Things I Know I Know

Them:Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson.
I sort of didn't get this book. Was it trying to educate me about what's going on in the world? Did it have some sort of over all messsage for me about extremists and the world we live in? Was it trying to be funny? And who were we supposed to be worried about at the end of the book? The extremists? Or 'Them'? (Them being the 'international bankers' who rule the world from a small room in some unnamed city).

And yet, it was an interesting book. I was reminded as I was reading it of a conversation I'd had recently with a friend of mine about people who throw themselves enthusiastically into turtle worship or animal magic or the seven secret senses (I'm making these things up, but it wouldn't actually surprise me to find you could google for them and find something). These people are looking for something and they often find it in enthusiastic words or promises that almost speak to that empty thing inside them or explanations that make a certain kind of sense out of inexplicable events. And they grab onto these things because they want something so badly that means something. That was the sense I got from many of the extremists Ronson talks to in his books. Their searching, though, has turned to hatred and anger and a need to strike at something, which makes them dangerous, in my book, and not particularly amusing.

And one of Ronson's points (at least I think this was a point) is a good one, that there is much to be worried about in the world and even if it's not 'international bankers,' there is consolidation and globalization and corporatization and those are problems that we shouldn't ignore simply because terrorism and extremism is also a problem.