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How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

openculture.com

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Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#51

Post by Kamq »

saghm wrote: post #48
throwaway8877 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is necessarily no cross-links between all of them, but there is a link. If you can't imagine that a state that is obsessively dreaming about the world revolution and has a wide spy network and large group of naive sympathisers doesn't try to infiltrate all the possible influential counter cultures then you are a little too naive.

> If you can't imagine that a state that is obsessively dreaming about the world revolution and has a wide spy network and large group of naive sympathisers doesn't try to infiltrate all the possible influential counter cultures then you are a little too naive. Being able to imagine something isn't concrete proof that it exists. "There's a first time for everything" isn't literally true; plenty of totally plausible t…

I mean, that's kinda fair. But it's also a much lower bar to suspect that a group might be infiltrated when we're talking about an entity with a proven track-record of infiltrating and espionage. Doubly so during the cold war, when this kind of thing was normalized.

I also wouldn't be that surprised if you told me the CIA managed to infiltrate some philosophy group. Hell, they funded Jackson Pollock.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#52

Post by BLKNSLVR »

saghm wrote: post #47
hackandthink wrote: post #39

"Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." I feel the same. Lévy often seems to be a manichean ideologue, but I found his Sartre book revealing: "Levy depicts Sartre as a man who could succumb to the twentie…

> "Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." Honestly, what's crazy about that to me is the idea that he _must_ be one or the other. The idea that every writer is actively and wholeheartedly trying to advanc…

The article does address that:

> The black-and-white, spy-vs-spy world of the FBI left lit­tle room for philo­soph­i­cal nuance and lit­er­ary ambi­gu­i­ty, after all.

It's classic authoritarian thinking where even the perception of a small stain ruins the entire outfit.

But then, in stating the above that way I have, that could be an example of the same; putting into a small box those who put others into a small box.

In defense of my argument: it is the policy and process of intelligence services and law enforcement that creates the small box thinking, not the individuals who are employed to pursue it, whilst those they are putting into the small boxes are individuals with all the many colours of opinion, subjectivity, and experience that make up their whole, and cannot be accurately small-boxed.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#53

Post by JadeNB »

The OpenCulture link points to an article http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/art-books/camus-sartre-fbi... on Prospect Magazine, but the link doesn't work. It appears to be meant to point to https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/51776/the-fbi-fil... .

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#54

Post by krapp »

hk__2 wrote: post #12
throwaway8877 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is necessarily no cross-links between all of them, but there is a link. If you can't imagine that a state that is obsessively dreaming about the world revolution and has a wide spy network and large group of naive sympathisers doesn't try to infiltrate all the possible influential counter cultures then you are a little too naive.

> If you can't imagine that a state that is obsessively dreaming about the world revolution and has a wide spy network and large group of naive sympathisers doesn't try to infiltrate all the possible influential counter cultures then you are a little too naive. How are Blacks, communists and poets “counter cultures”?

>How are Blacks, communists and poets “counter cultures”?

You don't understand American culture at all if you can even ask this question sincerely.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#56

Post by krapp »

LtWorf wrote: post #28
jjackson5324 wrote: post #20

Funny enough, if you look at polling data of Americans... amongst people who actually lived during the JFK assassination & later investigation and kept up with all the details.... only about 11% believed the official narrative. More than 80% thought the official narrative was a lie. Nowadays (when most Americans have just read about it in history textbooks), it feels like most people believe the official narrative an…

Well I'm quite convinced that the crazy conspiracy theories are there to dismiss all of them in block. And of course some conspiracies ARE real.

The crazy conspiracy theories are there because people believe in crazy conspiracies.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#57

Post by underlipton »

hackandthink wrote: post #39

"Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." I feel the same. Lévy often seems to be a manichean ideologue, but I found his Sartre book revealing: "Levy depicts Sartre as a man who could succumb to the twentie…

It's almost as if exceptional thinkers don't always fit inside an ideological box or something.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#58

Post by pi-e-sigma »

toyg wrote: post #41
pessimizer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect You can just read. The most surprising thing about WWII, at least to many Nazis, is that the US and Britain didn't join the Axis. German theories about race were largely drawn from British and American sources. The US fought WWII with a racially segregated military.

That is more an indication of how fundamentally naive many Nazis were. British rulers always aimed to break up any significantly large European power, it's been their obvious geopolitical imperative from before Elizabethan times. That necessity trumps any vague sympathy or political affinity du jour . They would never have allowed Hitler to take over the whole continent.

It's a bit more complicated than that, though. Because the alternative was to let the Soviets take over the whole continent. And in that 'framework' the UK aligning with the Nazis was actually more natural choice.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#59

Post by underlipton »

krapp wrote: post #54
hk__2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't imagine that a state that is obsessively dreaming about the world revolution and has a wide spy network and large group of naive sympathisers doesn't try to infiltrate all the possible influential counter cultures then you are a little too naive. How are Blacks, communists and poets “counter cultures”?

>How are Blacks, communists and poets “counter cultures”? You don't understand American culture at all if you can even ask this question sincerely.

It truly does seem like it would be an easy thing to ascertain just from knowing about the existence of the Black National Anthem, the Communist Manifesto, and Howl.

Then again, it's also characteristic of mainstream American culture to try to discourage people from acknowledging them.

Re: How the FBI targeted Camus, and then Sartre after the JFK assassination (2013)

#60

Post by underlipton »

zozbot234 wrote: post #3
aebtebeten wrote: post #2

> ... there must be some kind of conspiracy between communists, blacks, poets and French philosophers. If you can connect these dots, then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_(game) might be for you! (but see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._U... )

I'm pretty sure that " ... there must be some kind of conspiracy " is the literal definition of a Conspiracy Theory. Nice to see that even the FBI is into that fun stuff.

Accusation, confession, etc.
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