A review by at_rob
Technological Slavery by Theodore John Kaczynski

dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This collection of writings is one of the most complete treatments of the disaster that industrial society has wrought on humanity and the natural systems of the world. In addition to including the definitive version of Kaczynski’s "Industrial Society and its Future" (ISAIF), complete with notes and clarifications, it contains a collection of letters that expand on the points from that seminal work. The central message of the book is that the technoindustrial system needs to end as soon as possible. He examines the possibility of reforming the system so as to remain compatible with basic human dignity and discards it as a nonsensical fantasy. Additionally, basic guide posts are set for the coming revolutionary movement to organize themselves with so that they may pave the way to the collapse of industrial society. 

Following the main text, "The System’s Neatest Trick" explores the way the technoindustrial system co-opts the rebellious tendencies expressed in modern society. It is an important observation that shows the transmutation of the fundamental dissatisfaction of individuals in society into their active participation in the advancement of the material causes of this very dissatisfaction. It is a warning to those who may otherwise want to effect the fundamental change endorsed in Technological Slavery, but feel that they must fight secondary causes. The text itself is also a convenient enough package to share with those who won’t initially touch ISAIF (aka, the “Unabomber Manifesto”), but who can be shaken awake with the revelation that the actions they are allowed to take from the menu of system-approved causes won’t do anything but further their enslavement. In his usual fashion, Kaczynski inspires hope even while outlining the insidious sophistication with which the system has built itself a pressure relief valve. His demonstration that the trick is not perfect, even backfiring and failing sometimes, is enough to show a stuttering machine that shows weakness. 

Through his correspondence with David Skrbina, Kaczynski dismantles the idea that industrial society can be reformed so as to preserve human dignity and divert our course away from extinction. Kaczynski lists the very limited ways in which society can control its own outcomes and contrasts these with the lofty and impossible goals of committed technophiles, technophiles that see the impending disasters no less. A salient point that emerges from this discourse is the fact that those changes that may seem to be the result of successful reform efforts were actually baked in the cake; the “objective factors” of a given time dictated that the functioning of the system would be most efficient in some configuration. The emergence of democracy, the elimination of slavery in western nations, and measures taken on the most obvious signs of pollution, to take his examples, were all just the system finding the most efficient means to operate. A sense of your irrelevancy in the “progress” of society grows as you read. This culminates in the exposition of the immense and intractable problems of our day that our society has had more than enough time to address through reform such as horrific wars, propaganda, and the pathetic psychological state of the modern human to name a few. When reform continues to humiliate, revolution becomes the weapon to wield. 

In his letter dated September 18, 2004, Kaczynski outlines what the nascent revolutionary movement should be focusing on. He stresses that the members cannot passively wait for the conditions of revolution to materialize and that they must push for it, sow dissension between the common man and the system, and be prepared to speak on the premier problem of our age: industrial society as a whole. Our arsenal is not empty, according to Kaczynski; we have the opportunity to fill a spiritual void left in the wake of industrialization, we have the reverence, on the part of a great deal of people, of wild nature, we have the discontentment that has grown to anger, and we can offer a community that can, arguably, have the greatest impact there will ever be on the human race. Just as with anything young, it must be protected while it is most vulnerable. This time, he states, is for building a nucleus away from leftists and lukewarm rebels. Admitting that these guidelines are only useful for a revolution that is possible in the first place, he offers his expert diagnosis on why it must come to be and why it can be. 

Throughout his correspondence you find that the common denominator of all the issues that others bemoan, let alone what Kaczynski himself decries, is technological society itself. Maybe you’ve noticed the overcrowding of cities, our meager wage slave tasks being replaced by machines, the ever-present manipulation tactics deployed by the media, the shameless and open destruction of natural systems wherever industry touches, or our domestication. These problems, and all others, find their roots in the propagation of techniques as an end in itself. Kaczynski shows that we are a society freer than ever to have “fun,” but at the cost of the kind of freedom that is necessary for a truly fulfilling life which was abundant even in the time of serfdom. This material comfort, he says, is one of the most dangerous features of industrial society, for a placated mass is a docile and moldable one, and, as he shows, humans are not the ones designing the mold. Despite that, he explains that the system is coming to be, not only extremely complex, but also very tightly coupled such that it is becoming catastrophically vulnerable to relatively small disturbances. A boon for revolutionaries. 

This book is an indispensable resource for the anti-tech movement and equips you to see the world as it really functions and where we stand within it, a terrific shake-up out of our learned helplessness.