Corrupt

• Goal
• Data
• Act

Theodore Kaczynski

Introduction

One of the most prominent things that define the process of modernization of the Western civilization is the urbanized, industrialized technological advancement of mass-fabricated products. This has completely reformed the economic, social, cultural, and political aspects of our society. By building large industries that centralize the production that previously was managed by local fabrics, we've been able to construct highly advanced systems including complex technology, allowing many different parts from many different places to be assembled in one place to form a coherent scheme of production. Imagine building a car in a local town without all the proper mechanical parts; it'd be close to impossible, and even more impossible to produce cars for a large number of people within a limited time frame.

With the centralization of industries we've experienced the modern phenomenon called globalization, that is, the centralization of economics where large corporations extend their business of production and sales across multiple countries, establishing partnerships across national borders and thus making all industries owned by that company dependent on the central unit located in one of the nations. For instance, the Microsoft Corporation has companies in almost every country around the world, but has central units that make the overall decisions that will dictate the business plans of all Microsoft companies, regardless of location.

The social and cultural impact of industrialization is a large topic, but can easily be summarized by the growth of multiculturalism, mass media, and larger organizations such as the United Nations and the European Nations. The borders of nations have melted together and generated high numbers in both immigration and emigration. In relation to politics, we've seen large countries such as the US expand the political sphere into other lands, such as Iraq, where the question of imperialism has been brought up in wild discussions about how we ought to define "freedom."

This is the time when we must place, and thus understand, the ideas of Theodore Kaczynski and his motives for becoming one of America's most hunted and sought-after terrorists. It is not possible, or even beneficial, to isolate the external factors that undoubtedly shaped the mind of a young mathematician, leading him to escape from modern civilization. If we want to understand the "Unabomber," we must also understand the development since the late 18th century and early 19th century, when the industrial revolution was taking place throughout Europe. The core of Kaczynski's ideas can in part be seen as a revolt against industrialization and the effects it brought into the modern time.

The philosophy of Theodore Kaczynski:
Anarcho-primitivism

On April 24, 1995, Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times, in which one passage read:

In our previous letter to you we called ourselves anarchists. Since "anarchist" is a vague word that has been applied to a variety of attitudes, further explanation is needed. We call ourselves anarchists because we would like, ideally, to break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units. Regrettably, we don't see any clear road to this goal, so we leave it to the indefinite future. Our more immediate goal, which we think may be attainable at some time during the next several decades, is the destruction of the worldwide industrial system. Through our bombings we hope to promote social instability in industrial society, propagate anti-industrial ideas and give encouragement to those who hate the industrial system. ("Letter sent to The New York Times")

This passage is an essential key towards the understanding of the primary philosophy of Kaczynski. Let us break apart the ideology into two parts:

a) Anarchism; "belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a cooperative basis." (Oxford English Dictionary)

b) Primitivism; "adoption of a primitive lifestyle or technique." (Oxford English Dictionary)

From this we understand that Anarcho-primitivism is a belief in autonomous communities, and a primitive lifestyle close to how people lived before the industrial society emerged. These stances represent the pre-modernization process of urban city-life, mass society, and centralized technological development. Kaczynski wants to break down the whole of modern civilization, replacing it with small-scale rural communities managed by a collective of people, bound together by the necessities of physical survival. This means a reversal of all industrial and technological development, all forms of centralization through government or otherwise, in order to maintain the smallest possible group of people living together, under circumstances close to nature and its ecosystem. Anarcho-primitivism criticizes the immediate effects of a centralized industrial-technological system, where the previous bonds of collective groups are broken down into individual specialization, where monotone factory performance creates physical and mental disabilities, and where systematic pollution damages the environment:

Technology is here defined as tool use based upon division of labor...that is, tool manufacture and utilization that has become sufficiently complex to require specialization, implying both a separation and eventual stratification among individuals in the community, along with the rise of toil in the form of specialized, repetitive tasks. (John Filiss, "What is Primitivism?")

This can be said to be the essential core of Kaczynski's philosophy. We will now begin to dissect and pick out the most important ideas set up by the Unabomber, analyze their arguments, and summarize their relevance within a modern context.

The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society & Its Future

The Power Process

Kaczynski talks about what he calls the "power process":

Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the "power process." This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal.

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Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one's power. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 33-34)

Kaczynski describes in simple terms the basic behavior of human development: idea, work, and success. This process is an essential part for us to change the physical world in which we live. Imagine you want to build a small cabin out in the forest. At first you possess an idea, that is, to build the cabin. This is where you form your goal. After that you begin to cut down a few trees and use the wood for the house. You've now begun to work in order to attain the goal; this is the second phase of the "power process." A few months later you realize the house is complete. You've now attained the goal. Kaczynski agues that this is the very basic process, which gives our lives a sense of meaning. He then goes on to compare how this process was achieved in pre-industrial times, with the modern lifestyle, and comes to the conclusion that most of us today aren't able to achieve personal goals outside of what society deems "important."

Surrogate Activities

Again, we quote from "the Unabomber Manifesto":

We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental facilities in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person's pursuit of a goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn't know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity.) (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 39)

When we cannot attain goals of our own, we instead invent surrogate goals that in reality do not serve any real purpose or meaning. Take TV for example. Most people today watch television, partly as a form of entertainment, partly as a way of relaxing after a long day at work. But let's say we wouldn't spend eight hours a day working in an office, but instead spent maybe three to four hours hunting and gathering food, and an additional two hours cooking and eating it. Would you still feel an urge to watch television? Or would you perhaps more likely rest under a tree and watch the beautiful sun go down?

As modern individuals we fill our lives with all forms of distractions, because we're afraid that they inherently may lack a meaning or purpose for us, strong enough to inspire us to keep on living. If you ask yourself what really matters in this world or why you are alive and have chosen to go on living, you notice how things like television, cell phones, computers, movies, the internet, drugs/alcohol, college studies, politics etc. suddenly become less relevant. Most people would answer that they love life itself and the people they've grown up with, namely, their family. So why do we spend hours and hours every day on activities that in reality only distract, sometimes even harm the things we really love? Kaczynski argues here from a primitivist stance: the glory of nature and the fight for survival are the most basic activities in human nature that we need to feel that our lives have purpose and meaning. Without them, we create surrogate activities, in an attempt to replace our "power process" with something materialistic and tangible. Most people in modern society spend their lives on surrogate activities, not on things that actually make them happy in the long run.

We like technology because it gives us a sure identity and place in society, where we socially are connected through the economic system in which we live. If we were to live a primitive lifestyle close to nature, we'd be more dependent on our mental and physical abilities, opposed to pushing buttons, shuffling papers, administering databases, or driving vehicles. This scares most people, partly because it means they'd have to give up their surrogate activities and break the circle of self-defeatism, partly because we'd expose ourselves to the truth: no one is equal in ability to another individual, and some are better on certain things than others, hence natural selection would regulate our communities. Technology helps to uphold and maintain social constructions known to us as "public truths," because with technology all people are fit for society. You can be a moron and still manage basic functions on a computer, and you may be physically defective, but still be capable of managing bureaucratic tasks in an office. Technology is safety from the uncomfortable reality outside of our industries and companies. This is what we fear.

The illusion behind modern "progress"

One of the most interesting ideas that Kaczynski presents, is the truth behind what we today refer to as "progress." The concept of modern "progress" is rather vague, but is generally supposed to refer to the industrial-technological development, and how this development is: a) something positive, b) did not exist before the industrial revolution, and c) strives ever onward without regression. This means that a lot of people today who speak out against the environmental damages that the industrial-capitalist society undoubtedly created are silenced by the rhetoric of a "progress," described as a phenomenon that cannot stop and is at large beyond criticism. People would say: "Well, do you want us go back to living in caves? Television, computers, cars, industries - these are all parts of the inevitable development of modern society." Yet is that true?

As we read about how ancient people managed to create advanced maps of the stars (Dr David Whitehouse, "Oldest star chart" found) and generate electricity long before it was widely introduced in the 19th century industrial society (Arran Frood, "Riddle of 'Baghdad's batteries'"), we also come to the conclusion that there was an advanced scientific and technological research going on long before the establishment of modern society. But how has the myth of modern "progress" managed to survive, if it obviously does not reflect the historical reality? Kaczynski writes:

The reason why technology has seemed always to progress is that, until perhaps a century or two before the Industrial Revolution, most technology was small-scale technology. But most of the technology developed since the Industrial Revolution is organization-dependent technology. Take the refrigerator for example. Without factory-made parts or the facilities of a post-industrial machine shop it would be virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen to build a refrigerator. If by some miracle they did succeed in building one it would be useless to them without a reliable source of electric power. So they would have to dam a stream and build a generator. Generators require large amounts of copper wire. Imagine trying to make that wire without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas suitable for refrigeration? It would be much easier to build an icehouse or preserve food by drying or pickling, as was done before the invention of the refrigerator. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 209)

This is a vital statement that reveals the illusion behind "progress": mankind has always developed technology since the dawn of time, but as it has been confined to local production and usage, it was first during the industrial revolution that we paid real attention to it, as it then became centralized and mass-produced. This doesn't mean that technology didn't exist prior to modern industrial society, or that it wasn't developed. Without the knowledge of small-scale technology we wouldn't even have been able to build the steam engine and so forth. Thus, "progress" must not be seen as a certain period during the industrial age that came from nowhere, and can certainly not be claimed to be a "necessary" or "vital" part of human development, as we stand behind the creation of our society; technology wasn't given to us by God, but developed over thousands and thousands of years, and if we were to break it down, it'd take us another thousand years or more, in order to reach this advanced state again. We are able to control our future, but only if we let ourselves do that.

Kaczynski attacks the centralized technological process, which he sees as something that has disrupted local autonomy and freedom, caused serious environmental damage to our planet, and has created a social system in which we are deprived of our "power process." He proposes a destruction of all current modern technology and industrial production, in order to regress into a primitive lifestyle where small, rural communities only use the most essential of local technology to stay alive and live close to nature. This could be called a naturalistic view on life, that is, the belief that man and nature are inseparable and we therefore cannot neglect or leave out one factor, without disrupting the process of life as a whole. To Kaczynski, we're a part of nature and dependent on its resources for survival, and its essence in beauty for a meaningful life. This life, which we call primitive due to its very nature, is to Kaczynski the best way of attaining the only true "freedom" possible in our lives. Thus the notion of "progress" becomes not only an illusion, but an irrelevant statement: if we are happy by living close to nature, without computers, cars, and technology at large, we're in no need of any "progress," as we've reached a balance, a consensus, between individual and environment.

The role of Leftism in industrial society

Since Kaczynski argues from an anarchist point of view (in the sense that he believes in individual freedom and is against all forms of totalitarianism and centralized forms of governments), he attacks modern Leftism and tries to analyze its basic psychology. Because Leftism may be a vague definition, we quote from "the Unabomber Manifesto":

The leftist is oriented toward largescale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically "enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and against violence, but he often finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the common catch-phrases of the left like "racism," "sexism," "homophobia," "capitalism," "imperialism," "neocolonialism," "genocide," "social change," "social justice," "social responsibility." Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights, and political correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist.(Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 229)

As modern Leftism originates from the socialism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both of whom were pro-collectivist, it also defends the centralized form of government that Kaczynski sees as a threat to local communities. As he notes:

[...] Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can't have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can't make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can't have a "planned society" without the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 214)

Thus Leftism becomes inconsistent with the ideal society that Kaczynski believes in. The important contribution within this area though, is his analysis of the psychology behind Leftists and modern people in general. Close to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed that the modern man suffered from passive-aggressive resentment of anything strong, intelligent, and outstanding, Kaczynski explains how Leftists in particular gains power by identifying themselves with weak groups of society, and develop an altruistic behavior for the sake of expressing that power - even though the truth is that they themselves feel weak and self-defeated, and thus want to create a social and moral standard based on equality to hide that fact. Kaczynski writes:

Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. [...] (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 13)

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Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative," "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic and pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. (paragraph 16)

This is the passive-aggressive nature of modern Leftism: it upholds, justifies, and glorifies the weak, unsuccessful, sick, and degenerate - and therefore tends to be seen as a passive movement - but is at the same time aggressive about anything that would criticize or otherwise prove the Leftist wrong. Modern Leftists speak about freedom and that all people have the right to live where they please, yet they're hostile towards movements that do not agree with the Leftist agenda - that is National Socialism and Fascism. Leftists believe in multiculturalism and want all people to be equal and live side by side in society, yet they're aggressively attacking white middle class males as being sexist, racist, dominant, imperialist, violent, etc. Leftists claim to be strongly pacifist, yet they don't think twice before going out on the streets and using violence on political opponents during otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

We choose to call this behavior passive-aggressive, because the individual in question hovers between two extremes; it is by nature very aggressive, but is at the same time able to maintain a social image of being a victim. Thus the individual is able to hide its true motivations if its basic psychology remains a clue to the open public. For instance, most people believe Democracy stands from freedom and peace, even though the people living in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden, probably weren't very happy with this concept of 'peace'. The same thing can be attributed to Democracy as being respectful of other people; it clearly didn't think twice before moving into Iraq and demonstrating another example of modern imperialism. Yet most people never think about this, and so movements like Leftism manage to exert their power without ever being criticized of their basic motivations.

Oversocialization or How to oppress with Freedom

Kaczynski also opens up an interesting discussion around the different methods of silencing dissident voices in modern society. It is believed by most people today that we live in "free" Democratic societies, and that only Fascist and Nazi states regulate people's criticism of the state. As we are about to see, this is an illusion; we are not more "free" in an industrial-Democratic society than in a Fascist society. Instead, "freedom" is a concept used to convey an external image, while the internal truth remains the same. Kaczynski demonstrates this by explaining how criticism towards the industrial-Democratic society is effectively suppressed through the process of what he calls "oversocialization":

The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel, and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized" to describe such people. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 25)

Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.(paragraph 26)

The process of oversocialization may seem very obvious to our readers, but remember that this is never publicly addressed as "brainwashing" or in any case something negative. As Democratic societies strive to let each individual achieve maximum "freedom," consensus on basic values and ideas are lost, and as a result internal fractions are created. In this case the state has to step up and regulate people so that chaos or revolutions do not break out. The concept of "freedom" is therefore very vague, but if we assume that it means being able to do what one wants and say what one thinks, this does not necessarily presuppose a state of "freedom." If the individual in a society has values and ideas that do not clash with general consensus, there is no need for an extended form of liberalism or Democracy.

When our politicians speak of "freedom," they refer to the consensus they want you to agree upon. To disagree with public consensus would be to disagree with capitalism, Democracy, liberalism, individualism and so forth, which means you'd become a Kaczynski - a terrorist! As such, the public image of "freedom" does NOT reflect a "total freedom," but one limited within the space that our political and cultural leaders decide we must follow. In order to have individuals follow these regulations and laws, a system of silencing oppression and maintaining public ideas, must be set up for the people. Democracy does this primarily by means of mass media. All people in Democratic societies read newspapers, watch TV, talk to friends, and listen to political speeches on the radio almost every single day. This means that people consume information on a regular basis, information that of course stems from few monopolized sources that work in accordance with the public image. Thus the myth of a "free" massmedia is a lie: the government won't tell you everything, but what they would like you to hear. And you swallow, right?

Needless to say, Kaczynski covers an important scheme of thought by bringing this subject to attention. Firstly, he comes to the conclusion that society can simulate dissident voices and "open debates," yet maintain monopoly on what's allowed to be said and done. Secondly, he discusses the future possibility in increasing the process of oversocialization, that is, the method of making people adapt their ideas, values, and personal opinions, so that they as much as possible conform to the central, public image. As women today are working outside of their homes, our children are instead being cared for at day care centers that are run by government funding. From there they move on to school where they learn most of their social, cultural, and political ideas and values - and of course all public schools must follow the basic educational system that is set up by the government. In between this we have TV-shows, magazines, radio, music, books; the list could be made long. It's questionable whether most people are able to think as independently outside of the public image, not to mention what they base their ideas and values on; their source of information stems from what correlates to what the government has set out for them. In this sense, one could say that industrial-Democratic societies function like very clever dictator systems: the people think it is "free," while the state only offers one side of the truth - a truth with modification.

Another interesting subject that Kaczynski brings up is how dissident voices can be used to portray "criticism" while the main system is kept intact. He draws an example from how Leftists are seen as "against" the current regime although the truth is that it's just another way of faking "open debates":

Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass" they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers "responsible." They want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn't care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.(Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 29)

This is not a modern phenomenon - it's been done hundreds of times before, and is in fact still going on today. Remember the Hippies from the 60's? What happened with their belief in "freedom, peace, and justice"? Brett Stevens writes:

Business loves nothing more than dissent, because it creates new markets. The hippies barrelled through and created new markets because really, their own goal was their own pleasure; they wanted to feel like Jesus by saving the Negroes, women, gays from inequality, and they wanted to find "the good life" in the pursuit of pleasure through sex, drugs, and boring music. They didn't realize that they were essentially restating the principle which mates liberal democracy to capitalism, which is that the individual by acting in her own best interests creates an economy of vicious competition which, with no cultural goal to guide it (because culture is a higher value that the pursuit of individual pleasure) turns the entire society into one giant economy. Every object on the planet suddenly has a price tag on it, and all of our time is ranked by what we're worth... you can have whatever freedom you desire, if you can pay for it, but since in the absence of culture and social accord, business takes over with its simpler agenda, you will now serve your new masters. The hippies in effect broke up what was left of the old America and, in the name of some very abstract ideas taken to their simplest extremes, made it so divisive that the corporations can take over. (Brett Stevens, "Pyramid")

This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Think about it - who are the people that our modern society believes are its real enemies? Neo-nazis, Islamist terrorists, radical environmentalists (like Kaczynski), Fascists; in other words, groups and organizations that are against the basic system of industrial capitalism and liberal Democracy. These are the ones that our society fears and thus needs to oppress. Leftists are not "oppressed." Anarchists are not really "oppressed." Hippies have never been "oppressed." The people that are actually oppressed and silenced by the Democratic society are people that pose an actual threat to the current system. People like Kaczynski and Bin Ladin are hunt down by the FBI, not because they are "insane" or "mad" (as public media wants us to think), but because they do not agree with the public consensus and thus fall outside of the so called "freedom" of our "open" societies. If you still believe that modern society grants us individual freedom to express ourselves, consider your influence on the people around you, knowing that one vote still is just one vote:

As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don't mean to knock that right: it is a very important tool for limiting concentration of political power and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we've had to kill people. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 96)

Intercorrelation and reformation

Kaczynski argues that the industrial-capitalist society cannot be reformed by simply altering one aspect of it and expecting that to solve an overall problem rooted in the core of our political and economic systems. As all parts of the system are intercorrelated, if we change one thing, we will alter the course of numerous other instances in society. Take environmental protection for example. Our politicians want us to recycle products in order to lessen the strain on our natural resources. Yet as our population exponentially grows, especially considering the overwhelming numbers of immigration each year, this change leads to no great effect at all, but is consumed by another problem in our society: overpopulation and unrestrained urbanization.

Or take the "green cars." These are transportation vehicles intended to run on non-fossil fuels, to reduce the levels of global warming. Yet the development of such a vehicle would be highly expensive, and those companies who engage in this project and perhaps release cars on the open market would most likely not keep this up for very long. Most people would not pay a substantially higher price for a car, even if it's "green," when other companies would be able to offer new, exciting features instead, and that to a lower price. We cannot alter one part of economics, politics, or culture, and then assume that such a change will solve all of our problems. If we choose to reform one part of society, it will have to impact the whole of society; thus our current leaders are not inclined nor interested in actually changing society to protect our environment. They know that in order to stop the pollution means to reduce or stop the production of commerce, which our whole society is based upon. That will never happen under the current regime, as it places money and material comfort above any other value.

Technological evolution: Heaven or Hell?

Perhaps among the more shocking things to read about in "the Unabomber Manifesto," are the possibilities that technology will open up before us within the near future. Genetic research is rapidly growing and exposing new ways of altering defective genes from birth. Developing the critique aimed at how modern society regulates its citizens through oversocialization, Kaczynski goes on to explain how this could be done not just socially and culturally, but genetically as well:

Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through the use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product. (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 122)

This scenario is not science fiction; current scientific research has come very far in attributing human abilities to particular brands of genes. Just recently scientists said they'd found genes connected to human intelligence:

US researchers believe they have identified the parts of the human genome involved in developing a person's intelligence.

This means scientists could soon test the potential intelligence of new-born babies.

The discovery has been seized on by some on the Right who claim it backs their view that the way people turn out depends more on the genes with which they are born rather than on the schools they attend.

Others have warned the discovery gives succour to those parents who would wish to improve their children through genetic engineering. (Pallab Ghosh, "Genius of genes")

As Kaczynski points out, no moral or ethical basis would likely be able to alter this progression toward genetic engineering. Ask yourself this question: if you had a son or a daughter that was suffering from cancer or diabetes, would you or would you not consider genetic engineering if it was possible? Further, imagine if a large segment of the population could have their cancer "cured" by genetic engineering; what would happen if the technological system would break down? Then we'd have a rampant number of babies carrying cancer from their parents, which would require a huge eugenics program or even an organized genocide, if the people were to survive the next generations to come.

Now, many of our readers may think that we somehow can avoid or chose not to take part of such a technological progression. According to Kaczynski, this is also an illusion:

A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster than the walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace; one's movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop and wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note the important point we have illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.) (Theodore Kaczynski, "The FC/Unabomber Manifesto", paragraph 127)

Theodore Kaczynski and the Industrial Society
- a CORRUPT perspective

Kaczynski, 55, said in journals seized from his crude cabin in Montana that he committed the bombings in the name of revenge. He targeted airline executives, computer experts, medical scientists and advertising executives, who he said represented industries and fields that help isolate people from one another and from nature, and manipulate people's minds and attitudes. (Cynthia Hubert, "Unabomber gets life sentence: Victims tell Kaczynski of their anguish")

Theodore Kaczynski is one of our time's most baffling thinkers. He continued the research of the psychology of the mass from where Friedrich Nietzsche left off, he described technology as a way for modern man to simulate a virtual reality disconnected from our natural world, he successfully analyzed the motivations of modern Leftism and altruism, but perhaps most importantly, he debunked one of the largest myths of our time regarding "progress" and instead presented a very sad future, of how technology could be used to manipulate and alter the behavior of human thinking in order to establish total loyalty to a system driven forward by its own economic expansion. No other thinker has done this and with it, taken his ideas into the pragmatic world to demonstrate a lonely soul rebelling against a time of insanity.

At CORRUPT, we are less interested in what led to the eventual prison sentence of this man, but wish to focus on his ideas and what he has to say. Like all times when extreme actions are taken, the underlying forces that motivate the individual are often neglected or demonized, and thus the actions themselves become isolated factors, which we judge by emotivism and not by logic. Most people today are convinced that Kaczynski is either insane or wrong, and while it's debatable whether he was "right" or "wrong" in what he did, we can easily draw a conclusion from his ideas: he has something important to say and it'd be foolish not to listen to him, regardless of what he did.

Kaczynski sees the industrial society as a growing cancer that consumes everything in its way. He believes that it creates centralized systems of technology that disintegrate local communities, generates psychological problems for human beings, and destroys large lands of wild nature. Today we know this is not far from the truth; the local cultures that perhaps just 100-200 years ago were the foundation to all European societies, have today become urban cities overpopulated due to high birthrates and/or high numbers of immigration. The local ties are cut and instead we've become anonymous city-dwellers, and thus feel we no longer carry a responsibility to the place in which we live. That most people today either suffer from stress or depression, is nothing new and all statistics show that these rates continue to rise, including those of suicide among younger people such as teenagers. The enormous amounts of forests that currently are being cut down and replaced with malls and houses, disrupt the ecosystems and leave animals homeless. Global warming, Overpopulation, and the consumerist lifestyle of Westerners will kill this planet if we don't act within the near future. When Kaczynski says that industrial society and its technological progress is the antithesis of nature, freedom, and community, he's in many respects right and indisputable.

He argues that we need to destroy all of modern technology, but unlike ecofascists such as Pentti Linkola who only want to kill what was created over the last 100 years, Kaczynski does not believe in centralized technology at all. His primitivist stance claims that all technology must be destroyed before we can return to a better lifestyle in accordance with our natural world. CORRUPT does not believe that technology in itself is "wrong," but that it indeed has escalated to senseless proportions, and that we need to regulate it under strong leadership. Kaczynski in our point of view, is fleeing from what we could have done with our technological assets, if we used them wisely. A large number of questions arise when discussing the function of Kaczynski's Anarcho-primitivist society. Can we really flee from technology? Does it not lie in human nature to develop technological tools, regardless of motivation? Let us assume that we did kill all of our current technology. How would we be able to regulate any technological development? Kaczynski does not answer questions like these, partly because they probably lie outside of what any man can foresee.

CORRUPT believes in technology and sees it not as a threat, but as a method, and like with all methods, it can work if it's used within a clever design. We claim to offer such a design, where technology is used moderately and for a meaningful purpose, not being used as entertainment and distraction for the mass of people. Indeed we need to go back to a more simple way of life closer to nature, but this does not necessarily mean a regression, even in technological terms. We agree with Kaczynski that a decentralization of politics, economy, technology, and culture, is vital for us to: a) return from the unstable global market economy to the stable and local economy, b) regulate the urban overpopulation and leave all areas not populated by human beings intact and preserved in its original state, and c) avoid nation-wide laws and instead let local communities become more independent by having their own sets of laws and traditions. Some companies would benefit from a centralized production and will thus have that function in society, while things like craftwork and food supply must be as local as possible. In this regard CORRUPT wants to go back to a form of the caste society, where local communities work autonomously, but still are connected to a larger nation by certain laws and cultural as well as ethnic bonds.

In relation to this we also believe that the ideal anarchist society of Kaczynski carries a vital flaw: the quality of the population. It is no news that the general IQ of the world is stagnating, partly due to overpopulation in countries where the general IQ is low, and partly due to the fact that people with medium to low IQs, in general, have more children than people with higher IQs, thus creating a future society where people cannot grasp nor understand how to use technology intelligently. To combat this CORRUPT believes we must return to natural selection, where we are able to provide economic and political benefits for families where the parents have high intelligence and noble moral character, while regulating the number of children in families where the parents have medium to low IQs or show evidence of degenerate or destructive behavior. This is the most humane and efficient way to create a future society populated by intelligent, brave, honest people that will be able to manage our technology and use it wisely.

We also disagree with Kaczynski's anarchist stance regarding the concept of human freedom. While Kaczynski is critical of Fascist societies with strong leadership, CORRUPT is not. We believe that we indeed need less government and more culture in our lives, and that the centralization of our communities has been a disaster, but that the solution does not lie in Anarchism or the "total freedom" of the individual. Instead we argue from a Platonic stance: the individual is able to fulfill him or herself even if being regulated or ruled by a leader, as long as his or her values do not clash with the general consensus in the community. It is a logical fallacy to believe that leaders "force" ideas or opinions on people: while of course not all people can agree on everything, the role of a true leader is to find consensus and maintain that within his or her community. See it this way: most people don't need laws to avoid raping and killing people. Why? Most people live in a culture where killing and raping innocent people is wrong, and thus not something one normally does. The role of the leader is to make sure that this consensus is maintained, through laws or otherwise, thus not really clashing with any freedom of the individual, but instead preserving it so that no one actually gets killed or raped.

One could say that, while Kaczynski wants to replace modern civilization, CORRUPT wants to replace modern society. The difference lies within these terms: society and civilization. Kaczynski wants to return to small-scale groups of people, living free in nature without modern technology or all the things going with it. CORRUPT wants to decentralize most current cities, preserve the largest for central production of certain products, but maintain a society although with a completely new design and system. We are not opposed to human civilization nor do we wish to kill all technology; we want to reduce and regulate most of the current technology and reform modern society into a traditionalist society based on culture.

Notice that we say reform. Kaczynski wants to create a revolution against modern civilization, which we believe is destined to fail for several reasons, among the primary ones being a) revolutions always end up reforming small parts of society but never really solve the main cause, and b) allowing the mass of people to again take power, which CORRUPT believes to be a failure. A group, a community, or a society, cannot function without proper leadership, and unlike what our Democratic politicians today teach us in schools around the world, all people do NOT have the intelligence, knowledge, or the character required to lead and take important decisions. Very few people are born leaders and even fewer are able to become good leaders, thus CORRUPT believes that political systems like Anarchism and Democracy are destined to fail.

We do NOT advocate a revolution, but a reform of the current modern society. While Kaczynski quite in-depth describes why he believes that a reform will fail, he doesn't take into account the reform of the design of society, only technology itself. CORRUPT wants a completely new society that is in most aspects the total opposite to the current society in which we now live. Revolutions do not create lasting changes, but break down consensus among people and return us to the lowest common denominator. We saw it in Soviet Russia where people became greedy and used the system for individual preferences, and we saw it in France where the Democratic revolution ended in mass-slaughter of most intelligent people; today we see it in the formation of a political system that is killing our people, our cultures, and nature. This is not freedom.

To conclude, we believe that Kaczynski is right in his diagnosis of modern technology and politics, their purpose in both a current and future context, and why we're fooling ourselves with behavior that bottom down is dysfunctional and built around fear and self-defeatism. However, we believe that the solution to these problems that Kaczynski offers, is incorrect. Not a revolution nor an anarchist or primitivist stance are lasting ways of solving our problems. We cannot - and should not - flee from our situation by concluding that we must destroy it. We see as the only sensible solution to our problems, remaking modern society according to eternal principles and establishing traditional values that will re-attach man to nature and leader to society. The future lies in our hands, and it is up to us if we have the power and intelligence to face it.

Further reading

Paul Ferguson, "A loner from youth"

Battling technology and rabbits from a hermit's cabin

Interview with Theodore Kaczynski

Theodore Kaczynski, "Hit Where It Hurts"

Theodore Kaczynski, "Ship of Fools"

Theodore Kaczynski, "Unnamed Essay" (1971)

Theodore Kaczynski, "When Non-Violence is Suicide"

Theodore Kaczynski, "On a boundary property of continuous functions"