Ted Kaczynski: INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY and ITS FUTURE (1995)
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INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE (1995) (commonly called the “Unabomber Manifesto”) by Ted Kaczynski Source: http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm 34,428 words INTRODUCTION the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will 1. The Industrial Revolution and its be, so if it is to break down it had best break consequences have been a disaster for the down sooner rather than later. human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in 4. We therefore advocate a revolution against “advanced” countries, but they have the industrial system. This revolution may or destabilized society, have made life may not make use of violence: it may be unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to sudden or it may be a relatively gradual indignities, have led to widespread process spanning a few decades. We can’t psychological suffering (in the Third World to predict any of that. But we do outline in a physical suffering as well) and have inflicted very general way the measures that those severe damage on the natural world. The who hate the industrial system should take in continued development of technology will order to prepare the way for a revolution worsen the situation. It will certainly subject against that form of society. This is not to be human beings to greater indignities and a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to inflict greater damage on the natural world, overthrow not governments but the economic it will probably lead to greater social and technological basis of the present disruption and psychological suffering, and it society. may lead to increased physical suffering even 5. In this article we give attention to only in “advanced” countries. some of the negative developments that have 2. The industrial-technological system may grown out of the industrial-technological survive or it may break down. If it survives, it system. Other such developments we mention MAY eventually achieve a low level of only briefly or ignore altogether. This does physical and psychological suffering, but only not mean that we regard these other after passing through a long and very painful developments as unimportant. For practical period of adjustment and only at the cost of reasons we have to confine our discussion to permanently reducing human beings and areas that have received insufficient public many other living organisms to engineered attention or in which we have something new products and mere cogs in the social to say. For example, since there are well- machine. Furthermore, if the system developed environmental and wilderness survives, the consequences will be inevitable: movements, we have written very little about There is no way of reforming or modifying the environmental degradation or the destruction system so as to prevent it from depriving of wild nature, even though we consider people of dignity and autonomy. these to be highly important. 3. If the system breaks down the THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM consequences will still be very painful. But 6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in Unabomber Manifesto (1995) • 1 of 52 a deeply troubled society. One of the most only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense widespread manifestations of the craziness of but a whole spectrum of related traits: low our world is leftism, so a discussion of the self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, psychology of leftism can serve as an depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self- introduction to the discussion of the problems hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists of modern society in general. tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are 7. But what is leftism? During the first half of decisive in determining the direction of the 20th century leftism could have been modern leftism. practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not 11. When someone interprets as derogatory clear who can properly be called a leftist. almost anything that is said about him (or When we speak of leftists in this article we about groups with whom he identifies) we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, conclude that he has inferiority feelings or “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced disability activists, animal rights activists and among minority rights advocates, whether or the like. But not everyone who is associated not they belong to the minority groups whose with one of these movements is a leftist. rights they defend. They are hypersensitive What we are trying to get at in discussing about the words used to designate minorities. leftism is not so much a movement or an The terms “negro,” “oriental,” ideology as a psychological type, or rather a “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an collection of related types. Thus, what we Asian, a disabled person or a woman mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly originally had no derogatory connotation. in the course of our discussion of leftist “Broad” and “chick” were merely the psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.) feminine equivalents of “guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have 8. Even so, our conception of leftism will been attached to these terms by the activists remain a good deal less clear than we would themselves. Some animal rights advocates wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” remedy for this. All we are trying to do is and insist on its replacement by “animal indicate in a rough and approximate way the companion.” Leftist anthropologists go to two psychological tendencies that we believe great lengths to avoid saying anything about are the main driving force of modern leftism. primitive peoples that could conceivably be We by no means claim to be telling the interpreted as negative. They want to replace WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, the word “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They our discussion is meant to apply to modern seem almost paranoid about anything that leftism only. We leave open the question of might suggest that any primitive culture is the extent to which our discussion could be inferior to our own. (We do not mean to applied to the leftists of the 19th and early imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to 20th century. ours. We merely point out the 9. The two psychological tendencies that hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.) underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of 12. Those who are most sensitive about inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings “politically incorrect” terminology are not of inferiority are characteristic of modern the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, characteristic only of a certain segment of but a minority of activists, many of whom do modern leftism; but this segment is highly not even belong to any “oppressed” group but influential. come from privileged strata of society. FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY Political correctness has its stronghold among 10. By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not university professors, who have secure Unabomber Manifesto (1995) • 2 of 52 employment with comfortable salaries, and person who has an inner sense of confidence the majority of whom are heterosexual, in his own ability to solve his own problems white males from middle-class families. and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition 13. Many leftists have an intense because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), 17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist defeated (American Indians), repellent intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The defeat and despair, or else they take an leftists themselves feel that these groups are orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control inferior. They would never admit it to as if there were no hope of accomplishing themselves that they have such feelings, but anything through rational calculation and all it is precisely because they do see these that was left was to immerse oneself in the groups as inferior that they identify with their sensations of the moment. problems. (We do not suggest that women, 18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only dismiss reason, science, objective reality and making a point about leftist psychology). to insist that everything is culturally relative. 14. Feminists are desperately anxious to It is true that one can ask serious questions prove that women are as strong as capable as about the foundations of scientific knowledge men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that and about how, if at all, the concept of women may NOT be as strong and as capable objective reality can be defined. But it is as men. obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians 15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an systematically analyzing the foundations of image of being strong, good and successful. knowledge. They are deeply involved They hate America, they hate Western emotionally in their attack on truth and civilization, they hate white males, they hate reality. They attack these concepts because rationality. The reasons that leftists give for of their own psychological needs. For one hating the West, etc. clearly do not thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, correspond with their real motives. They SAY and, to the extent that it is successful, it they hate the West because it is warlike, satisfies the drive for power. More imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so importantly, the leftist hates science and forth, but where these same faults appear in rationality because they classify certain socialist countries or in primitive cultures, beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best other beliefs as false (i.e.