Industrial Society and it's Future: The Unabomber Manifesto.

I told my professor about my topic and he suggested that I research the 'Unabomber'. I had heard this term before, but to be honest always pictured a little cartoon ninja from a Nintendo game. Maybe there are two. Anyways, the Unabomber that he was referring to is named Ted Kaczynski. Ted was a 'child prodigy' who was accepted into Harvard at the age of 16 and eventually became a professor at Berkeley University only to resign two years later to become a recluse. Over the years as he witnessed the wilderness around his home being destroyed by industrialization and construction he decided to start a bombing campaign. He sent 16 bombs to different Universities and airlines, killing 3 people and injuring 23. He claimed the bombings were "extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization." This isn't a quote by him, but off of the wikipedia article on him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski). Thought I'd consult this for some general initial information before proceeding. Ted Kaczynski wrote a manifesto which he titled Industrial Society and it's Future. He promised to stop the 'domestic terrorism' that were his bombings if his manifesto were to be published in the newspaper. The full 35,000 manifesto can be found on the Washington Post website (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm). The work was published and eventually lead to him begin caught by the FBI.

The Introduction of the manifesto makes several statements. Here's a somewhat condensed version of the introduction:

"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation... The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy... the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so 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 revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. 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..."(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7s6FfqAs9E&feature=related).

Here's another quote from him regarding technology. Here when he refers to the bourgeoise, I consider this to be the our equivalent of corporate actors (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtT5CKg0K4c&feature=relmfu).
 
It's relevant to add here that I believe technology and the Industrial Revolution to go hand in hand. Is that common sense? The connection in my head is made by the technology that went into the Industrial Revolution, as well as the underlying concepts which seem to be inherent in both: efficiency.

He did not believe that he was insane, and it is evident in his writing that he is a scholar. But are these really the words of a crazy man? Obviously the extremes to which he took his opinions demonstrated insanity, but his thoughts do not seem insane to me. He is simply another individual who attempted to communicate to the masses his opinions on an issue that he believed needed to be communicated; he wanted to start a revolution.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtT5CKg0K4c&feature=relmfu

In my research I discoverd another individual who is frequently mentioned along with Ted: Guy Debord. He wrote a publication called The Society of the Spectacle. We'll have to look at him later.

I think it's worth mentioning that the Ted Kaczynski's "look" has become an item of pop culture.

 

Guy Bebord, in his book Society of the Spectacle, makes reference to the Spectacle as 'media saturation', among other things. It's been noted that Debord actually defined the Spectacle so many times that it seems as if he did not intend for anyone to actually develop an understanding of the term, but it is well said here: "these words sound less like a philosophy, and more like a straightforward description of the dominant role that profit-driven media spectacles play in the communication flows of public life..." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/02/guy-debord-society-spectacle-protest?newsfeed=true).

It seems to me that scholars are having a difficult time interpretting Debord, so I'll make reference to a link that can explain it better than I ever could, which also makes reference to social media and commodification. There's a relevant audio clip associated with the previous article that elaborates on the modern implication of Debord's work (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2012/mar/28/big-ideas-podcast-debord-society-spectacle). Guy Debord was concerned with mass media, the degredation of human life, class alienation and cultural homogenization; all issues related to globalization. The term, though it was used by economists at the time, was not popular yet.

Popularlization of the term was through Theodore Levitt's publication, The Globalization of Markets. Levitt was a professor at Harvard and editor of the Harvard Business Review.