Who is Theodore Kaczynski?

Theodore Kaczynski is an intellectual born on May 22, 1942 in Chicago. A brilliant student, this working-class son was accepted to Harvard University at only 16. A doctor in mathematics, Kaczynski succeeded in proving Wedderburn's theorem and became the youngest professor in the history of Berkeley, the best university in the country. Refusing to pursue a career in research, he taught there for two years before resigning in 1969 to live independently (“I am tired of teaching engineers what will serve to destroy the environment”). From his forest in Montana, he helplessly witnesses the technological destruction of the surrounding wildlife. Long passionate about anthropology, discovering in particular the work of the French anarchist Jacques Ellul in The Technique or the Challenge of the Century (whose analysis of technological peril is a sociological classic), Kaczynski set out to write a more complete and more accessible book. Using very questionable methods*, the mathematician managed to get his manifesto published in the New York Times of September 19, 1995 — which sold over one million copies.

In the United States, Theodore Kaczynski's ideas are attracting more and more people with very varied profiles, from anarchists to environmentalists.^[1], going through some preservatives^[2] as well as many teens expressing their rejection of modernity on TikTok. In an article published in 2021 in The Baffler, we can read that the “hashtags #tedpill, #tedk and #tedkazcynski” collectively total “millions of views^[3] ”. Swallowing the “Ted Pill” is rejecting modern technology and embracing the return to a pre-industrial lifestyle that is closer to nature.

Theses defended

His manifesto, Industrial society and its future, quickly became a reference in the social sciences. From the first translation in 1996 by Éditions du Rocher to that by Éditions Xenia in 2008, the French manifesto is however full of inaccuracies (reverse meaning, missing paragraphs, spelling mistakes...). It has finally been officially translated into an expanded version by Éditions LIBRE.

Armed with the concepts of over-socialization, of power process And ofalternative activities, Ted Kaczynski summarizes, with rigorous materialism, his main postulates:

1. The technological system is leading us ineluctably to a liberticidal and ecocidal disaster;
2. Since it cannot be reformed in favor of freedom, only its collapse must prevent disaster;
3. The left is the first line of defense against the anti-tech revolution;
4. What is needed is a revolutionary movement whose objective is the total dismantling of the techno-industrial system (taking measures to keep leftists away).

Criticism of leftism

Theodore Kaczynski delivers an enlightening analysis of the modern “psychology of leftism” (morality owed a lot to “post-structuralism”). Far from rejecting leftist ideas en masse or defending ethno-nationalism (rejected via a specific letter (in the Manifesto), leftism is considered more of a psychological trait Of” over-socialized ” (Western bourgeois intellectuals, false rebels who have integrated the statist values of the system). Leftism 1) is a synthesis of modern psychological suffering and 2) harms the revolutionary struggle by attacking the non-sensitive points of the system (thus corrupting movements through the cult of purity). Leftism is then the symptom and the system's antibody. In short, for Kaczynski (who claims several times, as an anarchist close to Lewis Mumford, not to be ideologically opposed to the freedoms of minorities), the leftist is the one who is strategically inefficient.

Over-socialization

Oversocialization is the fact that a person is unable to derogate from the extremely demanding moral code of our society without generating a deep sense of guilt, shame and self-hate. Thus, “the oversocialized person is psychologically kept on a leash and follows the rails laid down by society to guide his life.” The leftist tries to cut off his leash and rebel, but most of the time his demands are in line with the moral of the system. It therefore appears as a catalyst to force society to adapt to its material substratum — the technological system.

Power process

To be happy, man needs to set achievable goals, of moderate difficulty, to achieve his” power process ”. In industrial society, this process is hampered. The activities proposed increasingly require minimal physical and mental effort to meet vital needs (this is obviously not true for all jobs, it is a general trend in industrialized societies). However, when the process of power is not completed, are born the” alternative activities ”, artificial goals of which passive hedonism is the most recurrent characteristic. This causes permanent frustration and dependence on the techno-industrial system.

Alternative activities

According to Kaczynski, “when people don't have to make an effort to meet their physical needs, they often invent artificial goals.” Modern society offers humans a prolific catalog of alternative activities: “scientific research, sporting achievements, humanitarian action, humanitarian action, humanitarian action, humanitarian action, artistic and literary creation, artistic and literary creation, career advancement, the accumulation of money and goods far beyond physical needs, or even activism in favor of causes that do not directly concern the activist, like white people who deal with the rights of non-white minorities.” However, alternative development rarely succeeds in completely replacing real goals and satisfying the power process. Modern humans are “never satisfied, never quiet”, they always want more. Frustration is their daily burden.

Lies peddled by the media

Theodore Kaczynski would be crazy

Theodore Kaczynski has in spite of himself become the subject of Hollywood recovery. Misunderstood precursor, thinker and hermit, denounced by his brother, betrayed by his lawyers, depicted as madman by many, fuelling false rumours about the so-called MK-Ultra project, his life inspired a feature film (Ted K) and two Netflix series. One of them, Manhunt Unabomber, is a fiction recounting part of his existence more or less faithfully, helping to democratize his ideas to a new audience.

Project MK-Ultra is the code name for a CIA project to develop mind control and programming techniques.

While the MK-Ultra project did exist, it also stimulated the imagination of conspiracy theorists. Some unscrupulous journalists also had fun spreading rumours, like Alston Chase and his article “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber” published in 2000 in The Atlantic. According to Kaczynski, Alston Chase's paper was the starting point for countless speculations about his alleged participation in the MK-Ultra project. Theodore Kaczynski denies having been subjected to torture during the experiments conducted at Harvard by Professor Henri Murray. In a letter, he explains that he participated in interviews and personality tests that were far from being able to be described as “torture.”

The journalist of The Atlantic claims that the mathematician's political theses are in part the result of the treatments that the mathematician would have undergone during Murray's experiments at Harvard. Kaczynski would be “diabolical”, a monster like the World Trade Center terrorists or Stalin. By writing this, Alston Chase is only showing that he does not know a lot about human psychology, because as the eminent psychologist Philippe Rochat writes in his latest book, “inhuman monsters only exist in our heads”, in our simplifying mind.

It is probably to neutralize the political significance of Theodore Kaczynski's ideas that the media system and the entertainment industry are trying to make him look crazy. Throughout history, we observe the same defense mechanism used by the authorities against political dissidents. Invoking madness makes it possible to discredit ideas, to present them as illegitimate in the eyes of the masses. Nobody would take the time to be interested in the ideas of a madman, much less to read his writings. There is a similar government reaction against environmentalists in general, from Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson to radical activists attacking agricultural megabassines.

In the end, you only need to read Kaczynski's writings to reach the following conclusion: Ted Kaczynski is not crazy. Rather, he is very lucid. A number of his expectations made during the 1990s in Industrial society and its future have since been confirmed.

Is Theodore Kaczynski a Fascist

Kaczynski is also being taken over by the extreme right because of his criticism of “leftism”. Adding a criticism of the “psychology of rightism” to his manifesto would certainly have avoided this recovery. In a letter, the mathematician explicitly rejected any association with the extreme right and presented himself as an “adversary” of eco-fascists. Like eco-socialists, they cultivate the utopia inherited from the Enlightenment of a society planned using scientific rationality.

On both the left and the right, they naively dream of a “limited” and “wisely used” technology that would maintain the planet's habitability. However, history has taught us time and again that it is impossible to rationally control the development of a society. Finally, Kaczynski adds that a “genuine anti-tech movement rejects any form of racism or ethno-centrism”, for purely strategic reasons, because such a movement must be internationalist. Otherwise, the part of the world with the most technological power will eradicate or absorb other societies and end up making the planet uninhabitable.

Kaczynski's books

Industrial society and its future

The first book by Theodore Kaczynski published at the end of the 1990s, this succinct text of a hundred pages provides a new look at the techno-industrial system and its implications. Since the environmental disaster resulting from industrialization has been widely documented, the author prefers to focus on the social effects of technology: annihilation of freedom, generalized alienation, repeated humiliations, an exponential increase in mental suffering in the countries of the North and of physical suffering in the global South, the increasing destruction of the planet's living conditions, etc. All of these evils are the product of the development of technology. This is why the author advocates a revolution that would target the “economic and technological bases of today's society.”

Technological Slavery

In his recent book Technological Slavery, again published by Éditions LIBRE, Ted Kaczynski brings together new essays and best correspondence to demonstrate in particular that high technology, being unsuited to the functioning of our brain (stable since the Paleolithic), imposes considerable stress on human beings. In order to heal individuals and serve the system, technological development will make it possible to control our brains and genes — a condition that ATR deems unworthy and dehumanizing.

Anti-Tech Revolution

Having learned from his past mistakes, Kaczynski encourages his readers to organize themselves strategically in the fundamental Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How published in 2016. Examining history and hard science, Kaczynski's evolutionary theory convincingly explains that the more complex a system becomes, the more its instability increases: as with economic or weather predictions, “failure is the norm” in state planning. This impossibility of planning the development of a society in the long term implies precipitating the inevitable collapse of the technological system, a threat premiere. In his last two chapters, through an examination of past movements identifying strategic mistakes to avoid, Kaczynski therefore sets out for the first time the objective rules that a new revolutionary movement must follow in order to save living conditions on Earth.

Movies and documentaries

Das Netz

Das Netz (La Toile or Voyage in cybernetics (in its French version) is an independent German documentary directed by Lutz Dammbeck released in 2005. Broadcasted by Arte and subtitled Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet, this film helps to better understand the recent evolution of the global technological system. This was reinforced during the second half of the 20th century with the rise of a new science, cybernetics. This discipline gave birth to what some people call the third industrial revolution — the development of new information and communication technologies (computers, networks, Internet, artificial intelligence, etc.) that occurred after the Second World War.

Lutz Dammbeck is interested in the encounter between the world of art — in particular the counterculture of the 1960s — and the world of science and computer science. He went to the United States to interview influential figures including John Brockman, David Gelernter, David Gelernter, Robert Taylor and Stewart Brand who all played a decisive role in the rise of cybernetics and the spread of the NTIC pandemic (New Information and Communication Technologies). The film is punctuated by exchanges of letters between Theodore Kaczynski and Lutz Dammbeck.

Welcome To The Machine

Welcome To The Machine is a documentary directed by Avi Weider released in 2013 in the United States. Punctuated by interviews with technologists (Ray Kurzweil, Jaron Lanier, Jaron Lanier, Rodney Brooks, David Gelernter, Kevin Kelly) and technocritics (David Skrbina, Shelly Turkle), the film explores how technology modifies humans to change their meaning. The line between the human and the machine is tending to blur, as technological development is continuously reshaping the human being—and the entire society—on the model of the machine.

Unabomber: In His Own Words

Not to be confused with fiction Manhunt, this documentary series produced by Netflix (Unabomber: His truth (in French version) retraces the career of Theodore Kaczynski. Although criticized on certain aspects, in particular the presence of fallacious elements in the mathematician's biography, the documentary has the merit of restoring some truths, of giving a voice to the main person concerned, to his colleagues at Harvard, to his prison guard or even to the technocritical philosopher David Skrbina.

Ted K

Ted K is a biopic about the hermit life led by Kaczynski in the forests of Montana. Little by little, he observes industrial leprosy devastating his peaceful mountains (spraying pesticides to kill vegetation under high-voltage lines, dropping explosives by helicopter to detect oil fields, deforestation, low-altitude military aircraft overflights, etc.). The film fairly accurately depicts the feeling of rage that can be experienced at the sight of an excavator violating an ancient forest.

⚠ Important note ⚠

*In order to get his manifesto published and to ensure maximum visibility, Theodore Kaczynski launched a campaign to send parcel bombs, mainly to influential intellectuals who defended and/or actively participated in the development of the technological system.

While we share many of Unabomber's lucid analyses of the social implications of technological progress, we absolutely do not condone his actions. In this article, we have chosen to focus on Kaczynski's political ideas and anthropological analyses, which are much less well known than his violent past. We want to remind the reader that ATR is a legal and non-violent organization.

‍