The other day at a friend’s house I noticed a book on his
shelf - The Unabomber Manifesto –
Industrial Society & Its future. Having
heard of it but knowing little other than it having been written by a bomber (Ted Kaczynski), I
picked it up. The opening paragraph chimed with my Luddite tendency and general
discontent with modern consumerism. Beyond the opening supposition however the
book became abhorrent to me, and densely nonsensical. After a brief search on
–line I found no serious academic engagement with it (quite understandably),
but more worryingly no real criticism of it at all, it seems to receive at
least 2 stars on sites like Google books and generally rates 4 or 5.
The only worthwhile place I could find it mentioned
(fleetingly) is in a book I hold in high regard John Grey’s – Straw Dogs Thoughts on humans and other
animals which superficially shares some of the anti- Technology motives but
in-fact differs wildly. As Kaczynski’s out-look falls under a Utopian model (“if
we can just achieve this one thing, then everything will be alright”) which is
rejected by Grey. I urge potential
readers of Kaczynski’s Manifesto to seek Grey’s book in place of it, as well as
many other more worthwhile reads.
From here on I will refer to The Unabomber Manifesto as UM
and Theodore Kaczynski as the author. The manifesto is available to read
on-line if you have to. http://cyber.eserver.org/unabom.txt
I Read up to about chapter 10 of UM before I gave up. Much
like a shack built on poor or non-existent foundations I doubted the Author
would ditch his original assumptions, but would further extrapolate on them.
The telling, and some-what dangerous, thing about Kaczynski is that his
observations are not always that wide of the mark. It is his interpretation and
assumptions that are erroneous. The book stands as testament to the difference
between academic and emotional intelligence, but really displays little insight
on either. As far as possible, I will attempt to separate the contents of the
text from the psychology and actions of the author, but since the function of the
text is as a product of the former and justification of the later this may not
be possible.
A Note on writing
style and structure: The Author is always careful to never make distinct,
specific insights, but makes broad generalisations in the guise of academic
speech. He will try and establish trends
with no specific historic examples or data.
E.g.: A quote from
note 29 Chapter 4 “In all essential respects most leftists of the
oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white middle class
ideals.” This extract contains 3 qualifying sentiments “essential”, “most”, and
“oversocialized,” in-fact “leftist” probably also has a meaning bespoke to the
text and the Author. So the essence of the sentence reads; those who behave in
the way I have defined, behave this way.
This opaque subjectivity results in the text often being difficult to interpret in any meaningful way, following is an attempted analysis and counter points chapter by chapter.
This opaque subjectivity results in the text often being difficult to interpret in any meaningful way, following is an attempted analysis and counter points chapter by chapter.
Chapter 1: The
opening chapter: This is the hook, a grand sweeping supposition, describing how
unhappy we all are and how society is not serving us well enough, the
inclination being we deserve more, presumably to be followed by a call to arms
in order to seize for ourselves the justice we deserve. It’s not a very complex
or insightful point; to say how rubbish it all is and the whole thing needs to
be screwed up and start again. An Infinity drunks have muttered it under their
breath at closing time. Countless politicians have summoned up similar
discontent in order to gain or retain power and supposedly change things for
the better. The author is always careful
to sugar the pill, life expectancy has increased but we are suffering in ways
of quality. His observations are broadly accurate, but he never holds anything
in comparison, of-coarse he can never talk of the good elements of industrial
society and he cannot hold up example of the alternative feudal, or hunter
gatherer, or post- industrial society he longs for.
It is an unsophisticated, but compelling, supposition to get
back to a better time and place. To erase what has been done, in the hope that
what remains is pure and just. It only takes a viewing of films like Mad Max,
The Terminator, or Fight Club to sympathise with the authors’ point of a
dystopian chain of events. But it is not possible to get back. The only time
machine we have is with-in the confines of personal memory or the imagination. Time
travel is fundamentally psychological in manifestation:” to return to a time
before the bad things happen.” It is a notion indigenous to the psychologists
couch, before the process of acceptance and individuation has begun.
Freud's couch = Time Machine
The fact that it’s most likely this deep discontentment that
has served as an evolutionary trait to compel us into the very position we hold
today is overlooked by the author. Rather than: - We are Anxious as a product
of society. In Fact: -We are Anxious Thus have created society. Our duplicitous
and discontented nature, as our propensity for tool use, is deeply engrained
with-in our Ape beginnings.
[Mark Rowland’s, The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from
the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness, is a brilliant book to begin to
understand this.]
The author does not address wellbeing directly, he does not attempt
to address the Individual(s) unhappiness in the current society/ circumstance.
The Individuals poor state of being is not something to be addressed and
readjusted by the individual. Rather it is enough that the societal system is
implicitly and fundamentally wrong, the poor mental health of the individuals
is merely resultant evidence of the wrongness. Like the out-come of an equation.
The remainder of the opening chapter can be boiled down to 2
observations, the current global capitalism/Industrial society is
unsustainable, and if one relies on unsustainable things, you’re heading for a
fall. This is quite correct, but it is a quantitative evaluation involving
expansive time scales. Not a binary ‘either or’ which necessitates the
eradication of the industrial systems. For instance Passage [3] is false;
But the
bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will
be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.
- It is not just the size of the system but the speed of its
collapse which is proportional to the disaster involved. As well as the overlap involved between the colapse of one and the rise/evolution of another.
One only has to of experienced the inconvenience of poor
public transport, errant IT, or an annoying boss to immediately sympathise with
the opening chapter. The more we live in a technologically constructed
environment the more we can find to be annoyed by it. The fundamentals
extrapolated from the opening observations are, however, deeply erroneous.
Chapter 2 & 3: The
author equates compassion (expressed in the term Leftism) with the
psychological state of Low- Self Esteem. (A phrase repeated throughout the
text) Low Self Esteem is a broad and some-what ill-defined term applicable to
many people in many circumstances; it is possible to exhibit it in reference to
specific things (e.g. Weight gain) or as a general trait often entailing
self-loathing projected as hostility of others. It is essentially an illogical
set of assumptions about ones-self resulting in a burden of self-blame. It is
normally experienced as a phase rather than a constant character trait. Thus
the Authors accusation is hard to define and acts rather as an insinuation
rather than a specific causal link. Presumably the ‘leftist’ projects his sense
of inferiority via over- empathy with his chosen cause.
Again it is a quantitative
judgement, what is the right level of empathy? But it is no doubt a convenient
formula to dismiss empathy all together: All Left sympathisers suffer from low
Self-Esteem, therefore all sympathy is an illness.
Yet I see no reason why a deep sense of inferiority couldn’t
equally drive the motives of a cut throat, market capitalist, or despot, or
bully. Also one could pursue any number of left or green agendas as the result
of narcissism (narcissism being an opposite extreme to poor self-regard).
The Author goes on to
equate PC speech with this low self-esteem theory. Politically Correct speech
is an act of specificity in-order to acknowledge historical circumstance and
prevent its re-occurrence, if anything it is an act of authority, often on
behalf of others. If anything, this is the very opposite of low self-esteem,
which often involves foggy thinking and insular self- orientated actions and
thought.
Perfect illustrations of the authority of PC speech can be
found with-in Stewart Lee’s stand-up routines on the journalist Rod Liddle’s
reaction to the victims of the Suffolk strangler contained in his 2008 show 41st Best Stand-up Ever, and
his routine on Jimmy Hill’s use of the word nigger in his 2005 show Stand-up Comedian.
The 1960's Us Campus
Richard Dawkins Nice Guys finnish First
The author’s perception of the left as having an inferiority
complex is ultimately manifest through the lefts in-action in following a
similar course to his own i.e. the author is saying the left is wrong because
they disagree with me. The roots of this thinking is actually specific to the
authors own context within late 60’s American student campus protests where a
peak interest in writers such as Herbert Marcuse lead to the violent actions of
groups such as the Weather Underground Organization (WUO The), the authors
position can be read as continuation of the efforts of groups such as this and
a rejection of the subsequent distraction of the counter culture.
The 1960's Us Campus
In-fact the scientific evidence finds that empathy is learnt
through play. Dr, Stuart Brown argues that play isn't just fun, it also helps
brain development, boosts productivity and promotes fairness, justice and
empathy.
Play is defined as a shared suspension of repercussions by
those involved, they re-assure each other that this is play, the common shared
thought ingrains empathy. Play is strongly related to a psychological
malleability.
The
results of empathy can be seen in Richard Dawkins documentary “nice guys finish
first” which deals with cold war theory, and ‘tit for tat’. It demonstrates
that although in the short term betraying others may result in a gain, constant
betrayal leads in individuals no longer being tolerated and so losing out. The
film fails to point out that those who are the most desperate due to being
ignored or treated poorly or simply not valuing co-operation, will betray
others due to desperation of needing a short term gain. I would describe it as
lack of empathy through ghettoization.Richard Dawkins Nice Guys finnish First
“Nice strategies succeed because they have a sufficient
expectation of meeting other nice strategies like themselves- There has to be a
critical mass of nice strategies.”
Richard Dawkins
If you have no such expectation you will not adopt the nice
strategy, a self -fulfilling mode.
So empathy exists within a kind of realistic optimism, which
is the very opposite of low self-esteem. Whereas overly high self- esteem and
narcissism seems to run concurrent with the right and Industrialisation.
Chapter 4: Named
oversocialization, this is a term coined by the author to denote his perceived
characteristic of overly PC thought as well as speech; a form of empathy via
repression and self- editing following social norms via guilt, rather than
indulging in mildly anti-social behaviour, or objective justice. According to the author, apparently, it can
lead to low self-esteem.
Supposition and
qualitative judgements sweep through the text; it consists of the psychology of
the left (as above) and the support of the system via inaction by the left. Again this seems to concern the events of the
late 60’s when left liberals abandoned radical socialist politics in favour of
eastern philosophy, therapy and self-definition via consumerism. The recent
collapse in faith of guiding forces of consumerism makes the preoccupation
rather mute.
-The dwindling strangle-hold of consumerism
As above, I would argue guilt and conformity are far from
exclusive to a left or right agenda, or indeed an industrial society, both were
rife in pre-industrialisation via religion and monarchy etc. In general people
want to be told what to do (see Stanley Milgrim experiments). Behaving as one thinks others are expecting
you to behave (conformity) is often as a result of lack of communication, (again
an element of low self-esteem is the projection onto others of one’s own
self-perception, a kind of mild paranoia.)
Most of the time we care about what others think of us, more
than they theme selves in-fact notice or care about us; a mild form of
narcissism known as the ‘spotlight effect’. But that is small scale self-consciousness.
The text is presumably referring to large scale social revolution, or
disruption of society. Left leaning liberals tend to want the best for the
greatest number, or at least a base line beneath which no-one should sink, this
does not sit well with condoning violence, aggression etc. to obtain there ends.
I think we (the left
and most humans) are default reformists we are aware that a significant
proportion of the current system does not work fully but we are aware moving
back is impossible, so we want to try and retain the good aspects whilst
changing what seems to not work, and a slower sustainable change has a better
chance of working and being least painful to all involved, quick change like a
crash diet doesn’t work, also we don’t kill people just because they disagree
with us, we have a realistic optimism that rationality will win out.
The best out-side source I can quote in
reference to this chapter is Adam Curtis series of 3 separate hour long documentaries
called The Trap, which deals with the abandonment of Positive Liberty in
favour of Negative Liberty, which is the freedom to believe in nothing. Perhaps
the left has been culpable in embracing the freedom of the markets along with
the right, but the implicit nature of un-sustainable systems is that they will
collapse with or with-out intervention.
Chapter 5 & 6: The
author constructs something he calls the power process, “in order to avoid
serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment
requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his
goals” –
Although there is a
relationship between achievement and Well-being, there is no empirical truth in
this kind of ‘goal achievement’. Often anxiety is avoided or overcome through acceptance
of ones limitations or goals are achieved through a process of deep stress and
anxiety. Constant striving can overcome and crumble the will leading to a
nervous breakdown or similar. Non goal based, enquiry/play/ exploration often
has a hand in acquiring and maintaining effective mental health.
The author also
speaks of a lack of goals as a cause of ‘serious psychological problems’,
rather it is depression that can cause a cease in desire and a sense of
achievement. But it is not this clear cut as well-being can be defined as an
absence of desire.
The basis for the author’s point is that modern society has fulfilled
our base needs and therefore removed the (sense of) achievement of them, he
goes on to argue that the achievements we have in place of those base needs are
surrogates for the real thing. [6]
They had a right fucking good laugh in the old days, always
up for the craic.
“When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy
their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many
cases they then pursue those goals with the same energy and emotional
involvement that they otherwise would have put in the search for physical
necessities.”
This is not an anti-industry view, this is an anti-society
view and runs counter to 30,000 years of human endeavour, ever since man spent
time enacting shamanistic ceremonies and seeking out the dark of caves to paint
his visions of anthropomorphised animals he has taken part in goals of non-
physical necessity. The author suffers a serious misconception regarding hunter
gather life-style it was not time or effort intensive as he thinks, one only
has to view a group of apes sitting around grooming each-other or footage of a
rainforest tribe sitting around bored and lazy. It was an existence based on
foraging, planting and knowing the place where you lived. Even most animals do
fuck all most of the time.
Humans in their unique disposition as continually
unfulfilled have whittled, moulded, formed and created things for 30,000 years;
there are archaeological finds of thousands of carved arrow heads beyond what
any individual could use, crated purely because of the sense of achievement of making. Often
achievement has nothing to do with drive and everything to do with play and
enquiry, which is possible through increased free-time. You could say in simple
terms anxiety performs the function of drive. This has nothing to do with the
consequences of industrial society and everything to do with its creation.
One word for it is cognitive dissonance, our psychic
investment in activity.
See: ‘How Art Made the World’: Nigel Spivey
‘30,000 Years of Art:
The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space’: Phaidon Press Ltd
Chapter 7: Autonomy
is a misnomer of the modern world; we all know we exert no control over the
initial biological, psychological and sociological circumstances of our
existence. (See Stanley Milgrims’ six degrees of separation experiment as
covered in Malcolm Gladwells’ book ‘The
Tipping Point’ as one example of the power of circumstance)
Every act is carried
out in the name of greater autonomy for all, whether raising taxes or cutting
taxes, no state or individual in the western world would justify their actions
via the restriction of freedoms. And yet personal autonomy is very rare,
because it is not a necessity of life. We can only act in accordance to the
information we have at any given time, we cannot obtain information we are not
aware of by definition. The only time we
can obtain new information (or skills) in order to aid autonomy is through the
intervention of out-side forces (normally the state e.g. school/ education,) or
through personal revelation through our own avenue of enquiry (e.g. art,
science, psychotherapy.)
Acts of supposed pure personal Will/drive only occur after
years of gathering information and resources, which are acquired through
reliance, relationships and interaction with other individuals and
institutions. Reliance actually frees
us, how many of us could hope to achieve anything of consequence if we were
required to tailor our own clothes, or build our own house, farm, and hunt or
govern ourselves. Co-operation increases both dependency and autonomy.
Luddite Laughs
UK situation comedy ‘The Good Life’ where characters embark
on an autonomous lifestyle with hilarious consequences:
Even then autonomy is a very fleeting thing, which
dissipates as the newly acquired information which initiated the autonomous act
is absorbed into action and a new cycle of habit & routine and interaction
& reliance develops. Autonomy can be equated to attachment.
To continually and constantly be autonomous and devoid of
attachment is not an attractive
proposition, offering as it does no stability, like a lone wolf separate from
the pack, hounded by its own instability/insecurity. The opposite of autonomy
is dependency which requires a trust and security to function; mutual
dependency can actually result in greater autonomy for both parties, as
evidenced in nature and humans. (See Dawkins above) Obviously a balance between
autonomy and dependency is desirable. There is no reason to think that we are
any less autonomous now than as your average Ancient Roman/Greek/Egyptian was.
Perhaps, in the long run, the agricultural revolution did more to restrict our
societal autonomy than did the industrial one. Hunter gatherer societies were
tied to their area of land where their expertise was relevant; we are tied to a
relatively flexible system. The hunter gather shaped his environment as we can
shape the system, slowly and in miniscule ways.
The author exerts that those who do not wield power over
society in a way that he sees fit are by definition victims of low self-esteem
as permeated through the industrial system. He neglects that it may be those
who wield that power, and pay undue attention to the wielding of power, which may
in-fact be the cause of certain anxiety (despots). Again an uneven distribution
of power is far from an industrial innovation.
Chapter 8: The
author is forced to acknowledge that most if not all past societies followed a
similar template to the current one, but according to the author the current
one is worse. He reasserts, because of the unfulfilled power process, which
apparently was also disrupted by past societies/civilisations. It’s little
wonder why, as a race, we have bothered with society at all if it causes us
such discontentment and anxiety.
This chapter seems to be a concession to “common sense”
thinking, mentioning as it does over-crowding in cities and the breakdown of
families and communities. Of course it is not common at all; it is bespoke to a
specific time and place. Some of us still live in small communities but those
communities are not always as strongly tied to geography. There is an optimum
level of socialisation too many friends’ results in a disregard for the
individuals and a tendency towards disposability and too few friends results in
insularism. Luckily most of us stick to a ‘natural’ level of socialisation.
“They usually consist of an inner circle of five
"core" people and an additional layer of 10, he says. That makes 15
people - some will probably be family members - who are your central group and
then outside that, there's another 35 in the next circle and another 100 on the
outside. And that's one person's social world.”
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE: What's the ideal number of friends? 3/3/2009
The author contradicts himself; he condones attachment to
small scale communities, which he thinks vital to his opaque form of autonomy. However;
often certain types of autonomy are to be found in the anonymity of the large
faceless system, rather than the rigid, brittle small community. If the
individuals Will and aspirations are in keeping with the society then all is
well and good if not then you’re fucked, this is true no matter what the scale.
The fact that an individual makes up a larger proportion of a small community
means his attachment/ responsibility as a member may result in less choice,
power or autonomy.
One thing unique
about the present techno-web-verse is that we are aware of all possibilities,
we know what we are missing out on, we are aware of the choices/friends we have
not made and the paths we have not followed. But information is information. We
cannot be given the options of the possibilities ahead without being made aware
of what we are going to miss out on.
The formation of the United States of America
There’s a distinct idea of colonial frontier America that
the author sees as a fulfilling way of existence. Of course this moment exists
within a deeply flawed period in history when newly enfranchised U.S. residents fought with each other to claim
vast swaths of land which they viewed as their own, but which in-fact were
rightfully attributed to the indigenous native American Indian tribes. (They
didn’t own the land; this is not how they viewed their relationship with the
land). One my well question the validity of the creation of these frontier
settlements, but according to the author the pioneers need for their ‘power
process’ was satisfied. If the fulfilment of the power process relies on such erroneous
endeavours then its validity is highly questionable. Once the implicit worth of
the ‘power process is called into question this negates the authors conceit.
The authors manifesto is no more revolutionary, insightful
or grounded in reality than the twee constructions of Morris Dancing or the Town
of Bourneville
There are fewer sureties in the modern world & one is likely to encounter a spectrum of experience immeasurable to our forest or plains dwelling ancestors. This could more than likely affect varying degrees of stimulation, anxiety or fluctuation in one’s psychological wellbeing, but perhaps that is just one of the challenges of our time. Practical problems of the past were also psychological tests in figuring out the best course of action to take, how to react to other people, events, materials, situations.
Anxiety is not explicit to the in-put on us and our brains; it is conditional to the processing of that input. For example the death of a loved relative explained in the child’s Disney film ‘The Lion King’ via a song called ‘the circle of life’ or ‘the circle of shit’ as in the subversive U.S. animation South Park. As they both (life and shit) are included with-in the circle the distinction between life and shit is subjective, and a matter of processing. This is not a challenge of fact but of perception. We do not become masters of ourselves and our own wellbeing by eradicating that which we cannot process, but by being able to cope with those situations that we find perplexing.
Life-
Shit-
There are fewer sureties in the modern world & one is likely to encounter a spectrum of experience immeasurable to our forest or plains dwelling ancestors. This could more than likely affect varying degrees of stimulation, anxiety or fluctuation in one’s psychological wellbeing, but perhaps that is just one of the challenges of our time. Practical problems of the past were also psychological tests in figuring out the best course of action to take, how to react to other people, events, materials, situations.
Anxiety is not explicit to the in-put on us and our brains; it is conditional to the processing of that input. For example the death of a loved relative explained in the child’s Disney film ‘The Lion King’ via a song called ‘the circle of life’ or ‘the circle of shit’ as in the subversive U.S. animation South Park. As they both (life and shit) are included with-in the circle the distinction between life and shit is subjective, and a matter of processing. This is not a challenge of fact but of perception. We do not become masters of ourselves and our own wellbeing by eradicating that which we cannot process, but by being able to cope with those situations that we find perplexing.
Life-
Chapter 9: The author elucidates on his ‘power process’, he divides
drives into 3 groups.
Drives 1, 2, 3
1: What we easily and basically achieve.
2: What we have to strive to achieve.
3: What is impossible and will never achieve.
The power process is achieving 2, but what functions as 1
for some folk, functions as 2 for others and what functions as 3 for some, as 2
for others. So the delineation is largely un-helpful and resoundingly
un-insightful.
The author goes on to attempt to describe the Freudian
theory of sublimation, blurring it slightly with Cognitive dissonance, a term
used in modern psychology. (Many of the following chapters describe/exhibit
Cognitive dissonance and De-individuation.)
Much of what I have
said concerning chapter 5 & 6 applies here too. Anything invested with
personal effort has important psychic currency, winning a medal from
achievement in sport etc. is not the same as buying a medal. It performs a
function beyond pure object.
The author asserts that we do not engage in fulfilling work
enough due to ‘the system’. However work now varies greatly in intensity and
time, hunter gatherer existence was not time intensive, but existed through
knowledge of the area, but was reliant on seasons and other variables.
We bloody loved making all sorts of things in the old days
for all sorts of reasons and still do, go us.
As already stated Industrial society does not cause
discontentment, discontentment (merely a form of unfulfilled, potential energy)
brings about Industrial society, the will to build and work with-in it, in an
effort to bring about a conclusion to life, an answer, is an Enlightenment /
narrative model of existence. Whether the goal is building factories or blowing
them up it is still a goal. The discontentment of goals is what requires
negation not the systems or society’s that are resultants of these goals and discontentment.
For this peace of mind through negation look east to eternal, circular models
of existence, where things exist in timeless moments, rather than fleetingly
within systems and narratives.
Leaving the system is ambiguous, the borders are not rigid
and one can repeatedly leave and re-enter, or potentially have one foot in and
out, this varies from country to country, America is a young, violent, and
suspicious country due largely to its unusual inception. If you dedicate your
life to bringing down the system surely you are just as much a slave to it as
if you dedicated your life to supporting it via running your own crappy
business or committed consumption of its hideous tacky out-put.
Does the system exist beyond perception? The system cannot
continue as it is, it is finite, it is changing, at present it largely relies
on the processing of oil, there appear to be less toxins, and raw sewage and
visible forms of pollution, but carbon emissions continue apace. We need the
world more than it needs us. It is more than capable of expunging us from its
cycle’s. We are likely to destroy our own environments and the things we rely
on thus limiting and reducing our existence, the idea of us destroying nature
or enacting irrevocable havoc upon the earth is pure egotism on our part. But
this is no reason to act in a careless manor for our own sake we should seek
harmony and sustainability.
The Author
With ‘Industrial Society & Its future’ Theodore Kaczynski,
was seeking to construct an objective view of society that informed and
resulted in his rejection of society as a whole. The reality in fact is that he
was a product of his time and circumstance; from 1967-69 Kaczynski was
assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, at
the hub of the counter-culture hippy movement. Kaczynski had suffered from a
child-hood disease which left him segregated & un-socialised, thrown into
the institution of university at too young an age and with no other
experience of life he floundered and was alienated.
His resentment eventually morphed with the kind of anti-
establishment academia of that time such as Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the
Spectacle’ 1967 and political philosophies which courted terrorism and revolt, PLO & the ideas surrounding the Baader-Meinhof Group’s
'German Autumn' 1977, or even the
existentialist ideology of Jean-Paul Sartre, who argued that terrorism was a
"terrible weapon but the oppressed poor have no others." Views
expressed in the revolutionary film ‘The Battle of Algiers’ & Developed by
Afro-Caribbean revolutionary Frantz Fanon; who used violence as a means to
achieve goals, but also as an expression of freedom from Western bourgeois
norms. In post 9/11, terrorism's context became radically altered from these academic ideals.
Due to his early childhood isolation and borderline autistic
behaviour Kaczynski exhibited exceptional focus on his studies when younger and
became a highly adept mathematician attending Harvard at age 16 in 1958 where
he took part in an unforgivably cruel experiment.
From Wikipedia -
“He also participated in a multiple-year personality study
conducted by Dr. Henry Murray, an expert on stress interviews. Students in
Murray's study were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a
fellow student. Instead they were subjected to a "purposely brutalizing
psychological experiment" -stress test, which was an extremely stressful,
personal, and prolonged psychological attack. During the test, students were
taken into a room and connected to electrodes that monitored their
physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a two-way mirror. Each
student had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and
aspirations: the essays were turned over to an anonymous attorney, who would
enter the room and individually belittle each student based in part on the
disclosures they had made. This was filmed, and students' expressions of
impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study.
- According to author Alston Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest
he was emotionally stable when the study began. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed
some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation
in this study. Indeed, some have suggested that this experience may have been
instrumental in Kaczynski's future actions.” - Wickipedia
A very sad thing indeed, to happen to someone who was
already in such a brittle state of existence. I think initially Theodore
Kaczynski was seeking respite, and subconsciously attempting some sort of self-
healing with his retreat into the wilderness but a terrible thing happened
(below) which mirrored the threat and attack upon the Self which he had experienced
in the experiment above and he no longer felt safe anywhere. His experience
with the experiment and at Berkley left a deep resentment of academics and
progressive thinking as demonstrated in his writing and choice of targets
(universities). Subsequently he attempted
to justify his course of action via academia as some form of self-therapy. His
actions consisted of a, less than relentless, 16 bombs over the course of 17
years, killing 3 people his bombs functioned poorly due to parts being carved
from wood. Rather than vindictive or furious his actions seemed the resigned
results of some sort of logic equation.
The Author has since stated that the published version of UM
is not the definitive version as if he is still trying to finalise that essay
that was turned over to his anonymous interrogators at age 16/17
“The ultimate catalyst which drove him to begin his campaign
of bombings was when he went out for a walk to one of his favourite wild spots,
only to find that it had been destroyed and replaced with a road. About this,
he said [note his description devoid of subjective terms like beautiful]
The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this
plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It's kind of rolling country, not
flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very
steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was
about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of
1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I
needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they
had put a road right through the middle of it... You just can't imagine how
upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to
acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system.
Revenge.”
-Wikipedia
Odd since his bombings began in 1978…?
May 2014: update
I've stumbled on a counterpoint to UM try a search for:
Kirkpatrick Sale unabomber
"He has read a lot in certain areas--no poetry, though, I'll bet--and has
thought a lot about the particular things that concern him, but aside
from a few flashes there is no suggestion of anything more than a
routine mind and a dutiful allegiance to some out-of-the-ordinary
critics of modern society.."
