James Phillips Introduction For those of you not famil

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4that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living underearlier conditions." The density of modern urban populations since the industrial revolutionand the rapidity of social change consequent upon the pace of technological innovation havecreated a world for which evolution did not prepare us: " For primitive societies, the naturalworld (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and a sense ofsecurity. In the modern world human society dominates nature rather than the other wayaround, and modern society changes rapidly due to technological change that there is nostable framework."Kaczynski contends that the tension between our natural capacities and needs and thismodern world are unavoidable features of this system:The system has to force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote fromthe natural pattern of human behavior....[M]odern man is strapped down by a networkof rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote fromhim whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of thearbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in anytechnologically advanced society. The system has to regulate human behavior closelyin order to function. At work, people have to do what they are told to do, otherwiseproduction would be thrown into chaos. Bureaucracies have to be run according torigid rules. To allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucratswould disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to differences in theway individual bureaucrats exercised their discretion. Granted, some restrictions onour freedom could be eliminated, but generally speaking, the regulation of our lives by
5large organizations is necessary for the functioning of industrial-technological society.The result is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person.Kaczynski invokes contemporary medicine as an example of industrialized society:Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology,computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive,high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive,economically rich society. Clearly you can't have much progress in medicine withoutthe whole technological system and everything that goes with it.In short, the system has become autonomous, thereby eclipsing the autonomy ofindividuals. “The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, humanbehavior has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. Of course the system does satisfymany human needs, but it does this only to the extent that it is to the advantage of the system todo it. It is the needs of the system that are paramount, not those of the human being.”Like Marx, Kaczynski argues that the ills of contemporary society cannot be cured bymerely political reforms. "No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or ethicalcodes, can provide permanent protection against technology." It is just here that his socialdiagnosis leads to political extremism. For, he writes, "The system cannot be reformed in a sucha way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with theindustrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armeduprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society." He concedes
Page 1 and 2: 11Ideology, Violence, and Psychopat
Page 3: 3but these conditions do not actual
Page 7 and 8: 7In the 1971 essay, Kaczynski ackno
Page 9 and 10: 9From Harvard, he went on to the Un
Page 11 and 12: 11resigned, and for the next two ye
Page 13 and 14: 131971. During the later 1970s, he
Page 15 and 16: 15at all costs to avoid being label
Page 17 and 18: 17schizophrenia. Dr. Johnson, the c
Page 19 and 20: 19and I said to myself that I reall
Page 21 and 22: 21produced it. Indeed, from a psych
Page 23 and 24: 23follow them. As we know, for Kant

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