kicker: Chin-Stroking

A Few Words on Buncombe

America is a country made possible by hucksterism and carnival buncombe. It is the birthplace
of both modern PR and advertising, the first place on earth to apply techniques of commercial
marketing to politics, and a country where, for at least thirty years, the main engine of the
economy has been driven by finance, that is, by the magical creation of wealth through financial
securities and derivatives. When you factor in the degree to which U.S. companies that still do
produce commodities are now largely in the business of developing brands and images, you have
a country where capitalism itself has come to operate by whisking value into being by
convincing everyone its there.
On some level, we understand that magic is everywhere. The problem is that we are so
habituated to thinking of ideology in theological terms that weve forgotten to develop the
intellectual tools to understand not only how our countrys magic really operates, but that it does,
in fact, operate in the world of effects. We are not used to tracing the effects of belief because we
are so used to thinking of belief in terms of the inward soul, the state of grace. It helps to live
elsewhere once in a while. OnceinMadagascarIwasstandingatthefootofasacredmountain
withafriendnamedChantalandamagiciannamedRakoto,widelyrumoredtobeamasterof
lovemagic.Iaskediftherumorsofhispowersweretrue.Asamatteroffact,Rakototoldus,
theywereindeedtrue.Hewasamasterofsuchspells.Butcomeon,Chantalinterjected,do
spellsreallywork?
Youdontbelieveme?Rakotoasked.Wellletsputittothetest.Justgivemesome
objectfromyourpocket,acomb,aribbon,anythinglikethat.Illcomeheretothismountain
tomorrowatmidnight,performtheappropriateceremonies,andIllbetyouanythingthatwithin
anhour,youllbeheretoo,broughtasifinatrance,completelynaked.Doyouwanttotry?She
demurred,ofcourse.
<***>
WhatwouldatheoryofAmericalooklikethatfeaturedstorieslikethese?Itwouldstart by
calling out our tell-tale assumption that all political systems must possess some sort of
legitimacy in the eyes of those over whom they rule. It would then remember that our own
system attains its ruling legitimacy by making a series of simple belief propositions, such as
America is a democracy, we are all equal before the law, in a free market everyone is
rewarded according to their merits. Next, it would observe how our politics, conducted in this
fairy tale universe, is largely a matter of trying to convince everyone to believe that these
statements are true. Still, our new theory would you hardly have touched with real question,
which is how in the world are Americans made to believe all these propositions in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Do Americans really believes such statements? Obviously, we must believe them, or else
why would the ideology be so effective? But as anyone who has spent any time in working class
bars or diners or even church picnics can testify, almost no one in America really does believe
such statements. What most Americans are utterly convinced of is that most other Americans
believe them. Most Americans, that is, think that most other Americans are profoundly stupid.
The ideology works by turning the cynical superiority of the huckster, who believes that the
common rout of humanity is composed primarily of hapless suckers, into a tool of social control.

Hey, I can see through it all, we say. The game is rigged. But let me tell you: most people are
really that naive. They actually believe this shit.
The quintessence of American ideology, thus understood, you can find not only on Wall
Street but plastered all over those now-defunct supermarket tabloids like Sun or The Weekly
World Newsnot the kind of tabloids that are mainly about celebrity diet plans and related
fare, but the ones that consist mainly of stories about satanic toasters and space aliens. Theyve
been made irrelevant by the web now, with its endless labyrinths of conspiracy, trolling, and
double-think, its bigfoot sightings, UFO abduction narratives, lunar landing hoax exposs,
lizards, black helicopters, and debates over suppressed memories of satanic ritual abuse. But the
story of those particular tabloids might provide a hint of whats really going on here. In their
heyday, they were read almost exclusively by college students. The students picked them up
largely for the pleasure of scoffing at their imagined readership, which they assume to consist of
ignorant working class housewives who believe the stories.
But the jokes on them. No one believes the stories. The only people being hoodwinked
are those who imagine anyone else would be so damn nave.
David Graeber