this article, the articulation is a segmentation of conflict into five phases: partisanship, discourses, mutual distrust, conspiracy, and single personality worship. Going from left to right through these phases, the situation becomes increasingly serious. These represent phases regarding an individual, but also applicable to a group (at times, a discrepancy may take place between the two).

These approaches enable us to discern the negative consequences of falling into the pitfall of conspiracy theories, and at what stage we should avoid it. Falling into the pitfall of conspiracy theories is considered to generate irreversible consequences. As is well known, if you tell someone caught up in a conspiracy theory, "this is the truth," it will be of no use, or rather have the opposite effect. Therefore, there is little to be done to awake that person in that stage to the truth. The desideratum is preventative measures before individuals or society fall prey to conspiracy theories.

More specifically, some effort must be made to formulate measures to prevent individuals or society from proceeding from a conflict of discourses to mutual distrust. The issues we must discuss here are the real nature of a conflict of discourses as well as social conditions that support it. When we are in conflict over discourses, what is at stake? How can we understand the public sphere, print culture, communication, and intellectual conditions that uphold the conflict? Herein lies an important key to contemporary political theory.

Conversely, once crossing the line between "a conflict of discourses" and "mutual distrust," people stop taking discourses as such and tend to read between the lines. Passing B (conflict of discourses) through C (mutual distrust) means, in many cases, reaching D (conspiracy), beyond which distrust of all discourses prevails, giving rise to a negative spiral that is hard to rectify.

Therefore, the conclusion of this article is moderate. We should once again carefully examine the aspects of the natural languages we use. Rather than easily jumping to political discourses or reading between the lines, isn't it important to critically examine the position of a particular discourse, or to read it with some detachment, instead of reading between the lines? Otherwise, the path from fake news and conspiracy theories to single personality worship will be swiftly paved. The following remark by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Paper No. 1 is suggestive in this sense:

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."12

(Tsuyoshi Kamimura, Associate Professor, Kwansei Gakuin University)

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