Theodore J. Kaczynski - Industrial Society and Its Future

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in advanced countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in advanced countries.

Theodore J. Kaczynski

The Unabomber Manifesto

ePub r1.0

Titivillus 18.02.18

Theodore J. Kaczynski, 1995

Editor digital: Titivillus

ePub base r1.2

THEODORE JOHN KACZYNSKI (born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber, is an American mathematician, anarchist and domestic terrorist. A mathematical prodigy, he abandoned an academic career in 1969 to pursue a primitive lifestyle, then between 1978 and 1995 killed 3 people, and injured 23 others, in a nationwide bombing campaign targeting those involved with modern technology. In conjunction, he issued a social critique opposing industrialization and advancing a nature-centered form of anarchism.

Raised in Evergreen Park, Illinois, Kaczynski was a child prodigy and entered Harvard College at the age of 16. He earned his BA from Harvard in 1962, then his MA and PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1967, respectively. After receiving his doctorate at age 25, he became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, but resigned abruptly two years later. As an undergraduate at Harvard, Kaczynski was a research subject in an ethically questionable experiment conducted by psychology professor Henry Murray, which some analysts have claimed influenced Kaczynski's later actions.

In 1971, Kaczynski moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient. In 1978, after witnessing the destruction of the wildland surrounding his cabin, he concluded that living in nature was untenable and began his bombing campaign. In 1995, he sent a letter to The New York Times and promised to desist from terrorism if the Times or The Washington Post published his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom and dignity by modern technologies that require large-scale organization.

Kaczynski was the target of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) longest and costliest investigation. Before his identity was known, the FBI used the acronym UNABOM (UNiversity and Airline BOMber) to refer to his case, which resulted in the media calling him the Unabomber. The FBI, as well as Attorney General Janet Reno, pushed for the publication of Industrial Society and Its Future, which led to his brother, David Kaczynski, recognizing his style of writing and beliefs and tipping off the FBI. After his arrest in 1996, Kaczynski tried unsuccessfully to dismiss his court-appointed lawyers because they wanted to plead insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, as he did not believe he was insane. In 1998 a plea bargain was reached, under which he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life expectancy of those of us who live in advanced countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in advanced countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful 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.

4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We cant predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.

5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important.

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, politically correct types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by leftism will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also, see paragraphs 227-230).