A story about this — 6 years ago
Finished April 27, 2005.
This book describes Jon Ronson’s “adventures” meeting and following extremists around the world. He interacts with and interviews Muslim extremists, Ku Klux Klan leaders and conspiracy theorists. He presents incidents from these meetings “straight up” – possibly modifying them to be funnier – but without moralising, judging or “trying to set the record straight”. The result is an insight into the deeply weird world and minds of many different kinds of extremists.
One question this book will surely get you to ask is, who is the extremist here? Sometimes, it’s not hard to see. But when you see the K3 leader trying to get his members not to say “the N-word”, or a “white supremacist” trying to rescue his family from the over-enthusiastic armed onslaught of the FBI, you have to wonder. Are we being hypocritical by labelling as “extremist” those who try to lead lives different from the majority? Do we sometimes over-generalise, misjudge and jump to conclusions about them even as they over-generalise, misjudge and jump to conclusions about the rest of society?
My one beef with this book is that the chapters are a little disjoint. You abruptly go from tagging around with an Islamic radical to the Ku Klux Klan. One more-or-less constant entity throughout, though, is the sinister Bilderberg group, whom conspiracy theorists from all points of the political spectrum believe to be the secret cabal that runs the world, and that includes President George Bush (Sr.), Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller. The book culminates in a chapter describing Ronson’s attempt to infiltrate a deeply weird, almost cultish ritual end in the woods of Northern California held by Bilderberg. Satanic cult or over-grown frat boys? Read and decide.
