Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're plunging
headfirst into the really extraordinary and often,
well, frankly, bizarre career of John Ronson.
He's that British -American journalist, author,
filmmaker. You know the one. Yeah, and our mission
today, it's pretty specific. We want to really
get under the hood of how... Ronson operates,
you know, what's his system? He's become this
like go to guide for the world's weirdest corners.
And we're aiming to go beyond just summarizing
his books. You're right. We're trying to dissect
his whole investigative approach, that faux naive
character thing he talks about. It's what lets
him into spaces. I mean, places most journalists
would just get the door slammed in their face.
That's absolutely the core of it, isn't it? Yeah.
How does someone jump from, say, investigating
militant extremists one minute to corporate psychopaths
the next and then on to psychic military experiments?
all while keeping that same distinctive, slightly
baffled kind of voice. And the sources we've
got stacked up here, I mean, it's... incredibly
comprehensive. We're talking nine books, decades
of stuff for major outlets like The Guardian,
loads of TV and radio. And of course, those big
film adaptations. He often gets tagged as a gonzo
journalist, right? That very participatory story
driven style. But he mixes it with this sort
of light touch skepticism. His signature is definitely
that faux naïve thing. He's always informal,
but like intensely curious. Yeah. And it makes
these deep dives into really controversial fringe
politics and science seem almost, well, easy,
effortless even. And the genius there, I think,
is that he refuses to be the judge or, you know,
the ultimate expert piping up. He's more like
the listener's stand in the slightly overwhelmed
guide navigating these strange lands of. the
radical fringe. Exactly. So for you listening
in, Ronson's career is just a total masterclass
in uncovering those really hidden stories, getting
past the shouty headlines to connect these, I
don't know, crazy sounding ideas that actually
have real world impact, sometimes systemic impact.
Okay, so let's unpack this, this really unique
career, starting with how that foundational style,
the faux naïve thing, was kind of forged back
in the UK media scene. Right. So his origin story,
it starts in Cardiff, Wales. Born there. May
10th, 1967. Went to Cardiff High School. Okay.
And his first taste of media was actually working
for CBC Radio right there in Cardiff. So he got
comfortable with audio storytelling pretty early
on. Ah, interesting. But the big move was London,
wasn't it? For that media degree at the Polytechnic
of Central London PCO. Yeah, that was pivotal.
That mix of, you know, theory and practice, it
really set the stage for his big break in journalism
where he basically became the main character
in his own stories. Right. And that came through
Time Out magazine. Exactly. He got his initial,
like, widespread fame writing a column for Time
Out. And crucially, this wasn't just, you know,
him writing opinions. It was based on these kind
of wild, often really awkward challenges he set
for himself. Right. Participatory. Yeah. Establishing
that pattern early, infiltrating things. Can
you give an example? I remember reading about
some of the crazier ones. Well, yeah, there was
the time he managed to talk his way into a job
at a major London law firm knowing absolutely
nothing about law. No way. How? Just by adopting
this like confident, maybe slightly unhinged
persona. He was deliberately putting himself
into these high pressure situations he was totally
unqualified for. Just see what happened. Documenting
the chaos. That sounds like pure Ronson. And
that column, that highly personal style, it translated
almost immediately to TV. There was that BBC
Two series, The Ronson Mission, back in 93. Ah,
yes. And his first book, Clubbed Class, followed
right after 1994. That really put the style down
in print. Clubbed Class. That's the one where
he bluffs his way into the jet set life, isn't
it? Trying to find the ultimate holiday. That's
the one. It's fascinating because he wasn't rich
or anything, but he convinced all these high
society types that he belonged. The whole thing
was an exercise in, well, deception, but rooted
in genuine curiosity. So he's infiltrating this
privileged world using a fake persona. It's exactly
the template he uses later with, like... Cult
leaders and extremists. Precisely. And this period
really cemented him as a regular contributor
everywhere. The Guardian, obviously, where his
later columns about his home life and stuff became
really popular. City life, time out again. So
people started recognizing the how as much as
the what. That slightly bemused, wide -eyed thing.
Yeah, that was becoming his brand. Okay, let's
dig into that methodology a bit more. The faux
naif approach. You said it's not just a quirk,
it's tactical. How does showing up looking slightly
baffled actually help when you're talking to,
say, a dangerous extremist? Well, it's the ultimate
way to disarm someone, isn't it? If you march
in like you already know they're completely nuts,
they just clam up. Right. Defenses go up. Exactly.
But Ronson comes in seeming genuinely bewildered,
but also, crucially, Open to the possibility
that they might have a point, he gives them the
benefit of the doubt, at least initially. Ah,
so they feel heard. Respected, even. Yeah. And
that encourages them to really unpack their worldview,
you know. And often in doing that, they reveal
the vulnerabilities or the human motivations
behind the extreme ideas. So his curiosity is
like an invitation, not a weapon. He lets them
lead him. Even down their own maybe illogical
paths. Yeah. Until he sees the connection. Exactly.
Until he's ready to link their little story to
some bigger societal truth. Publishers Weekly
really nailed this when they reviewed them. They
said what's remarkable is how he reveals the
all too real machinations of Western society's
radical fringe. By not doing a hard -nosed expose.
Right. It's more like a gentle skeptical unwrapping
of the story from the inside. He gets people
to kind of volunteer their own contradictions
often without realizing it. Okay. So that investigated.
template that brings us straight to book number
two the really iconic one them adventures with
extremists that was 2001 yeah this is where he
properly cemented that reputation for diving
into the ridiculous and finding it's secretly
tied to something well shockingly serious the
core quest of them He's trying to infiltrate
the shadowy cabal, right? The one conspiracy
theorists think rules the world. Pretty much.
It reads like an adventure story, really. The
conspiracy itself is almost the main character.
And Ronson's like the detective following this
trail that might lead absolutely nowhere. Or
it might lead to a secret meeting in the woods
somewhere. Or, yeah, like the Bilderberg group
meeting. And the people he actually met for that
book. I mean, the list is just staggering. It's
the whole spectrum of fringe paranoia. People
who exist way outside polite society, but sometimes
have a very real influence. Who are we talking
about specifically? Well, there's David Icke.
Ah, the lizard guy. The lizard guy, yeah. But
Ronson treats him not just as, you know, crazy,
but as this fascinating figure trying to piece
together these incredibly complex, elaborate
ideas. Then there was Randy Weaver. From Ruby
Ridge? Yeah, the white separatist from the Ruby
Ridge standoff. He met Omar Bakri Mohammed, the
militant Islamist preacher. Ian Paisley, the
controversial Northern Irish politician. And
didn't he meet Alex Jones way back then, too?
He did. That's a really relevant detail now,
isn't it? He interviewed Alex Jones and Thomas
Robb from the Ku Klux Klan. This was when Jones
was genuinely a fringe figure, like literally
shouting with a bullhorn outside Bilderberg meetings.
Wow. So Ronson was there. documenting the seed
of that movement. Absolutely. He describes following
these independent investigators who were obsessed
with groups like Bilderberg. He captures their,
you know, desperate intensity, but also points
out how sometimes, surprisingly, they get kind
of close to these hidden power structures. So
when he met Jones, Jones was basically a street
activist. Yeah, pretty much. And Ronson's narrative
really captured that foundational psychology,
the thing that would later make Jones such a
huge and often, let's face it, dangerous figure
in american media louis theroux who kind of fishes
in similar waters journalism wise he called them
a funny and compulsively readable picaresque
adventure that sums it up perfectly it's funny
because it's so absurd until you suddenly realize
the depth of belief and the real world sometimes
violent connections these people have and the
book clearly hit a nerve Universal bought the
film rights back in 2005. Yeah, which shows how
marketable his whole blend of the bizarre and
the serious had become, even if, ironically,
other books got adapted first. Right. But Ronson
didn't just stick with civilian conspiracy theorists,
did he? He found out... The government was doing
stuff that sounded just as weird. Well, exactly.
That leads straight into his next big project,
his third book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, from
2004. This one shifts gears completely. He goes
from citizen extremists right into the inner
workings of the shadow military. The First Earth
Battalion. Specifically, yeah. A secret New Age
unit inside the U .S. Army called the First Earth
Battalion. Okay, the military doing New Age stuff.
That sounds like parody, but it was real. Oh,
totally real. Ronson documents how the U .S.
military was seriously looking into psychic warfare,
remote viewing, you know, enhancing human potential.
He connects the dots between, like, 70s hippie
optimism and actual classified military budgets.
It's the specifics that make it so memorable,
though. Stubblebine. Major General Albert Stubblebine
III. former head of intelligence and this guy
genuinely believed with enough mental focus he
could walk through walls seriously yeah ronson
even details his attempts apparently they often
ended with him just well running into the wall
and getting bruised oh my god and the goats The
actual staring at goats part. Right. The title
image. The idea was that soldiers could be trained
to kill goats just by staring at them, stopping
their hearts with mental energy. Which is, I
mean, it's a ridiculous image. It is. But it
highlights the kind of desperate lengths the
military was exploring, especially after Vietnam,
trying to find new edges, non -lethal psychological
weapons, that kind of thing. And this all came
from one guy's manual. Pretty much inspired by
Elting Curl Jim Channon. He wrote the first Earth
Battalion operations manual back in 79. He was
heavily into the whole human potential movement
coming out of California. It wasn't a standard
military text. Not at all. It talked about an
army of warrior monks using peace and psychic
stuff before actually fighting. Okay, but here's
the crucial bit, right? The connection to something
serious. Ronson suggests these New Age ideas
somehow influenced interrogation techniques later
on. Like at Guantanamo. That's the broader implication.
Yeah. He suggests that the focus on psychological
manipulation, isolation, sensory stuff, that
some of those concepts, which started out in
this weird new age military context, later mutated
and perhaps informed some of the darker techniques
used in the war on terror. That feels like the
classic Ronson move. Find the eccentric belief
from decades ago. Trace it through the system.
And show how it eventually manifests as this
dark systemic policy. He shows you the human
chain of command that allows a wacky idea about
psychic spies to become, well, weaponized. Exactly.
He finds the three line. Now, the film adaptation
in 2009, that took some liberties, didn't it?
Made it more of an Iraq road trip movie. Yeah,
it fictionalizes investigation quite a bit. The
main journalist character, Bob Wilton, played
by Ewan McGregor, who's American, and he actually
went to Iraq in the film. Whereas Ronson's actual
reporting was more, sitting in archives. Pretty
much. He talked about this on the DVD commentary,
apparently. The difference between his real work,
often awkward, sitting in dusky archives or labs,
and the Hollywood version of the cool, adventurous
journalist. Okay, so from Military Secrets and
Extremists, Ronson then pivots again. He looks
inward towards, uh... clinical mysteries with
The Psychopath Test. Yeah, his fifth book, The
Psychopath Test, A Journey Through the Madness
Industry from 2011. This was a really profound
shift looking into mental illness and how we
classify behavior. And for this one, he basically
had to become a student of psychology himself,
right? Learning the hair psychopathy checklist.
He did. He learned how to actually apply the
hair psychopath checklist, which is, you know,
the gold standard diagnostic tool created by
Dr. Robert Hare. And then he just went out and
used it. Pretty much. He interviews people across
this huge spectrum. He goes into facilities for
the criminally insane where you'd sort of expect
to find a clinical psychopath. But then he also
uses the checklist to investigate potential psychopaths
in corporate boardrooms among powerful figures.
Yeah. Exploring that whole idea of the successful
psychopath. The idea that the same traits that
land one person in jail, like glibness, charm,
no empathy, being manipulative. Yeah. Are the
exact same traits that help someone else. Climb
the corporate ladder or get elected. Exactly.
That contrast is the core of the book. The hair
checklist, the PCLR, it scores about 20 items.
Pathological lying, lack of remorse, callousness,
stuff like that. Ronson's journey is about what
happens when you, the observer, start seeing
the world through that specific lens. The world
starts to look full of psychopaths. Kind of,
yeah. But this is where his approach, that popular
story -driven investigation, really slammed into
a wall with the scientific establishment. We
have to talk about the controversy. Yeah, this
was a big one. It really was. This is where that
tension between Ronson's style and proper scientific
rigor just blew up. The Society for the Scientific
Study of Psychopathy formally rejected his findings,
or rather, his application of the tool. They
felt he was, like, trivializing the whole diagnostic
process. And Dr. Hare himself wasn't happy either.
The guy who made the test. Not at all. He publicly
rejected the book, called it frivolous, shallow,
and professionally disconcerting. That's not
just a mild disagreement. That's a pretty damning
critique from the creator of the very tool Ronson
was using. Okay, so that raises a serious question,
doesn't it? If the creator of the test called
it frivolous, does that mean Ronson's technique,
while super engaging to read, sacrifices real
rigor just to tell a good story? Is he sensationalizing
mental illness? It's a really fair challenge.
I mean, Ronson's definitely not a clinician,
but maybe, maybe the value wasn't in him perfectly
applying the diagnostic tool. Maybe he was more
about exploring the story of classification itself.
The whole madness industry, as the subtitle says.
Ah, so he's looking at how the labels get used
and who benefits. Less about the clinical accuracy,
more about the social function. Perhaps. He forces
you to think about how these labels are applied
and the blurry line between, say, a clinical
disorder and just being a truly awful boss. He
kind of challenged the neat separation between
the sane world and the insane one. OK, focusing
on the industry around madness, not just the
madness itself. That makes sense as a distinction.
It's a useful way to frame it, I think. So moving
on a few years, Ronson takes that same eye for
maybe societal cruelty and points it right at
us right now. So you've been publicly shamed
in 2015. Yeah, this was another major pivot.
He moves away from the extreme fringe, you know,
the extremists, the psychic soldiers, and looks
smack bang into the middle of modern digital
life, social dynamics. The focus here is just
the devastating effect of public humiliation
online, right? Exactly. The mechanism of it in
the Internet age. For you listening, this book
is arguably his most directly relevant to life
today. It's a masterclass in understanding current
affairs, social media dynamics. He looks at specific
people whose lives were just ruined, right? By
a single tweet, maybe a bad joke that went viral.
Yeah, precisely. He documents the sheer cruelty
of the anonymous online mob. How quickly the
internet goes from collective outrage to just
forgetting, leaving the person completely stranded,
often with irreparable damage, lost jobs, homes,
relationships. Over something that maybe didn't
even warrant that level of punishment. Often,
yeah. And the common thread, connecting this
back to his earlier work, it's still there. It's
still an investigation into unexpected power
structures. But here, the power structure is
that collective, anonymous, overwhelming force
of the internet mob. Which acts with this frighteningly
unified certainty. Kind of like the extremists
he wrote about earlier. It's a similar kind of
self -righteous certainty, definitely. We should
probably quickly mention his collections too,
right? The Guardian column. Oh yeah, definitely.
They show a lighter side. Out of the ordinary.
True tales of everyday craziness from 2006 and...
What I Do. More true tales of everyday craziness
in 2007. Lots of funny observations about his
own domestic life in those. And Lost at Sea.
The John Ronson Mysteries in 2012 was another
collection. Yeah, another compilation. It just
shows the sheer volume of writing he was doing,
even outside the big book projects. So if the
books define his subjects, maybe his radio and
film work define his voice and reach. He seems
like a real media polymath. Absolutely. His U
.K. radio career was huge. That BBC Radio 4 program
John Ronson on that was really well respected,
nominated for a Sony Award four times. It showed
he could translate that written curiosity perfectly
into audio. And the documentaries mirrored the
books. I remember one with Robbie Williams. Yeah.
Robbie Williams and John Ronson journey to the
other side from 2008, focused on Robbie's like
genuine obsession with UFOs and the paranormal.
Ronson's brilliant at pairing a famous scene.
And that success translated to the U .S. too.
this American life. Oh, big time. He became a
really influential contributor over there. I
think by 2021, he'd done segments for at least
13 episodes, bringing his style to millions of
American listeners. And those segments were often
like mini versions of his books, weren't they?
Condensed emotional takes on the big investigation.
Exactly. Episodes like Them, The Psychopath Test,
Tard and Feathered. They showed he could take
these complex, often ethically tricky subjects
and boil them down into compelling audio stories.
Perfect for that narrative. audio boom. Which
leads naturally into podcasting. Yep. His first
big one was the butterfly effect in 2017. That
was about internet porn, focusing on Fabian Thillman
and the whole porn hub effect on the industry.
Again, huge topic anchored by one human story.
Then the last days of August in 2019, looking
into the death of August Ames, that felt more
like true crime. It was definitely investigative.
Yeah. Looking at the human cost within that industry.
And more recently. Back with the BBC for Things
Fell Apart. Yeah, 2021. A BBC Sounds podcast
digging into the origins of the culture wars.
Classic Ronson style, again, not just analyzing
the current mess, but finding the quirky human
roots of these huge societal divides. Okay, beyond
audio, the film stuff gives another angle. We
mentioned Goats, but he actually wrote screenplays
too. He did. Selling the Goats rights led to
the 2009 film, but apparently visiting the set
of that film is what sparked him to collaborate
with Peter Strone on writing something else.
Which became Frank, the 2014 black comedy. That's
the one. A masterpiece of weirdness. And it's
partly inspired by Ronson's own life. His time
playing keyboards in the Frank Sidebottom band
back in the late 80s. Wait, Frank Sidebottom?
The guy with the giant papier -mâché head. The
very same. Ronson was right there, immersed in
that high -level artistic eccentricity way early
on. Apparently, he replaced Mark Radcliffe on
keyboards. No way. So his comfort with strangeness
isn't just journalistic, it's rooted in experience.
Seems like it. And that film work led to more
collaborations, too. He co -wrote the screenplay
for Ocha, the Netflix film, with Bom Joon -ho.
The Korean director. Wow. Yeah, the 2017 one.
We shouldn't forget his own documentary series
work, stuff that often came before the books,
The Secret Rulers of the World in 2001 and Crazy
Rulers of the World in 2004. Crazy Rulers. It
had the goat stuff in it, right? Exactly. It
included the three parts directly related to
the goats research, the title episode, Funny
Torture, and the psychic foot soldiers. It shows
how he constantly feeds his research between
books, TV, radio. It's a whole ecosystem. And
just looping back to music. Quickly, besides
Frank Sidebottom, he managed an indie band, too.
Yeah, The Man from Del Monte, a Manchester indie
band. That whole background in indie culture,
the Manchester scene, it probably informs his
comfort zone when he's dealing with all kinds
of eccentric people, whether they're artists
or generals. Okay, so before we wrap up with
takeaways, maybe a few personal details, just
to place the man behind the microphone. Sure.
Well, he's married to Elaine Patterson. They've
got one son. And his home life often pops up
in those Charming Guardian columns. And his background.
Jewish. Yeah. Humanist. Yeah, he's Jewish and
also a distinguished supporter of Humanist UK.
So there's a commitment to secular ethics there,
which maybe helps his impartiality when he's
dealing with really ideological subjects. And
for the sports fans listening. He's a big Arsenal
fan, apparently expresses adoration for the club,
which feels like a surprisingly normal detail
for someone who hangs out with lizard theorists.
Ah, true. And he's officially American now, too.
Yeah, became a naturalized U .S. citizen in early
2020. So British American journalist fits perfectly,
gives him perspective on both sides of the pond,
maybe. So if we try and synthesize all this work
from club class in 94, bluffing his way into
high society, right up to the Culture Wars podcasts,
there's a real consistency there, isn't there?
It's all about access. Yeah, that's his core
skill, making these dense, extreme or just hidden
subcultures somehow accessible to the average
person, finding a way into the locked rooms,
whether they contain conspiracy nuts, psychic
spies or, you know, debates about clinical madness.
And the common thread running through all of
it. The cabals, the shame machine, the military
secrets, it seems to be finding the humanity,
right? The unexpected vulnerable connections
inside these topics that seem monstrous or just
plain crazy. Definitely. He's always looking
for the real people behind the scary headlines
and crucially, how they justify their own actions
and beliefs to themselves. It feels like Ronson's
telling us the world isn't neatly divided into
sane and insane or normal and extremist. Right.
More like we're all on a spectrum somewhere.
And maybe the only difference sometimes is how
much power you have or how big your audience
is. OK, so let's wrap this up. What does all
this mean for you, the listener, trying to get
a handle on Ronson's huge body of work? It feels
like his career offers a really powerful model
for investigating things, doesn't it? Absolutely.
If you connect it to the bigger picture, his
whole career just shows the incredible power
of curiosity over, say, narrow specialization.
He reports on the extraordinary by appearing
ordinary. He's the reliable guide through the
noise. Exactly. Through overwhelming, often contradictory
information. He doesn't need to be the expert
on psychopathy or military strategy to tell the
essential human story of the people defined by
those things. He gives us the story of how people
convince themselves of impossible. things or
why we reacted to online shame with such cruelty.
He makes us look in the mirror, whether we think
we're normal or fringe. And that duality, the
skeptic journalist wearing the mask of the curious
novice, that's his signature move. It maximizes
his access, minimizes confrontation. It's a really
delicate dance. A dance between staying objective
and making a real human connection. Yeah. So
Ronson's career, it's shown us the vulnerable.
Often just deeply eccentric people behind the
big scary headlines about extremism, madness,
secret military stuff. For you, the listener,
maybe the question we leave you with is this.
If that faux naïve approach. really is the key
to getting these complex characters to open up,
to reveal their hidden worlds. How much of our
own skepticism, our own sort of protective cynicism,
do we need to maybe just temporarily suspend
in order to really understand the world's most
hidden, most contradictory corners? That is definitely
a thought worth thinking about next time you
read a story that just seems too strange to be
true. Thanks for joining us for this deep dive.
We'll see you next time.