Contents
While I was reading through the book, I wasn’t sure which political side Kaczynski fell on.. turns out he wasn’t on either. In the beginning he talks about the Leftist’s ideologies, he believes that they’re losers who are frustrated as well as have a desire for power. He thinks they excuses their faults and instead blame society for all their problems. I don’t know where he’s getting that from but now that I kinda think about it, Left wing folks don’t express their ideas in a positive light.. most often very extreme and I can see how he thinks they’re sensitive. Kaczynski is even aware not all of them are like that, but the loudest ones are.
Then he talks about Over socialization where people are taught from a young age to think and act as society demands. A person is well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits well into it.
“Over socialization 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.”
Kaczynski believes that technology is destroying the world and it only causes psychological and physical suffering. He believes that if machines were never created, then we would not have conflict or frustrations with others. “In modern society an individual’s loyalty must be first to the system.”
Context
Theodore John Kaczynski was a mathematic prodigy, he obtained his BA at Harvard and earned his PhD at the University of Michigan. He then became a Math professor but abandoned his academic career in 1969 and began to pursue a lone wolf terrorism campaign.
In 1971 he took a break and moved to a remote cabin in the woods. He lived as a recluse and learned survival skills, but once he began to witness the destruction of the forest, he realized it became impossible to live peacefully with nature in this society.
Between 1978-1995, he murdered 3 people and injured 23 others through mailing and delivering bombs. The investigation of the Unabomber (UNABOM, University and Airline Bomber) became the longest and most expansive investigation of the FBI at the time. Kaczynski offered to end his campaign if several publication companies published his manuscript. Which later became Industrial Society and Its Future or The Unabomber Manifesto.
He was arrested in 1996 and pleaded guilty to all charges in 1998. He was to sentence several life times in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2021 he was diagnosed with cancer. And finally in 2023, Kaczynski hanged himself.