Have you ever actually read the Unabomber's manifesto? Until recently I had not done so myself, but as part of my 'trust nothing' mentality, I decided to do so.
It's actually pretty amazing. I can easily draw comparisons (and see this work as a modern antecedent of) with Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Thorsten Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class. Both Hobbes and Veblen are considered great thinkers, but why not Ted Kaczynski?
The man held a PHD from the University of Michigan in mathematics. He was faculty at Berkeley in California. Crazy? Possibly, but he was definitely not stupid. It took the FBI 17 years to track him down, and they wouldn't have succeeded at all had Ted's own brother not recognized some of his brother's writings and turned him in.
But let's look at some comparisons in the actual manifesto ...
Manifesto:
35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.
37. Thus, 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.
Theory of the Leisure Class:
It has already been remarked that the term "leisure", as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence. What it connotes is non-productive consumption of time. Time is consumed non-productively (1) from a sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness. But the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life. For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing account. He should (44) find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators. This can be done only indirectly, through the exhibition of some tangible, lasting results of the leisure so spent -- in a manner analogous to the familiar exhibition of tangible, lasting products of the labour performed for the gentleman of leisure by handicraftsmen and servants in his employ.
In other words, if all your basic needs are met, you've still got to have SOMETHING to do. In Veblen's world, it was the European aristocrats who squandered their time on hunting or dancing or other useless endeavors. In Kaczynski's world, it's the "leftists" who pursue the most meaningless causes (save the spotted owl, etc.) instead of working towards the loftier goal of fixing a broken society.
Kaczynski's words now echo in blogs and newspaper columns across the Western world. From the manifesto:
32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.
How many times have you heard that complaint echoed? Or how about this one:
51.The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.
52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which are terrible sins in modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system. [7]
I've had this same discussion with friends in restaurants. Kaczynski's words continue to ring true:
59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that cannot be adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second group. The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc.
60. In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to consist increasingly of artificially created drives.
61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally fall into group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of serious effort. But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities to everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical needs are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about whether the effort needed to hold a job is "minimal"; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. Seldom do you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case you have hardly any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process is not well served.)
62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group 2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the individual. [10] But, except for people who have a particularly strong drive for status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives is insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power process.
63. So certain artificial needs have been created that fall into group 2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising and marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to satisfy these artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see paragraphs 80-82.) Modern man must satisfy his need for the power process largely through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the advertising and marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.
When the Unabomber was captured, the government spent a great deal of effort making him look like a crackpot. They described his lunatic lifestyle (living without electricity in a small cabin in the forest? CRAZY! Just like Thoreau) and then leaked the court-ordered psychiatric evaluations, which talked about deep levels of paranoia and sexual frustration. Well, the man was calling for the overthrow of an entire social structure overly dependent on technology, so he had a right to be paranoid. And as for sexual frustration ... he lived all alone in a cabin in the woods. Need I say more?
I won't go so far as to say that I admire the guy, because after all, his bombs injured or killed on 16 separate occasions. His victims ranged from unfortunate grad students to geneticists, to the California Forestry Association's president. He's now locked up in Colorado's supermax prison where he (presumably) doesn't have access to a typewriter, bomb-making materials, or the Internet.
However, his writings deserve more than a dismissal as the ravings of a madman. Time will tell, but the Unabomber Manifesto may go down in history, if the human race survives long enough to write its own history, as the most prescient and visionary document of our age.
