National Security Agency Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
Harvard historian Murray Levin argued that this mood of fear and near-panic that possessed the popular imagination throughout the early Cold War years was not so much a spontaneous reaction as the result of an orchestrated campaign on the part of the power elite. In Levin’s words, “The proponent of political hysteria must maintain high levels of anxiety and justify extreme means to eliminate the threat. The threat, therefore, must be portrayed as enormously powerful and totally evil. This apocalyptic version of the conspiratorial theory of history is a functional necessity.”
The purpose of all the fear mongering was to justify the expansion and reach of the National Security apparatus.
I am a PhD student in Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas-Denton. I began my vocation through a nine year apprenticeship with my mentor, Richard M. Owsley. I can be found around Denton troubling students and professors about this and that. A fringe scholar wandering the borderlands between the Academy and the World, I love the hell out of Socrates and Yoda while tending to act like William S. Burroughs and Jaba the Hut. My current projects include studies of the Dào Dé Jing, the intersection of Karl Jaspers’ periechontology with Tarot, and the challenge of queering existential hermeneutics.
CALL ME MAGGIE 
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