1 of 85

2 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

9/11 Truth Today

Act 1 The Sociology of…

Act 2 The Contaminated Mindware of Bad Thinkers

Act 3 Contentions of 9/11 Truth & Justice

Intermission

3 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

Act 1 Sociology of…

Act 2 Contaminated Mindware

Act 3 Contentions of Truth

Intermission

4 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

5 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of ““Sociology”

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

6 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology of Conflict

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

Georg Simmel (1908)

Domination and subordination; conflict; secrecy and secret societies; Conflict and secrecy are positive forms of sociation that create power advantages for groups: Cui bono

Max Weber (1922)

Legitimate domination by the state and authority; social closure as elite group monopolization; class, status, power stratification

Lewis Coser (1956)

Conflict functions within authority structures to reinforce group boundaries & cohesion against external threats

Ralf Dahrendorf (1959)

Authority relations — the power to command and gain obedience — drive conflict and shape modern inequality and social stratification

Randall Collins (1975)

Conflict is the central process generating power, authority, inequality, and domination across micro and macro levels of society

This slide presents the classic conflict-sociology lineage that runs from Georg Simmel in 1908 to Randall Collins in 1975. Every author on this slide is building on the one before.

Georg Simmel (1908) Full reference: Simmel, Georg. 1908. Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. (English selections in Wolff, Kurt H., ed. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press.) Simmel’s revolutionary insight is that conflict and secrecy are not dysfunctions; they are positive forms of sociation (Vergesellschaftung). Conflict binds antagonists more tightly than harmony ever could, and secrecy creates exclusive in-groups with power advantages over outsiders – the original cui bono argument.

Lewis A. Coser (1956) Full reference: Coser, Lewis A. 1956. The Functions of Social Conflict. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Coser’s entire book is an explicit systematisation of Simmel’s 16 propositions about conflict. He shows that conflict within rigid authority structures acts as a safety valve, reinforces group boundaries, and prevents stagnation – turning Simmel’s formal sociology into testable functional propositions.

Ralf Dahrendorf (1959) Full reference: Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1959. Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dahrendorf shifts the focus from property ownership (Marx) to authority relations (the power to command and the duty to obey). Every authority structure contains the seeds of conflict; therefore modern stratification is rooted in imperatively coordinated associations – a direct extension of Weber’s authority typology and Coser’s functional view.

Max Weber (1922/1978) Full reference: Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1922.) Weber supplies the institutional backbone: legitimate domination (traditional, charismatic, rational-legal) and social closure – the process by which groups monopolise resources and opportunities through exclusion. Conflict and secrecy (Simmel) operate within these structures to maintain domination.

Randall Collins (1975) Full reference: Collins, Randall. 1975. Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science. New York: Academic Press. Collins synthesises the entire tradition into a micro-macro theory: conflict is the central social process that generates power, authority, inequality, and domination. He explicitly credits Simmel for the insight that conflict and secrecy are among the most powerful mechanisms for creating and maintaining stratification (Collins 1975: 60–62, 291–300).

7 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

The Third Annual David Ray Griffin Lecture and Roundtable

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of Sociology of Power

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

Giants: The Global Power Elite (Phillips 2018)

389 individuals at the center of global finance capital control transnational corporations, defense contractors, and policy bodies — aligning interests across borders

Power: A Radical View (Lukes 1974)

The supreme exercise of power is to prevent issues from arising by limiting discourse and shaping the public’s perceptions and interpretations of reality

Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1975)

Power/Knowledge: power is diffused in social relations, producing “truth” and social norms through discourses & disciplinary regimes; “Truth” is produced by power, not reason

The Power Elite (Mills 1956)

Coincidences of interests align power holders in corporate, government, and military authority structures

The New Class Society (Perrucci & Wysong 1999)

A privileged super-class and dependent credentialed class dominate the new inequality system

Who Rules America? (Domhoff 1967/2022)

Corporate rich dominate via interlocking directorates and multi-institutional policy-planning networks

This slide presents the classic and contemporary power-structure tradition from C. Wright Mills in 1956 to Peter Phillips in 2018. Each author shows how power is concentrated, exercised, and protected in modern societies.

C. Wright Mills (1956) Full reference: Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Mills argues that a small, interlocking group at the top of the corporate, governmental, and military hierarchies rules America. Power is not dispersed; it is held by an elite whose “coincidences of interest” align these three domains. This is the foundational statement of elite theory in American sociology.

Steven Lukes (1974/2005) Full reference: Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A Radical View. 2nd exp. ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (Original work published 1974.) Lukes expands Bachrach & Baratz’s two-dimensional view into three (later four) dimensions. The supreme exercise of power is the third dimension: shaping perceptions, cognitions, and preferences so that people do not even recognise their real interests – preventing grievances from ever arising.

Michel Foucault (1975/1977) Full reference: Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon. (Original work published 1975.) Foucault’s “power/knowledge” thesis: power is not only repressive but productive. Through disciplinary regimes (schools, prisons, factories) and surveillance (panopticism), power produces reality, truth, and docile subjects. Knowledge is never neutral – it is always an effect of power.

G. William Domhoff (1967/2022) Full reference: Domhoff, G. William. 2022. Who Rules America? Power, Politics, and Social Change. 8th ed. New York: Routledge. (Original work published 1967.) Domhoff updates Mills with six decades of data: the corporate rich dominate through interlocking directorates, corporate-funded think tanks, and the policy-planning network. This multi-institutional network includes government advisory boards and defense-related foundations.

Robert Perrucci & Earl Wysong (1999/2016) Full reference: Perrucci, Robert, and Earl Wysong. 2016. The New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream? 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (Original work published 1999.) The privileged “super-class” (top 1 %) and a dependent “credentialed class” now dominate the new inequality system. They control economic, political, and cultural institutions, reproducing privilege across generations.

Peter Phillips (2018) Full reference: Phillips, Peter. 2018. Giants: The Global Power Elite. New York: Seven Stories Press. Phillips documents 389 individuals who direct the world’s largest investment firms. These “Giants” control ~$41 trillion in assets and sit on boards of transnational corporations, defense contractors, and government policy bodies – the global extension of Mills’ and Domhoff’s national power elite.

8 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

“The application of the Thomas theorem also suggests how the tragic, often vicious, circle of self-fulfilling prophecies can be broken. The initial definition of the situation which has set the circle in motion must be abandoned. Only when the originating assumption is questioned and a new definition of the situation introduced, does the consequent flow of events give the lie to the assumption. Only then does the belief no longer father the reality” (Robert K. Merton 1968:477).

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Social Definitions of Reality

This slide bridges structural-functionalism with symbolic interactionism and social constructionism through the pivotal concept of the definition of the situation and its consequences. It uses Merton's powerful insight to show how dominant definitions become self-reinforcing realities — and how they can be disrupted. The books represent the lineage that makes this possible.

The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs William Isaac Thomas & Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1928) Knopf The Thomases' famous theorem — “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” — is the foundational insight of symbolic interactionism. Originally formulated in the context of child behaviour and social problems, it shifts focus from objective conditions to subjective interpretations as drivers of social action.

Social Theory and Social Structure (enlarged edition) Robert K. Merton (1968) Free Press (original work published 1949) Chapter XIII: “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” (pp. 475–490 in the 1968 edition) Merton adopts the Thomas theorem and transforms it into the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. The quoted passage (p. 477) explicitly explains how false definitions become true in their consequences, creating vicious circles that can only be broken by abandoning the initial assumption and introducing a new definition of the situation.

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge Peter L. Berger & Thomas Luckmann (1966) Anchor Books Berger and Luckmann extend the Thomas-Merton insight into a full theory: reality is socially constructed through habitualised actions, typifications, and institutionalisation. What begins as a subjective definition becomes objective fact through social processes — the taken-for-granted world that resists challenge.

Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience Erving Goffman (1974) Harvard University Press (with new foreword by Bennett Berger, 1986) Goffman provides the micro-level mechanism: frames are the interpretive schemes that organise experience and define “what is going on.” Dominant frames make alternative definitions appear absurd or illegitimate, reinforcing the self-fulfilling character of institutional realities.

Overall theoretical point The Thomas theorem shows definitions have consequences. Merton shows how they become self-fulfilling — and how they can be broken. Berger & Luckmann show how these definitions become institutionalised reality. Goffman shows how frames police what definitions are even thinkable.

9 of 85

��9/11 TRUTH TODAY:�A SOCIAL MOVEMENT �AT THE PRECIPICE

Presented by:

Richard G. Ellefritz, PhD

Assistant Professor of

Deviantization and Social Problems

University of The Bahamas

RichardEllefritz@gmail.com

@RichEllefritz

This slide traces the sociology of deviance from labeling theory to constructionism, showing how “deviant” identities are created and maintained to protect social order. Each source builds on the previous, culminating in Husting & Orr's direct application to “conspiracy theorist” labeling.

Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity Erving Goffman (1963) Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Goffman's foundational work on how stigmatized individuals manage “spoiled identities” through impression management and interactional rituals. He distinguishes between “discredited” (visible stigmas) and “discreditable” (concealable stigmas), exploring how stigma disrupts social interactions and forces adaptive strategies. Key to your analysis: stigma as a relational process that reinforces boundaries between “normal” and “deviant.”

Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance Howard S. Becker (1963) Glencoe, IL: Free Press Becker's landmark study argues deviance is not a quality of acts but a consequence of rule application by “moral entrepreneurs” who create and enforce norms. Drawing on empirical studies of marijuana users and dance musicians, Becker introduces the “deviant career” concept, showing how labeling produces secondary deviance. Blurb faithful to Ch. 1: “Deviance is created by society.”

Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement Joseph R. Gusfield (1963) Urbana: University of Illinois Press Gusfield reframes moral crusades (e.g., Prohibition) as status politics — battles by dominant groups to reaffirm cultural superiority over “deviant” outsiders. Not just about reform, but about defending symbolic boundaries. Blurb from Ch. 1: moral movements as assertions of status dominance.

Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers Stanley Cohen (1972/2002) London: MacGibbon and Kee (1972); 3rd ed., Routledge (2002) Cohen's classic study of 1960s youth subcultures shows how media and moral entrepreneurs invent “folk devils” (symbolic threats) and amplify panics to restore order. Blurb faithful to Ch. 1: media/control agents as panic creators.

Constructing Social Problems Malcolm Spector & John I. Kitsuse (1977/2001) Menlo Park, CA: Cummings (1977); revised ed., Transaction Publishers (2001) Spector and Kitsuse shift from objective conditions to constructionist claims-making: social problems exist only when groups successfully persuade others of their reality. Blurb from Ch. 1: problems as outcomes of rhetorical activity.

Dangerous Machinery: "Conspiracy Theorist" as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion Ginna Husting & Martin Orr (2007) Symbolic Interaction 30(2): 127–150. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2007.30.2.127 Husting and Orr analyze “conspiracy theorist” as a label that shifts focus from claims to the speaker's competence, functioning as a master-status that excludes from discourse. Blurb faithful to p. 133: transpersonal strategy of exclusion and degradation.

Overall theoretical point Labeling (Becker/Goffman) creates deviance; moral crusades (Gusfield/Cohen) amplify it into panics; claims-making (Spector/Kitsuse) constructs it as a “problem”; and labels like “conspiracy theorist” (Husting & Orr) weaponize it to silence inquiry. For 9/11 Truth, this explains the rapid deviantization of skeptics.

10 of 85