“Where to start with thisâ¦
I suppose âWhy?â is the big question. Why read this?
Well, one reason was because a favorite author, Chuck Klosterman, has mentioned it a number of times.
Reason two was a matter of convenience. I found out this is available as a free audiobook on Internet Archive, and I was curious. Iâm like a cat that way. Iâm also like a cat because when Iâm hungry, Iâm obnoxious as hell.
Reason three was that this is a fascinating cultural document. One way to get published in the New York Times? Threaten to send people bombs. Poets, take note.
I suppose the next thing is to say that the star rating is completely divorced from the way Ted Kacsynski decided to try and bring about what he thought was a necessary revolution. Maybe my rating it this way is upsetting to some, but I donât really care. Get your own Goodreads going, review shit based on how you felt about it. Thatâs kinda how this whole thing works.
I donât think thereâs much reason to read this thing if youâre looking to decide whether or not Kaczynski was a bad guy. He was OBVIOUSLY a bad guy.
I do think thereâs an argument to be made that what he did was wrong, but perhaps he thought that what he was doing was taking extreme measures to prevent what he thought was basically the complete dissolution of human society, or that he was taking actions that he felt were necessary to âfreeâ humans from their technological/societal enslavement. I donât necessarily agree with these ideas, but I do see similar sentiments in modern culture, that extreme measures are justified if the end goals are important enough. If you tweeted or Instagrammed âBurn it all downâ in response to a demonstration last year, I donât know that youâve got great ground to stand on in terms of judging hardline ideology and the willingness to go pretty far in order to achieve a goal.
Please note that Iâm not saying that tweeting a sentiment is as bad as sending someone a bomb. Iâm saying that holding the idea that itâs okay to create destruction and harm in order to achieve a goal (that would better society) is closer to the beliefs of Ted Kaczynski than the beliefs of Gandhi.
ANYWAY.
This starts off with a critique of the modern (at the time) left, which sounds almost identical to what someone would say about the modern left today, just with a less internet-centric focus. Itâs almost uncanny, really, because this came out in 1995, almost 30 years ago, and yet it reads like something written by one of three people: A modern conservative pundit, a modern centrist criticizing the left because itâs currently the seat of power and the individual is more concerned with power than left/right dynamics, or a modern leftist who wants to make a name for himself by being anti-status-quo. So edgy! K (Iâm just going to call Ted Kacynski K from here out because thatâs not the easiest name for me to spell) even quotes a lot of French Revolution philosophy and ideas that are very en vogue right now with groups like antifa and ecoterrorists and whatnot. But seriously, if youâre a pundit or political commentator or whatever, you can basically just rip off this essay, and if you get caught, just say that you were taking Kacsynskiâs ideas and removing the problematic context, and that you werenât necessarily denying him credit, you just donât think a murderer should receive any notoriety. Might work?
Kâs bashing of the left isnât really about the left, I think. I think heâs trying to say that the problems of technological modernity are easily seen in progressive, leftist people of the time. Itâs important to put this in historical context: Bill Clinton was President from 1993 to 2001, so the Democratic party was experiencing a moment of real power. From 1987 to 1995 Democrats held the majority in the Senate. So Iâd guess the bashing of the left is probably more about bashing the center of power at the time than it is specifically about the positions of the left, and I think if things had been the other way, K wouldâve trashed Republicans instead.
K then talks about the main problem, as he sees it, with modern society: people have no access to going through a process of power acquisition. K defines âpowerâ a little differently in terms of the type of power he sees as critical for personal development. Power over other people is not real power. Money is not real power. For K, itâs a more primitive thing, confidence in oneâs self, that an individual can determine his own destiny. As an example, a person living long ago would obtain their power through learning to become a hunter. That would fulfill their power process, and they would feel fulfilled as a human being. People kind of had to learn something, be tested, and come out the other side in order to be a fully realized person.
Modern, technological, industrial society makes our baseline survival tasks easy enough that most of us do not have to do anything strenuous just to get by. As K puts it bluntly, to get a mid-level job with a comfortable salary usually only requires a moderate effort. Far, far less than the effort required to hunt and gather for survival, basically. Living a comfortable life in modern society isnât all that difficult.
The last big thing is about technology, and this is where it gets a little depressing. More than a little, maybe.
According to K, technology is the most powerful force in the modern world. Technology ALWAYS progresses up to the point a society completely collapses. Itâs the one force that operates this way. Regardless of who holds political power or what the prevailing ideology of the time is, technology always moves forward. Morality, centers of power, and other concepts may change, but technology is always expanding and moving forward.
âThe systemâ exists to feed technological advancement, not human enrichment. People conform to the system, and to the needs of technological advancement, not the other way around. Kâs assertions here are that we force kids into math and science because thatâs whatâs required to advance technology, not because this is what makes people happy. He also asserts that we mold the individual to fit society instead of molding society to suit individuals, even to the point that psychological and pharmaceutical interventions exist because they can turn someone who cannot or will not exist in modern technological society into a productive person.
TRUTHS
There are some things that K got right, if you ask me. Iâd like to highlight some of those.
Early on, K warns that separation from industrial/technological progress will be painful and difficult, and the longer we go, the more difficult it will be. I think that if youâd told people they had to give up their smartphones in 2010, theyâd have an easier time doing so than in 2020.
I do think, as K says, that technology is a difficult force to stop because each little piece develops separately and for a seemingly good or at least benign purpose. There are very few technologies that are âevilâ from the outset, the problem is more that technologies come about, mesh with each other, and remove the human element from day-to-day tasks and interactions.
K talks about how itâs inhumane to use technology to make some jobs irrelevant, then to tell people they need to learn how to do other jobs instead. That there is no dignity for the people who lose their occupation, and thereâs rarely consideration of technology removing jobs people may enjoy and that give them fulfillment. I think the most modern example is the whole âLearn to codeâ business. The concept of replacing manual labor with a computer-based profession probably gets caught up in the environmental discussion and the need to move away from fossil fuels, but Iâm of the opinion that if coal miners were able to get jobs making solar panels or wind farm blades and so on, safer jobs that are still very hands-on and require physical skill, I think weâd be in a very different situation.
K mentions that the needs of a technological society are often disguised within propaganda. A technological society will need more people who can work with and advance technology, therefore more young people are pushed into science, math, and tech, even if they find these subjects uninteresting and unfulfilling. This seems possible to me. Movements like STEM-based education and Girls Who Code make it seem like a good thing, a pressing social issue, that more girls get into the tech industry, but I do question whether itâs a human-centered movement, intended to improve the lives of girls and women, or if itâs a techno-centric idea, intended to improve technology and the tech sector while mostly disregarding the happiness and preferences of the people who get swept up in it. Is the problem that we need a more even distribution among genders in the tech sector, or is this an inhumane effort to propagandize the underlying need, which is simply more people working in STEM? Iâm 100% sure there are girls who are interested in these fields and who would be successful in them, by the way, and I donât think people involved in these movements are consciously doing something wrong or evil. My question is: Are these movements really about getting a more even distribution of girls and women in STEM as the end goal, or is this more about getting more people in STEM, in general, as a method of continuing the technological system, and girls are a convenient, untapped population? By forcing the needs of the technological system through the lens of gender, we can actually make it seem as though weâre doing a good thing by pushing girls into STEM, and we can convince girls and women who might not be interested in STEM that by going into a STEM field, theyâre in sort of activist role. So, a career field that might be very boring, rote, and machine-like in its day-to-day tasks may be marketed as a âfeeds the soulâ kind of job because by being in that chair, youâre representing an underrepresented group in the field. Meanwhile, the reality may be that the system just needs more bodies. I mean, this is depressing as fuck, but think about The Matrix and all those bodies plugged in to operate the machine. Is there a need to have a more even gender representation inside the matrix, or would that just be transparent propaganda to get more people in the system, powering the system, and the truth is that the system doesnât give a flying fuck about the gender of those bodies?
This is hard to talk about, so maybe itâd help if I flip it to something more personal:
I worked as a librarian in a public library for 15 years. There are men in libraries, but not many, and there are very few men that I would call âtraditionally masculine.â By the by, I donât define âtraditionally masculineâ as being assholes or mean to women or whatever. I mean more like a fella who is interested in traditionally masculine things. Fuck it, a guy who doesnât wear skinny jeans and suspenders, who has opinions on brands of power tools, drinks brands of beer that are sold at 7-11, and does not spend time or money on hair products, including and especially overly-precious beard care routines. A manâs man. Okay? I guess pretend you donât know what Iâm talking about if you want. Iâm sort of over talking about this stuff in ways that anticipate the weirdest idealogues reading something and interpreting it in the wrong-est way possible.
I enjoyed working as a librarian, for the most part, and I do think itâd be nice to see more men in the industry. But, if an individual, a manâs man, asked me whether I recommend working in the library…I might say no. While itâd be good to have this person in the profession, itâs good for the profession and maybe the public served, it might not be in the best interest of that individual. So, is the abstract concept of diversifying this profession more important, or is the overall happiness of the individual over the course of their life more important?
This one mightâve spoken to me more than anything else: we donât have to strain ourselves to do things that are useful in a direct way, like finding food, and we fill our lives with surrogate tasks and goals. Bodybuilding or distance running are surrogate tasks unless you actually need your strength and endurance for your everyday life (and if you did, you wouldnât have to bodybuild, youâd build the needed strength from your work). Basically, everything we do, other than those things that are not for direct survival, are surrogate tasks. You can have goals, or even things you consider altruistic, but the truth is that these are filler tasks artificially created to fulfill our human needs and to create a faux power process. Itâs an extremely depressing way to look at modern life, and itâs a little difficult to think another way once you go down this road.
Whew
SOME THINGS I DISAGREE WITH
Well, arenât you glad THIS section exists!? And that there are words here!?
K sees genetic engineering as a big threat. I do not. I think, like most scientific ideas, genetic engineering is not inherently good or bad, itâs the application of it that changes things. K sees the obsession with beauty and longevity as a really bad thing, and he might have some points there, however genetic engineering has the potential to make the lives most of us live no longer, and maybe not aesthetically different, but better. I think most people see genetic engineering as basically evil Hitler shit. I guarantee you those folks have never been on dialysis. Thereâs a huge gap no one talks about between making all babies blonde and blue-eyed and making sure that someoneâs vital organs function within a typical range, which allows them to live in reasonable physical comfort. I donât really see genetic engineering as an evil influence if it allows people to have typical biological human functionality and removes suffering from people who just lost a genetic roll of the dice. I mean, thereâs no reason for anyone to suffer from certain ailments if a cure, or even lessening of symptoms, is attainable through gene therapy. Thereâs no âHuntingtonâs Cultureâ or âDementia Cultureâ that would be lost, and I think, weirdly, K talks so much about individual freedom and so on, yet doesnât feel like genetic engineering should be a matter of individual choice. Maybe he feels that it should be, but it wouldnât, in practice.
I think my primary disagreement with K is in the idea of what humans are âmeantâ to do. I think he sees humans as unhappy as a result of technological advancements, and I think thereâs validity to his claims. I donât see the advancement of technology as a force that increases happiness. However, Iâm not sure that the answer is to go backwards on a societal level, both because that seems unsatisfying to me, and also because I donât think thatâs realistically possible.
On the realistic side, I just donât see us rolling back technology for the sake of humane life. I honestly think itâs a possible solution, but I think when the rubber meets the road, itâs just impossible. We might compel people to give up technology, either by restriction or by damaging infrastructure, but that just seems so unlikely and difficult to manage.
On the reversion side, I wonder if the technological revolution is a necessary part of human development, and if there will be a fading of technology. K asserts that technology always advances as long as societies do, and that is true so far, but perhaps itâs possible that a society will last longer than the advancement of technology.
I wonder if technology naturally ebbs and flows, but on a longer curve than other things like politics and economics, which will always change and restructure with each subsequent generation (where technology is a-political, so it doesnât necessarily change when a new, more progressive generation comes to power).
The thing that makes me doubt this the most: Weâve got so much amazing technology now. Shouldnât most of us be able to work like 10 hours per week? Arenât we capable of getting things done so much faster and more efficiently now? Why have we filled the time provided by technology with…more work? Or has work amount dwindled and like a goldfish, the remaining work expands to fill the time allotted? Either way, weâre all working 40-hour jobs even though weâve got all this time-and-effort-saving tech.
I wonder if the technological revolution is necessary, and after we might get to something like a social, artistic revolution. If all of our daily needs were fulfilled by machines, what would we do with our lives? K seems to think weâd be miserable, but Iâm not so sure. Weâd certainly have to find new ways of living, but I think we would and could. People retire, and some are definitely miserable, some donât know what to do with themselves, but others really enjoy retirement, find ways to be useful to others, and stay busy doing unimportant but fulfilling things.
This probably wouldnât happen in my lifetime, I think weâve got too far to go in terms of setting up a structure where people are clothed and fed without lifting a finger, figuring out how all of this would work. But as far as this version of society goes, it could be a total fucking disaster, but it could be fun. I mean, what if everyone you knew who had a mid-level job they didnât care about was replaced in that role by a machine and was now a mid-level rapper? Would that really be a problem?
SHOULD YOU READ THIS?
Eh, maybe. If youâre curious, especially about systems of power, this is a pretty good read.
I think the most sort of stirring part is the way K talks about power and systems of power using lingo that has more recently come into the broader culture. I guess itâs a…useful mental exercise to consider that someone who did something horrible might hold a lot of the same beliefs as other people who have good goals.
I do think itâs also a useful exercise if you can read it and then think about the way that thinking only in terms of systems of power maybe isnât wonderful. Or maybe even expanding it to looking at hardline ideologies as very questionable frameworks for looking at the world. Like, if you are of the belief that being wealthy is inherently immoral, youâll hear echoes of yourself in here, and maybe thatâs a good thing. Maybe you can kind of see how your hardline ideology comes off to other people.
Overall, the existence of this writing makes a great argument for the difference between speech and violence.”