Under the Eye of Power Quotes

“Conspiracy theories, after all, feed on historical amnesia. They depend on your belief that what is happening now has never happened before. They present repetition as novelty. When a moral panic dissipates, its traces are forgotten in a forceful act of collective amnesia. If you are going to make sense of the history, you have to stick with the sense of déjà vu; you have to run in circles if you’re going to get anywhere.”
― Colin Dickey, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy

“The conspiracy theory, in other words, is itself an article of faith. Which is to say, there’s a reason that believers are so resistant to facts that would disprove their theses. On a basic level, the conspiracy theory allows the believer to see the world as they want to see it.”
― Colin Dickey, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy

“Hofstadter fretted that in a “populistic culture like ours, which seems to lack a responsible elite with political and moral autonomy,” democracy was open to being co-opted by “the wildest currents of public sentiment for private purposes,” where “a highly organized, vocal, active, and well-financed minority could create a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible.”
― Colin Dickey, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy