Congratulations on your acquisition of A New Order. We hope you will find this a worthy volume. Sturdy, well-constructed, highly resistant to empty sentiment and received wisdom. If looked after with care and attention, this collection will serve you faithfully for a lifetime.
As you read these pieces, you will be welcomed deeper into the world inhabited by the Followers of the Apocalypse. The FOTA are a noble and hardy order, if too easily dismissed as scruffy and incorrigible malcontents, unfit for participation in serious enterprise.
Some readers are advised to proceed with special care. Be particularly cautious if you have a history of intoxication via certain common tropes, such as those that spread “disruptive innovation”, or “There Is No Alternative”. Sudden immersion into the FOTA mindset after simmering in consensus reality can be a jarring and dizzying sensation. Finding oneself unexpectedly absorbed in British higher education policy wonkery can be difficult to comprehend, at least at first.
Whatever their orientation or attributes, it is common for the Followers to experience sensations of disorientation, agitation, and occasional discomfort when reading. Do not be alarmed. Indeed, these symptoms suggest that the Follower of the Apocalypse is still capable of feeling outrage, sadness, and a refusal to accept the triumph of jive bullshit as inevitable. In many respects, reading FOTA is facing the horror we are building without the comforting escape of chipper buzzmemes that promise a happy ending. Without the consolation of not caring.
To relieve these pains, David Kernohan has provided numerous means of relief. Elegant phrasing. LOLs and love of LOLs abound. Keep your ears on for esoteric and cleverly placed musical notes. Sense the camaraderie and fellowship that warms so much of the writing. And understand that the stories and the struggles being shared in this collection are not ended.