Ted Kaczynski

I would like to comment on some statements that were made in reference to the Unabomber’s manifesto in GA 40–41. In an article on pages 21–22, Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous wrote:

[A] return to undomesticated autonomous ways of living would not be achieved by the removal of industrialism alone. Such removal would still leave domination of nature, subjugation of women, war, religion, the state, and division of labour, to cite some basic social pathologies. It is civilization itself that must be undone to go where Unabomber wants to go.

I agree with much of this. But there is the question of feasibility. As was pointed out in Industrial Society and Its Future (ISIF), paragraphs 208–210, modern technology depends on a high level of social organization. If this social organization is sufficiently disrupted, then the technology breaks down, consequently whatever is left of the social organization collapses and we return to a pre-industrial state of society. To rebuilt the technology and the corresponding form of social organization would take centuries. Because the techno-industrial system is sick and is likely to get sicker, its destruction is a goal that we can reasonably hope to attain during the next several decades.

But the removal of civilization itself is a far more difficult proposition, because civilization in its pre-industrial forms does not require an elaborate and highly-organized technological structure. A pre-industrial civilization requires only a relatively simple technology, the most important element of which is agriculture.

How does one prevent people from practicing agriculture? And given that people practice agriculture, how does one prevent them from living in densely-populated communities and forming social hierarchies? It is a very difficult matter and I don’t see any way of accomplishing it.

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