Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with journalist John H. Richardson. Former Writer at Large for Esquire, John is the author of the captivating article, Children of Ted: The Unlikely New Generation of Unabomber Acolytes, published December 2018 in New York Magazine. In Children of Ted, John takes a deep dive into the world of Theodore Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) acolytes and apostates, a journey that documents his interactions with various individuals and groups that have been inspired (or adjacently-inspired) by the anti-civilizational writings and philosophy of Kaczynski, and even his multiple deadly acts of terrorism leading up to his arrest by the FBI in 1996. While John’s article is centered around the story of John Jacobi, who become radicalized (in part) through his exposure to Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, and his subsequent correspondences with him, the article more broadly examines a phenomenon Richardson describes as Kaczynski Moments. “The Kaczynski moment dislocates. Suddenl