# The Unabomber Manifesto  ## Metadata - Author: [[Ted Kaczynski]] - Full Title: The Unabomber Manifesto - Category: #western-collapse #western-philosophy ## Highlights - Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men. ([Location 89](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=89)) - Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. ([Location 91](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=91)) - He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. ([Location 100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=100)) - Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. ([Location 104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=104)) - Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly. ([Location 113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=113)) - He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself. ([Location 120](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=120)) - Self-hatred is a leftist trait. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=124)) - Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred. ([Location 131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=131)) - If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. ([Location 148](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=148)) - In all ESSENTIAL respects most leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. ([Location 180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=180)) - If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like. ([Location 191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=191)) - The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth. ([Location 195](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=195)) - The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy ([Location 201](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=201)) - History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=206)) - Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals. ([Location 214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=214)) - But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. ([Location 216](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=216)) - 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. ([Location 234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=234)) - For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. ([Location 244](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=244)) - Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=282)) - The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values. ([Location 294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=294)) - Our lives depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is; whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a very limited extent. The individual’s search for security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of powerlessness. ([Location 383](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=383)) - It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the things that threaten him; disease for example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things, it is no one’s fault, unless it is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry. ([Location 395](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=395)) - Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as someone else’s employee. ([Location 419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=419)) - In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. ([Location 425](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=425)) - As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off that leash. ([Location 440](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=440)) - Most of the Indian nations of New England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than our society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler’s will: There were no modern, well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control. ([Location 542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=542)) - In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people. ([Location 556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=556)) - modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function. ([Location 644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=644)) - It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. ([Location 655](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=655)) - The concept of “mental health” in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress. ([Location 690](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=690)) - If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous. ([Location 716](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=716)) - A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. ([Location 740](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=740)) - Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back, but technology can never take a step back—short of the overthrow of the whole technological system. ([Location 771](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=771)) - It appears that during the next several decades the industrial-technological system will be undergoing severe stresses due to economic and environmental problems, and especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties). We hope that the stresses through which the system is likely to pass will cause it to break down, or at least will weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. If such a revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful than technology. ([Location 802](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RBBM1JL&location=802))