From Awakening to Animation
On the need to embrace and build the post-liberal world
The thing about Alex Jones is, for the first ~15% of his rants, I’m more or less completely on board. I feel in his words a fury at a world of disconnection and alienation, where autonomy is sold off to automation and anything that feels innately human gets drowned out in the march of industrial progress. I get it. I feel it too. I get how people get drawn in.
There’s a spark there of sincere emotion. If you look only at where his rants lead, the dangerous vitriol and absurd reactionary paranoia, you might miss that spark. Understandably so — such hatred has real and dire consequences for those who are already the most vulnerable in our society — but for a moment, I want to consdier that initial spark on its own.
See how it dances and glows, how it lights up something in you, too. Something we all might feel, in our own ways. When all we see is the devastating wildfire it’s raged into, it’s easy to assume everyone who shares that spark must be an arsonist. It’s easy to forget how many people were drawn into setting fires not by hatred and cruelty, but by that spark.
I feel that way about a lot of the worst impulses in our culture: hateful, fearful, cynical and dangerous, and yet, there is still a kernel of sincerity to be found…
