Quick Thoughts: The Unabomber’s Manifesto
By: Victor Hogrefe
Tags: Politics, Unabomber, Technology, Psychology, Kaczynski

In modern society, the power process is disrupted due to the fact that most human drives have moved from the second category, to the first and third. That is, most subsistence-level desires, like food and shelter are satisfied with almost no effort, while many other drives are completely unattainable or outside of our control.

Kaczynski does not consider holding a job that will allow a person to survive in modern society as a particular effort. In one of the best, most memorable passages of the manifesto he states:

40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care of one from cradle to grave.

We will return to the idea of obedience later on, which is a central tenant of his philosophy. It has the uncomfortable ring of truth to it, which characterizes almost the entire paper. He does, once again, qualify his assertion by stating:

40. … (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.).

Because we are generally deprived in industrial society of drives of the second kind, we devote ourselves to “Surrogate activities”. That is, we invent artificial needs and desires of the second kind in order to seek fulfillment. For instance, some devote themselves to long-distance running, others study the sciences, still others put all their effort into climbing the corporate ladder, etc. Any goal or activity we can invent which requires real effort to fulfill can be a surrogate activity.

Kaczynski is insistent that science, for example, is not driven by an innate curiosity, but is itself one of the main surrogate activities we have devised:

87. As for “curiosity,” that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problems that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. […] If the chemist […] had to exert [himself] seriously to obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised [his] abilities in an interesting way but in some non-scientific pursuit, then [he] wouldn’t give a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane […].

Surrogate activities cannot fully satisfy the power process, as evidenced by the fact that the long-distance runner will always challenge himself to run even further, and the scientists will pursue the next question as soon as the previous one has been answered. There is never a point of complete satisfaction, but only the idea of progression and improvement (This is an interesting parallel with the Philosophy of Svend Brinkmann. See my upcoming discussion).

Drives of the third kind, those that cannot be satisfied no matter the effort, are another source of distress. One of the principle examples of this is the need for security in a broad sense. Our lives are, more or less, influenced by people and circumstances outside our control. In a world in which very few people make most of the important decisions, the consequences of which are often unknown or not fully understood, we can see that the lack security can be an impossible hurdle to overcome. Slight changes in environmental safety standards in chemical plants, wars with other countries, radiation from accidents and bomb tests, poisoned water reserves, the general stability of the economy and the job market, inflation, car accidents, medical mistakes or malpractice, climate change, and simply bad luck are all factors outside of our direct control that can have devastating effects on our lives, and may hit us at any moment.

There is an interesting parallel here between the psychological effects stemming from frustrations of this third kind, and the phenomenon of the psychological effects of modern warfare on soldiers. The fact that one may be randomly killed by an exploding shell, or stray bullet at any moment for months at a time exerts extreme pressures on the individual which could be interpreted as a heightened form of what people experiences in industrial society. Thus, anxiety and depression follow from this lack of control in much the same way, albeit to a lesser extent than is experienced by combatants.

Thus, Kaczynski argues that we are miserable largely because of the disruption of the power process due to our drives being either too easy or too hard to fully satisfy, and that even our focus on surrogate activities cannot entirely fulfill us.

Industrial-Technological Society

Another central tenant of the manifesto is that modern industrial society erodes freedom, and does so necessarily. Autonomy, which is a central component of the power process is minimized by our reliance on technology. Even though technology typically is seen to give us more freedom, in reality Kaczynski argues, it enslaves us and forces us to operate only within the narrowing confines of the system that results.

Whenever a new technology is introduced, it is hailed as a great achievement that can make life better, easier, and more free. An example is the automobile, which was a revolutionary achievement of engineering and allowed people to travel more freely, faster and autonomously, without relying on horses or trains. This is a purely positive change, clearly; something that we would almost universally call progress.

In the beginning, the use of cars was entirely voluntary, and optional. However, as time passed, the automobile has completely changed the layout of cities, where people live and work, and has imposed a huge cannon of rules and regulations regarding freedom of movement on people. In other words, automobile technology has forced us to limit our personal autonomy, and to operate only within the confines of the system that this technology has consequently created. Further, owning a car is largely not optional anymore, but necessary. The system has changed in a way that forces us to own a car. What was true for cars when Kaczynski was writing, is even more true for cell-phones, the internet, etc.

Kaczynski argues that, unfortunately, industrial society necessarily limits freedom and autonomy. There is no compromise, nor a way in which we can take only the good parts of technology and reform the bad aspects.

115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers. It can’t function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields. It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world. 116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society’s requirements: welfare leeches, youth gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds. 117. In any technologically advanced society the individual’s fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines.

The issue is that on a game-theoretic level, technology is a much more powerful social force than our desire to retain freedom.

125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises.

If, for example, we imagine ourselves in competition with another person, or another society, which will either kill or take advantage of us if it can, then we are usually willing to accept a small reduction in our personal freedom or autonomy, in order to prevent a negative outcome. That other person or society is, of course, in the same position, and will also try to gain any advantage possible. Thus we find ourselves in an arms race of technology in which the payoffs for being the stronger player are much greater than the risks of being left behind but retaining personal autonomy. Therefore, technology places us on an unavoidable, slippery slope towards slavery to the system.

The Revolution

Since industrial society cannot be reformed, and since it necessarily erodes our freedom and makes us miserable, Kaczynski’s conclusion is that it needs to be overthrown. In this section, he discusses various ways in which this might happen, but remains rather pessimistic. For example, he notes that the world’s population can only be maintained because of industrial society. Thus, an overthrow of the system would lead to the potential starvation of billions. He also notes that electing to not have children is a bad idea, since the revolutionaries need to be plenty in number. However, this is in conflict with the world’s population being too large.

As he mentioned earlier, choosing technology over freedom is a more dominant strategy, so it is very difficult to see how this revolution would ever start, especially given that it would need to be a worldwide revolution. It seems that any country or society not participating in the revolution would have a huge advantage over any society that does, which naturally results in no society taking the first step.

Kaczynski does not seem to have a good idea of what should happen after the revolution, since he is, in his own words, only interested in overthrowing industrial society, and not particularly interested in what kind of society should replace it. However, his own secluded lifestyle, and mentions of primate society gives us some hints as to what he would prefer.

There is a tone of defeatism in this section, as he admits that even if the revolution succeeded, 500 or 1000 years into the future, humanity would likely face the exact same problem again. In other words, even he himself does not believe that the progress of technology can ever be stopped, only that it can potentially be interrupted.

In many ways, Kaczynski’s revolution reminds me of two other accounts of revolution against technology which I’ve encountered in fiction. That of the “Butlerian Jihad” from Frank Herbert’s Dune saga, and the case of the Bird-People of Brontitall, in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Both of these accounts share commonalities with Kaczynski’s ideas that technology increasingly controls us, and may be a danger to our existence.

Conclusion

The Unabomber’s manifesto provides an interesting critique of modern society, technology, and progress itself, which is typically hailed universally. While ultimately he does not provide a practical solution, and many of his thoughts are perhaps not fully developed, his writings highlight some of the dangers that have already manifested themselves in our civilization, and will likely continue to do so.

Perhaps it is possible to find a compromise, or to solve these societal problems with yet more, and previously unimagined technology and innovation. For example, it may be the case that human nature is fundamentally incompatible with industrial society, but this can mean that we must change either industrial society, or human nature. Kaczynski only considers the former, but the latter is likely the only way to cope with the ever-changing world without falling victim to it.