Lies and Other Alternatives

After 9/11 the American writer Jedediah Purdy travelled to the Middle East and other regions to gain clarity on how the United States was perceived abroad. In Egypt he discovered where conspiracy theories come from. Purdy’s resulting book, Being America (2003), recounted interviews with residents of Cairo who described Osama bin Laden as a “hero” for bringing down the Twin Towers. In the next breath however they insisted that 9/11 was actually an inside job carried out by the American or Israeli governments. What explains people’s capacity to believe such an inconsistent and conspiratorial view? Purdy noted that the Egyptian press was controlled by the state, then led by Hosni Mubarak, which rendered the public sphere a realm of propaganda. Its central function was to suggest that the government could not be blamed for the country’s economic and other problems, which were the handiwork of sinister anti-Egyptian forces. “Their theories of...