Excerpts From UNABOM's Manifesto

From: anonymous@nowhere.org (Anonymous Person)
Date: 4 Aug 1995 05:05:05 GMT
Organization: nowhere

[I am about to post a series of articles relating to the
Unabomber.  The Unabomber's Manifesto has received considerable
attention in the media and throughout Usenet, and I hope to concentrate
some further discussion in this newsgroup.  If you have any comments on
the manifesto, please submit them.

The following article and a companion html version, were posted
anonymously to the newsgroup alt.fan.unabomber today.  No clue was
given as to the identity of the typist, so this is being reprinted
without permission.  I believe these excerpts are the same as those
that were printed yesterday and today in the New York Times. 
                                           --The moderator]


              Excerpts From UNABOM's Manifesto


The following are excerpts from the manifesto entitled "Industrial
Society and Its Future."  It was written "by FC," a self-described
anarchist group.  Law enforcement officials believe it is the work of a
single person, the UNABOM terrorist who has killed three people and
wounded 23 since 1978 using mail bombs and other explosive devices.


Introduction
------------

The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for
the human race.  They have . . . destabilized society, have made life
unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to
widespread psychological suffering . . . and have inflicted severe damage
on the natural world . . .

The industrial-technological system may survive . . . only at the cost of
permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine . . . If it is
to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system . . .
This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution.  Its object will be to
overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of
the present society . . .


On 'Leftists'
-------------

One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world
is leftism . . . We have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists,
"politically correct" types, feminists, gay and disability activists,
animal rights activists and the like . . .

Two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call
feelings of inferiority and oversocialization . . . By "feelings of
inferiority" we mean . . . low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness,
depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. . . .

Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good
and successful.  They hate America, they hate Western civilization,
they hate white males, they hate rationality. . . . [they hate] America
and the West because they are strong and successful. . . .

Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative,"
"enterprise," "optimism," etc., play little role in the liberal and
leftist vocabulary.  The leftist is anti-individualistic,
pro-collectivist.  He wants society to solve everyone's problems for
them. . . . The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition
because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. . . .

His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of
himself as individually strong and valuable.  Hence the collectivism of
the leftist.  He can feel strong only as a member of a large
organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself. . . .

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.  They want to make black fathers
"responsible," they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc.  But
these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. . . .

A movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a
resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with
leftists.  Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature,
with human freedom, and with the elimination of modern technology. . . .


On 'Oversocialization'
----------------------

The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think,
feel and act in a completely moral way.  For example, we are not
supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time
or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. . . .

Oversocialization 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.  If this is
overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such
feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. . . .

The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty
behavior.  They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws,
they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or
they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy.  The
oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he
generated in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred.  The
oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or
feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think
"unclean" thoughts. . . .


On 'the Power Process'
----------------------

Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that
we will call the "power process."  This is closely related to the need
for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing.
The power process has four elements.  The three most clear-cut of these
we call 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 and will discuss it later. . . .

We divide human drives into three groups:

  1. those drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort;
  2. those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of serious effort;
  3. those that cannot be adequately satisfied no matter how much effort
     one makes.

The power process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second
group.  The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is
frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc. . . .

In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into
the first and third group, and the second group tends to consist
increasingly of artificially created drives.

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 change but are IMPOSED on him by other persons who
decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence.  Consequently,
he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry. . . .

Thus primitive man for the most part has his security in his own hands
(either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group)
whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of persons or
organizations that are too remote or too large for him to be able
personally to influence them.  So modern man's drive for security tends
to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter, etc.) his
security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort, whereas in other
areas he CANNOT attain security. . . .

We suggest that modern man's obsession with longevity, and with
maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced age,
is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to
the power process.  The "mid-life crisis" also is such a symptom.  So is
the lack of interest in having children that is fairly common in modern
society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies. . . .

Someone will say, "Society must find a way to give people the
opportunity to go through the power process."  For such people the value
of the opportunity is destroyed by the very fact that society gives it
to them.  What they need is to find or make their own opportunities.  As
long as the system GIVES them their opportunities is still has
them on a leash.  To attain autonomy they must get off that leash. . . .

We consider it demeaning to fulfill one's need for the power process
through surrogate activities or through identification with an
organization, rather than through pursuit of real goals. . . .


On 'Surrogate Activity'
-----------------------

When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical
needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. . . .

We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an activity that is
directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves
merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely
for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the goal.
Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities.
Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal
X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to
satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use
his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would
he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X?  If the
answer is no, then the person's pursuit of goal X is a surrogate
activity. . . .

In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy
one's physical needs.  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. . . . Modern society is full of surrogate activities.
The include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work,
artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder,
acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which
they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social
activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the
activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the
rights of nonwhite minorities. . . .


On 'Problems of Modern Society'
-------------------------------

We attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to
the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically
different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in
ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race
developed while living under earlier conditions.  It is clear from what
we have already written that we consider lack of opportunity to properly
experience the power process as the most important of the abnormal
conditions to which modern society subjects people. . . .

For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only
slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security.
In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather
than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing
to technological change.  Thus there is no stable framework. . . .


On 'Conservatives'
------------------

The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional
values, yet 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. . . .


On 'Science Marches On'
-----------------------

Science and technology provide the most important examples of surrogate
activities. . . . to work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the
work itself. . . . Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to
the real welfare on the human race or to any other standard, obedient
only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government
officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research. . . .


On 'Freedom'
------------

Industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to
prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. . . .

By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through the power process,
with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and
without interference, manipulation of supervision from anyone,
especially from any large organization.  Freedom means being in control
(either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the
life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and
defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment.
Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but
the power to control the circumstances of one's own life. . . .

It is said that we live in a free society because we have a certain
number of constitutionally guaranteed rights.  But these are not as
important as they seem.  The degree of personal freedom that exists in a
society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of
the society than by its laws or its forms of government. . . .

Consider for example . . . freedom of the press. . . . The mass media
are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated
into the system.  Anyone who has a little money can have something
printed, or can distribute it over the Internet in some such way, but
what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put
out by the media. . . . Take us (FC) for example.  If we had never done
anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher,
they probably would not have been accepted.  If they had been accepted
and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers,
because it's more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media
than to read a sober essay.  Even if these writings had had many
readers, most of those readers would soon have forgotten what they had
read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the
media expose them.  In order to get our message before the public with
some chance of making a lasting impression, we've had to kill people.

Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to
guarantee much more than what might be called the bourgeois conception
of freedom.  According to the bourgeois conception, a "free" man is
essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of
prescribed and delimited freedom; freedoms that are designed to serve
the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual. . . .

It should not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just because
he SAYS he has enough.  Freedom is restricted in part by
psychological controls of which people are unconscious, and moreover
many people's ideas of what constitutes freedom are governed more by
social convention than by their real needs. . . .

It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between
technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful
social force and continually encroaches on freedom through
REPEATED compromises. . . . The system cannot be reformed in such
a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. . . .


On 'Revolution'
---------------

The technophiles are taking all of us on an utterly reckless ride into
the unknown.  Many people understand something of what technological
progress is doing to us yet take a passive attitude toward it because
they think it is inevitable.  But we (FC) don't think it is inevitable.
We think it can be stopped. . . .

The two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and
instability in industrial society and to develop and propagate an
ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system.  when the
system becomes sufficiently stressed and unstable, a revolution against
technology may be possible. . . .

We have no illusions about the feasibility of creating a new, ideal
form of society.  Our goal is only to destroy the existing form of
society. . . .

But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a
positive ideal as well as a negative one; it must be FOR
something as well as AGAINST something.  The positive ideal that
we propose is Nature.  That is, WILD nature: those aspects of the
functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of
human management and free of human interference and control.  And with
wild nature we include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of
the functioning of the human individual that are not subject to
regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free
will, or God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions). . . .

The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an
armed uprising against any government.  It may or may not involve
physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution.
Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics. . . .

The revolution must be international and worldwide.  It cannot be
carried out on a nation-by-nation basis. . . .