Sawyer Nightingale

In his latest thorough exposition of anti-tech ideology, Theodore Kaczynski carries out a masterful description of the current situation we face with technology arguing in the first two chapters of this book why a revolution against the technological system is needed. Kaczynski illustrates how the technological system is far too complex and irrational in order for a meaningful reform to be made reconciling freedom with technology. He notes that even just one part of the technological system (such as setting the prices of commodities in the United States) would take over 60 trillion simultaneous calculations, requiring a sort of machine that in and of itself would increase the complexity of the system, rendering this calculation essentially pointless. This argument helps to convey the idea of the complete impossibility of rationally ordering the system around, as those who oppose the technological system but instead want to reform it so foolishly ignore. This first chapter is one of two that justifies Kaczynski’s idea of revolution (of the anti-tech kind of course!). The second chapter is where Kaczynski’s analysis of the technological system broadens in scope. It is “theoretical” to Kaczynski, but the sort of theory he proposes is a clear and logical application of the laws of natural selection that have been applied to nature. To Kaczynski, the techno-industrial system is a self-propagating system that has essentially emerged through a process of natural selection, following short-term benefit over long-term negative consequences (e.g., swallowing up a large amount of natural resources, entirely ignoring the ramifications that such an action would cause in the long run). Because of the way the system has emerged at this point, anything else that tries to go down a separate path will be crushed. This process to Kaczynski essentially spells doom for the global techno-industrial system in the long-run as the system’s actions are now seriously threatening the ecological stability of the Earth, therefore threatening the system itself and everything else in it. This conclusion is another reason for why Kaczynski thinks an anti-tech revolution (a very rapid one at that) must be carried out as soon as possible: the world might die if no action is taken. Kaczynski’s other arguments in the book are what a revolutionary movement should be in order to be successful, expounding upon loose ideas put out in “Industrial Society and Its Future” into understandable principles anchored by relevant concrete examples throughout history. These arguments give a new light of legitimacy to Kaczynski’s idea of anti-tech revolution as many readers (who have also likely read the manifesto) get to know more precisely what Kaczynski’s thought of revolution is. This fact alone is why anyone interested in anti-tech works should read this book: it is the most relevant (and up to date) work related to the technological crisis we are enmeshed in. This is certainly Kaczynski’s most challenging book, but I do not think that should dissuade people from reading it. It is his true magnum opus, and it is why Kaczynski instructs the reader to not simply treat the book like one they would read casually but one that should be studied (as if it were an engineering textbook). In addition, it is a book that helps to give real practical information to the reader, something that Kaczynski desperately wanted to do in order to kickstart an active and effective anti-tech revolutionary movement.

Never before has there been a book that has changed my world-view such as this one. Industrial Society and Its Future is a book that every single person interested in politics and sociology should read right now. Kaczynski’s careful deliberation of anti-tech ideas is something that no other modern thinker has done. Not only that, he was able to add his own originality into it: his definition of the power process, freedom, and the possibility for a revolution against the world-wide technological system. To me, the most convincing part of his work was his description of the technological system and how it threatens freedom (this is in paragraphs 111-170). He carefully outlined how we cannot properly approach the whole technological system and attempt to reform it simply because of how convoluted and powerful it is. The industrial system has, since the industrial revolution, been developing to a point where it swallows up every resource the planet has left. It not only swallows up all natural resources, but human beings too, pushing them forth to satisfy the inexorable growth of the system that eliminates freedom, nature, and man from himself. What Kaczynski illustrates through this view is that this technological system is the root cause of problems for modern society, not some politician or corporate executive (who he also sees as slaves of the system). Kaczynski does his analysis in such a way where the conclusion is unavoidable: the system is the dominant force of history currently. The people pretending to run the system are not really the masters they seem to be; they are simply operating within the system that will dispense of those in power once they run through their usefulness. Kaczynski’s most powerful assertion is that the system has pushed the need for “efficiency” above all else because that is what it needs to survive and grow the most. The system would not get along if people started slacking off at work or stopped working the technical jobs needed to maintain the system’s progress. The system has to limit human freedom (i.e., forcing people to do jobs and go to schools that they hate) so that it can itself survive—all of the humans be damned. This view of a catabolic system crushing human freedom is what has made me so drawn to Kaczynski’s work, because to me there is nothing really more valuable than freedom. But what I am drawn to more is Kaczynski’s idea of freedom rather than the societally established definition of freedom (which mostly keeps people locked within the system, e.g., “economic” freedom, consumer “choice”, etc.). A lot of people in modern political discourse like to talk of freedom too, but when that is done it is usually reoriented to mean something irrelevant such as LGBTQ rights, Women’s Rights, etc. Those movements are simply acting within the bounds of the system, and that is not what true freedom looks like. Those sorts of freedoms are irrelevant. But if people decided that they wanted to quit their jobs and live with their family and friends in the woods for example, that would be a true act of defiance, an act of freedom against which the system would ruthlessly try to prevent. Kaczynski’s premiere work here, Industrial Society and Its Future, will be regarded as one of the greatest works of social commentary ever written simply because of how prescient it is (especially as technological progress continues). I simply cannot recommend this work enough and anyone that has any hesitancy about reading this because it is written by a “crazy person” should reconsider and purchase this masterpiece.