Unabomber v/s The Political Left

Introduction. Ted Kaczynski sent mail bombs to people for 20 years before he was caught. He despised the modern world and its technologies that sedate and enslave us. He wanted humanity to return to nature - and thought that the political left in particular stood in his way 👇

Kaczynski wrote: "The industrial civilization and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." And the left is this civilization's biggest defender: "The political left is technological society’s first line of defense against revolution."

Kaczynski wrote that the leftists can't truly rebel against the modern world because their urge to conform is too great: "The over-socialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. "

The oversocialized person cannot commit micro-rebellions without feeling guilt. He can’t "break traffic laws," "goof off at work," or "hate someone." Kaczynski: "The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts that are contrary to the accepted morality."

The leftist dream of a united world needs technology: “You can’t have a united world without rapid transportation & communication, you can’t make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques.” The welfare state, too, needs “technological base.”

Leftists & power: “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…technology is too valuable a source of collective power.”

Ted Kaczynski on leftist art: "Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat & despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation."

The inner life of a left-winger: Kaczynski believed that left-wingers suffer from “low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred.” These feelings are not compatible with the task of overthrowing the technological civilization.

Why leftists discount genes: “Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities because such explanations…make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it.”

Why are “leftist philosophers” relativists? They “dismiss reason, objective reality & insist that everything is culturally relative.” But they’re not “cool-headed logicians.” They’re angry that certain things are “true/successful/superior” & others are “false/failed/inferior.”