A Poetics of Conspiracy

From the brilliant Hakim Bey, father of the "Temporary Autonomous Zone" and author of the seminal Poetic Terrorism:

Rather than speak of conspiracy theory we might instead try to construct a poetics of conspiracy. A conspiracy would be treated like an aesthetic construct, or a language-construct, and could be analyzed like a text. Robert Anton Wilson has done this with his vast and playful "Illuminati" fantasy. We can also use conspiracy theory as a weapon of agit-prop. Conspiracies of "power" make use of sheer disinformation; the least we can do in retaliation is to trace it to its source. Indeed we should avoid the mystique of conspiracy theory, the fantasy that conspiracy is all-powerful. Conspiracies can be blown. They can even be defeated. But I fear they cannot simply be ignored. The refusal to admit any validity to conspiracy theory is itself a form of spectacular delusion-blind belief in the liberal, rational, daylight world in which we all have "rights", in which "the system works", in which "democratic values will prevail in the long run" because Nature has so decreed it.

History is a big mess. Maybe conspiracies don't work. But we have to act as if they do work. In fact the non-authoritarian movement not only needs its own conspiracy theory, it needs its own conspiracies. Whether they "work" or not. Either we all breath together or we each suffocate on our own. "They " are conspiring, never doubt it, those sinister clowns. Not only should we arm ourselves with conspiracy theory, we should have our own conspiracies-our TAZ's-our ontological guerilla commando hit-squads-our Poetic Terrorists- our chaos cabals-our secret societies. Proudhor said so. Bakunin said so. Malatesta said so. It's anarchist tradition.