Pronoia

The pronoia (plural pronoiai; Greek: πρόνοια, meaning "care" or "forethought") was a system of granting dedicated streams of state income to individuals and institutions in the late Byzantine Empire. Beginning in the 11th century and continuing until the empire's conquest in the 15th century, the system differed in significant ways from European feudalism of the same period.

The institution

A pronoia was a grant that temporarily transferred imperial fiscal rights to an individual or institution. These rights were most commonly taxes or incomes from cultivated lands, but they could also be other income streams such as water and fishing rights, customs collection, etc. and the various rights to a specific piece of geography could be granted to separate individuals. Grants were for a set period, usually lifetime, and revokable at will by the Emperor. When institutions, usually monasteries, received grants they were effectively in perpetuity since the institutions were ongoing. Grants were not transferable or (except for certain excepts late in the institution) hereditary; a pronoia gave the grantee possession, not ownership, which remained Imperial.

Pronoia (psychology)

Pronoia is a neologism that is defined as the opposite state of mind to paranoia: having the sense that there is a conspiracy that exists to help the person. It is also used to describe a philosophy that the world is set up to secretly benefit people.

In 2008 the writer and Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow defined pronoia as "the suspicion the Universe is a conspiracy on your behalf".

Usage

The concept may have first appeared in 1982, when the academic journal Social Problems published an article entitled "Pronoia" by Dr. Fred H. Goldner of Queens College describing a phenomenon opposite to paranoia and providing numerous examples of specific persons who displayed such characteristics. It received a good deal of publicity at the time, including references in Psychology Today, The New York Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, etc.

It was subsequently picked up in England and written about as described below. Wired Magazine published an article in issue 2.05 (May 1994) titled "Zippie!". The cover of the magazine featured a psychedelic image of a smiling young man with wild hair, a funny hat, and crazy eyeglasses. Written by Jules Marshall, the article announced an organized cultural response to Thatcherism in the United Kingdom. The opening paragraphs of the article describe "a new and contagious cultural virus" and refer to pronoia as "the sneaking feeling one has that others are conspiring behind your back to help you". The article announces a cultural, musical, invasion of the United States to rival the British Invasion of 1964-1966, culminating with a "Woodstock Revival" to be staged at the Grand Canyon in August 1994. The spokesperson for the Zippies, Fraser Clark, dubs this movement the "Zippy Pronoia Tour".

Pronoia (disambiguation)

Pronoia may refer to: