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56-571: Industrial Society and Its Future , also known as the Unabomber Manifesto , is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski , the "Unabomber". The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology , while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed

112-521: A mail bomb campaign against people involved with modern technology. His initial targets were universities and airlines, which the FBI shortened as UNABOM. In June 1995, Kaczynski offered to end his campaign if one of several publications (the Washington Post , New York Times , or Penthouse ) would publish his critique of technology, titled Industrial Society and Its Future , which became widely known as

168-1136: A 2021 study by Sean Fleming shows that many of these similarities are coincidental. Kaczynski had not read Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, or John Zerzan until after he submitted Industrial Society and Its Future to The New York Times and The Washington Post . There is no evidence that he read Freud, Carson, or Schumacher. Instead, Fleming argues, Industrial Society and Its Future "is a synthesis of ideas from [...] French philosopher Jacques Ellul , British zoologist Desmond Morris , and American psychologist Martin Seligman ." Kaczynski's understanding of technology, his idea of maladaptation, and his critique of leftism are partly derived from Ellul's 1954 book, The Technological Society . Kaczynski's concept of "surrogate activities" echoes Desmond Morris's concept of "survival-substitute activities", while his concept of "the power process" combines Morris's concept of "the Stimulus Struggle" with Seligman's concept of learned helplessness . Fleming's study relies on archival material from

224-861: A Neo-Luddite manifesto". In this paper, Glendinning describes neo-Luddites as "20th century citizens—activists, workers, neighbors, social critics, and scholars—who question the predominant modern worldview, which preaches that unbridled technology represents progress ". Glendinning voices an opposition to technologies that she deems destructive to communities or are materialistic and rationalistic. She proposes that technology encourages biases, and therefore should question if technologies have been created for specific interests, to perpetuate their specific values including short-term efficiency, ease of production and marketing, as well as profit. Glendinning also says that secondary aspects of technology, including social, economic and ecological implications, and not personal benefit need to be considered before adoption of technology into

280-496: A Neo-Luddite manifesto". In this paper, Glendinning proposes destroying the following technologies: electromagnetic technologies (this includes communications, computers, appliances, and refrigeration), chemical technologies (this includes synthetic materials and medicine), nuclear technologies (this includes weapons and power as well as cancer treatment, sterilization, and smoke detection), genetic engineering (this includes crops as well as insulin production). She argues in favor of

336-404: A broader and more holistic distrust of technological improvement. Neo-Luddism is a leaderless movement of non-affiliated groups who resist modern technologies and dictate a return of some or all technologies to a more primitive level. Neo-Luddites are characterized by one or more of the following practices: passively abandoning the use of technology, harming those who produce technology harmful to

392-514: A golden age, but it is pushing us towards self destruction and slavery [...] With our action we give back to you a small part of the suffering that you scientists are bringing to the world. Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber , initially sabotaged developments near his cabin but dedicated himself to getting back at the system after discovering a road had been built over a plateau he had considered beautiful. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski engaged in

448-604: A group or person calling itself Individualists Tending to the Wild perpetrated an attack with a bomb at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, State of Mexico Campus , intended for the coordinator of its Business Development Center and Technology Transfer. The attack was accompanied by the publication of a manifesto criticizing nanotechnology and computer science . Sale says that neo-Luddites are not motivated to commit violence or vandalism. The manifesto of

504-537: A nationwide bombing campaign against modern technology, planting or mailing numerous home-made bombs, killing three people and injuring 23 others. In his 1995 Unabomber manifesto , Kaczynski states: 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. In August 2011 in Mexico

560-580: A niche audience among critics of technology, such as the speculative science fiction and anarcho-primitivist communities. It has since been translated into many other languages, including French by Jean-Marie Apostolidès . Since 2000, the Labadie Collection houses a copy of the manifesto, along with Ted Kaczynski's other writings, letters and papers, after he officially designated the University of Michigan to receive them. They have since become one of

616-562: A supplement to The Washington Post after Kaczynski offered to end his bombing campaign in exchange for his manifesto to be widely circulated. Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the printing to help the FBI identify the author. The printings and publicity around them eclipsed the bombings in notoriety, and led to Kaczynski's identification by his brother, David Kaczynski . While Kaczynski's actions were generally condemned, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally shared among

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672-499: Is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology . The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites , who were active between 1811 and 1817. While the original Luddites were mostly concerned with the economic implications of improving technology in regard to industrialization, neo-Luddites tend to have

728-403: Is hard to deny that these are real improvements and that they were made possible by technologies, perhaps most centrally artificial fertilizers, agricultural machinery, water chlorination, sewer systems, antibiotics, and vaccines. It is also hard to deny that a wide range of other technologies—reading glasses, painkillers, printing presses, light bulbs, pianos, music recordings, trains—have enriched

784-507: Is not just the collection of tools, but a way of being in the world and of understanding the world which is instrumental and grotesque. According to Heidegger, this way of being defines the modern way of living in the West. For Heidegger, this technological process ends up reducing beings to not-beings, which Heidegger calls 'the abandonment of being' and involves the loss of any sense of awe and wonder, as well as an indifference to that loss. One of

840-506: Is possible or even probable. These predictions include changes in humanity's place in the future due to replacement of humans by computers, genetic decay of humans due to lack of natural selection, biological engineering of humans, misuse of technological power including disasters caused by genetically modified organisms , nuclear warfare , and biological weapons ; control of humanity using surveillance, propaganda, pharmacological control, and psychological control; humanity failing to adapt to

896-529: Is that human perceptions are always going to be less predictable and less measurable than physical dimensions. Human scale in architecture is deliberately violated: " Common sense " ideas tend to relate to events within human experience, and thus commensurate with these scales. There is thus no commonsense intuition of, for example, interstellar distances or speeds approaching the speed of light. Weights and measures tend to reflect human scale, and many older systems of measurement featured units based directly on

952-433: Is yield, production. This is the law of technique ; this yield can only be obtained by the total mobilization of human beings, body and soul, and this implies the exploitation of all human psychic forces." In Industrial Revolution England, machines became cheaper to use than men. The five counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire had a small uprising where they threatened those hired to guard

1008-581: The Amish and the Chipko movement in Nepal and India as models for the future. Neo-Luddism denies the ability of any new technology to solve current problems, such as environmental degradation , nuclear warfare and biological weapons , without creating more, potentially dangerous, problems. In 1990, attempting to found a unified movement and reclaim the term Luddite , Chellis Glendinning published her "Notes towards

1064-438: The Industrial Revolution harmed the human race by developing into a sociopolitical order that subjugates human needs beneath its own. This system, he wrote, destroys nature and suppresses individual freedom. In short, humans adapt to machines rather than vice versa, resulting in a society hostile to human potential, freedom, and dignity. Kaczynski indicts technological progress for its destruction of small human communities and

1120-509: The Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, including a "secret" set of footnotes that Kaczynski did not include in the Washington Post version of Industrial Society and Its Future . The scholar George Michael of Vanderbilt University Press accused Kaczynski of "collecting philosophical and environmental clichés to reinforce common American concerns". Kaczynski had intended for his mail bombing campaign to raise awareness for

1176-909: The wilderness , the antithesis of technology. Industrial Society and Its Future echoes contemporary critics of technology and industrialization such as John Zerzan , Jacques Ellul , Rachel Carson , Lewis Mumford , and E. F. Schumacher . Its idea of the "disruption of the power process" similarly echoed social critics who emphasize that the lack of meaningful work is a primary cause of social problems, including Mumford, Paul Goodman , and Eric Hoffer . Aldous Huxley addressed its general theme in Brave New World , to which Kaczynski refers in his text. Kaczynski's ideas of " oversocialization " and "surrogate activities" recall Sigmund Freud 's Civilization and Its Discontents and its theories of rationalization and sublimation (a term which Kaczynski uses three times to describe "surrogate activities"). However,

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1232-586: The "Second Luddite Congress", which Sale took a major part in defining, attempts to redefine neo-Luddites as people who reject violent action. According to Julian Young, Martin Heidegger was a Luddite in his early philosophical phase and believed in the destruction of modern technology and a return to an earlier agrarian world. However, the later Heidegger did not see technology as wholly negative and did not call for its abandonment or destruction. In The Question Concerning Technology (1953), Heidegger posited that

1288-448: The "Unabomber Manifesto". Kaczynski believed that his violence, as direct action when words were insufficient, would draw others to pay attention to his critique. He wanted his ideas to be taken seriously. The media debated the ethics of publishing the manifesto under duress. The United States Attorney General Janet Reno advocated for the essay to be shared so that a reader could potentially recognize its author. During that summer,

1344-649: The "search for new technological forms" which are local in scale and promote social and political freedom. Contemporary neo-Luddites are a widely diverse group of loosely affiliated or non-affiliated groups which includes "writers, academics, students, families, Amish , Mennonites , Quakers , environmentalists , "fallen-away yuppies", "ageing flower children" and "young idealists seeking a technology-free environment". Some Luddites see themselves as victims of technology trying to prevent further victimization (such as Citizens Against Pesticide Misuse and Parents Against Underage Smartphones). Others see themselves as advocates for

1400-657: The American news more than the bombings themselves. The manifesto was widely spread via newspapers, book reprints, and the Internet. Ultimately, the ideas in the manifesto were eclipsed by reaction to the violence of the bombings, and did not spark the serious public consideration he was looking for. Linda Patrik, the wife of Ted's brother David Kaczynski , suspected Ted had written the manifesto because she recognized his linguistic mannerisms, and she told her husband about her suspicions. At first, he disbelieved that his own brother could be

1456-602: The American public. A 2017 Rolling Stone article stated that Kaczynski was an early adopter of the concept that: The Labadie Collection of the University of Michigan houses a copy of Industrial Society and its Future . The essay has been translated into French, remains on college reading lists, and was updated in Kaczynski's 2008 book, Technological Slavery , Volume One , which defends his political philosophy in greater depth. Between 1978 and 1995, Ted Kaczynski engaged in

1512-628: The FBI worked with literature scholars to compare the Unabomber's oeuvre against the works of Joseph Conrad , including The Secret Agent , based on their shared themes. The Washington Post published the manifesto in full within a supplement on September 19, 1995, splitting the cost with The New York Times . According to a statement, the Post had the "mechanical ability to distribute a separate section in all copies of its daily newspaper." A Berkeley-based chess book publisher began publishing copies in paperback

1568-614: The author of the manifesto, but upon comparing the previous letters that they shared, he found evidence: one of Ted's mannerisms was found in one of the letters that they exchanged, just as it was written in the manifesto. Upon this discovery, David notified the FBI . After Ted Kaczynski's April 1996 arrest, he wanted to use the trial to disseminate his views, but the judge denied him permission to represent himself . Instead, his court-appointed lawyers planned an insanity defense that would discredit Industrial Society and Its Future against his will. The prosecution's psychiatrists counter-cited

1624-613: The average person. Humans also interact with their environments based on their sensory capabilities. The fields of human perception systems, like perceptual psychology and cognitive psychology , are not exact sciences, because human information processing is not a purely physical act, and because perception is affected by cultural factors, personal preferences, experiences, and expectations. So human scale in architecture can also describe buildings with sightlines, acoustic properties, task lighting, ambient lighting, and spatial grammar that fit well with human senses. However, one important caveat

1680-401: The dimensions of the body, such as the foot and the cubit . The metric system , which is based on precisely reproducible and measurable physical quantities such as the speed of light, still attempts to keep its base units within the range of human experience. Systems of natural units (such as Planck units ) are useful in theoretical physics, but are not suitable for everyday purposes; because

1736-444: The direction of civilization. While most Americans abhorred his violence, adherents to his anti-technology message have celebrated his call to question technology and preserve wilderness. From his Colorado maximum security prison, he continued to clarify his philosophy with other writers through correspondence, and by composing two books which were published during his incarceration, until his death in 2023. Part of Kaczynski's manifesto

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1792-538: The effects of technology on human life, Kaczynski considers only the negative effects. This makes him leave out from his inquiry a number of very important facts, such as the fact that prior to the industrial revolution, all countries in the world had a living standard comparable to today's standard in Africa south of the Sahara, and that since the late 18th century, the global average life expectancy at birth has more than doubled. It

1848-515: The environment, advocating simple living , or sabotaging technology. The modern neo-Luddite movement has connections with the anti-globalization movement , anarcho-primitivism , radical environmentalism , and deep ecology . Neo-Luddism is based on the concern of the technological impact on individuals, their communities, and/or the environment, Neo-Luddism stipulates the use of the precautionary principle for all new technologies, insisting that technologies be proven safe before adoption, due to

1904-506: The first major contemporary anti-technological thinkers was French philosopher Jacques Ellul . In his The Technological Society (1964), Ellul argued that logical and mechanical organization "eliminates or subordinates the natural world". Ellul defined technique as the entire totality of organizational methods and technology with a goal toward maximum rational efficiency. According to Ellul, technique has an impetus which tends to drown out human concerns: "The only thing that matters technically

1960-425: The forefront of American politics. Cynthia Ozick likened the work to an American Raskolnikov (of Dostoevsky 's Crime and Punishment ), as a "philosophical criminal of exceptional intelligence and humanitarian purpose ... driven to commit murder out of an uncompromising idealism". Numerous websites engaging with the manifesto's message appeared online. Kaczynski's effort to publish his manifesto brought him into

2016-422: The future manifesting as an increase in psychological disorders, widening economic and political inequality , widespread social alienation , a loss of community, and massive unemployment ; technology causing environmental degradation due to shortsightedness, overpopulation, and overcrowding. In 1990, attempting to reclaim the term Luddite and found a unified movement, Glendinning published her "Notes towards

2072-404: The ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society . The manifesto states that the public largely accepts individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, including the erosion of local and individual freedom and autonomy . It was printed in

2128-458: The lives of billions. In December 2020, a man who was arrested at Charleston International Airport on a charge of "conveying false information regarding attempted use of a destructive device" after he falsely threatened that he had a bomb, was found to have been carrying the Unabomber manifesto. Feral House republished the manifesto in Kaczynski's first book, the 2010 Technological Slavery , alongside correspondence and an interview. Kaczynski

2184-458: The machines. Another critic of political and technological expansion was Lewis Mumford , who wrote The Myth of the Machine . The views of Ellul influenced the ideas of the infamous American neo-Luddite Kaczynski. The opening of Kaczynski's manifesto reads: "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." Other philosophers of technology who have questioned

2240-480: The manifesto as evidence of the Unabomber's lucidity, and Kaczynski's sanity was tried in court and in the media. Kaczynski responded by taking a plea bargain for life imprisonment without parole in May 1998. Kaczynski's biographer argued that the public should look beyond this "genius-or-madman debate", and view the manifesto as reflecting normal, common, unexceptional ideas shared by Americans, sharing their distrust over

2296-462: The message in Industrial Society and Its Future , which he wanted to be seriously regarded. With its initial publication in 1995, the manifesto was received as intellectually deep and sane. Writers described the manifesto's sentiment as familiar. To Kirkpatrick Sale , the Unabomber was "a rational man" with reasonable beliefs about technology. He recommended the manifesto's opening sentence for

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2352-465: The modern technological "mode of Being" was one which viewed the natural world, plants, animals, and even human beings as a "standing-reserve"—resources to be exploited as means to an end. To illustrate this "monstrousness", Heidegger uses the example of a hydroelectric plant on the Rhine river which turns the river from an unspoiled natural wonder to just a supplier of hydropower . In this sense, technology

2408-520: The most popular archives in their special collections . In 2017, an article in Rolling Stone stated that Kaczynski was an early adopter of the idea that: In 2018, New York magazine stated that the manifesto generated later interest from neoconservatives , environmentalists , and anarcho-primitivists . In 2019, Norwegian philosopher Ole Martin Moen criticized Kaczynski's manifesto: In assessing

2464-464: The movement's founders are Glendinning and Kirkpatrick Sale . Prominent neo-Luddites include educator S. D. George, ecologist Stephanie Mills, Theodore Roszak , Scott Savage , Clifford Stoll , Bill McKibben , Neil Postman , Wendell Berry , Alan Marshall and Gene Logsdon . Postman, however, did not consider himself a Luddite. Some neo-Luddites use vandalism or violence to achieve social change and promote their cause. In May 2012, credit for

2520-563: The natural order and resist environmental degradation by technology (such as Earth First! ). One neo-Luddite assembly was the "Second Neo-Luddite Congress", held 13–15 April 1996, at a Quaker meeting hall in Barnesville, Ohio . On 24 February 2001, the "Teach-In on Technology and Globalization" was held at Hunter College in New York city with the purpose of bringing together critics of technology and globalization. The two figures who are seen as

2576-812: The next month, without Kaczynski's consent. Kaczynski wrote an essay in 1971 which contained many themes and ideas that would eventually appear in the manifesto, indicating that his particular line of anti-technological thought dated back relatively early in his life prior to his arrest. The original, handwritten manifesto sold for $ 20,053 in a 2011 auction of Kaczynski's assets, along with typewritten editions and their typewriters , to raise restitution for his victims. Active Defunct Publications Works At 35,000 words, Industrial Society and Its Future lays very detailed blame on technology in and of itself for eroding individual freedom and autonomy, destroying human-scale communities, and leading to widespread psychological and physical suffering. Kaczynski contends that

2632-478: The order of: Humans interact with their environments based on their physical dimensions, capabilities and limits. The field of anthropometrics (human measurement) has unanswered questions, but it's still true that human physical characteristics are fairly predictable and objectively measurable. Buildings scaled to human physical capabilities have steps, doorways, railings, work surfaces, seating, shelves, fixtures, walking distances, and other features that fit well to

2688-588: The requirements of the system and those outside the system are seen as pathological or "bad". This tendency, he says, gives rise to expansive police powers, mind-numbing mass media, and indiscriminate promotion of drugs, designed to conform to the needs of the technological environment. He criticizes both big government and big business as the inevitable result of industrialization, and holds scientists and "technophiles" responsible for recklessly pursuing power through technological advancements. He argues that this industrialized system's collapse will be devastating in

2744-425: The rise of inhospitable cities. He contends that this relentless technological progress will not dissipate on its own, because individual technological advancements are seen as good despite the sum effects of this progress, and technological growth is beyond rational human control (i.e., autonomous). Kaczynski describes modern technological society as totalitarian force—an order in which individuals are "adjusted" to fit

2800-479: The shooting of Roberto Adinolfi, an Ansaldo Nucleare executive, was claimed by an anarchist group who targeted him for stating that none of the deaths following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami were caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster itself: Adinolfi knows well that it is only a matter of time before a European Fukushima kills on our continent [...] Science in centuries past promised us

2856-464: The short-term, although quickening the collapse—before technology progresses further—will prevent unmitigated catastrophe for humanity and the biosphere in the future. He justifies the trade-offs that come with losing industrial society as being worth the cost. Kaczynski's ideal revolution seeks not to overthrow governments if unnecessary, but rather, the economic and technological foundation of modern society. He seeks to destroy existing society and protect

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2912-423: The technological system. Neo-Luddism often establishes stark predictions about the effect of new technologies. Although there is not a cohesive vision of the ramifications of technology, neo-Luddism predicts that a future without technological reform has dire consequences. Neo-Luddites believe that current technologies are a threat to humanity and to the natural world in general, and that a future societal collapse

2968-495: The unknown effects that new technologies might inspire. Neo-Luddism calls for slowing or stopping the development of new technologies. Neo-Luddism prescribes a lifestyle that abandons specific technologies, because of its belief that this is the best prospect for the future. As Robin and Webster put it, "a return to nature and what are imagined as more natural communities". In the place of industrial capitalism, neo-Luddism prescribes small-scale agricultural communities such as those of

3024-750: The validity of technological progress include Albert Borgmann , Don Ihde and Hubert Dreyfus . Human-scale Many of the objects of scientific interest in the universe are much larger than human scale (stars, galaxies) or much smaller than human scale (molecules, atoms, subatomic particles). Similarly, many time periods studied in science involve time scales much greater than human timescales ( geological and cosmological time scales ) or much shorter than human timescales (atomic and subatomic events). Mathematicians and scientists use very large and small numbers to describe physical quantities, and have created even larger and smaller numbers for theoretical purposes. Human scale measurements, however, are more in

3080-475: Was cited by the inventor and author Raymond Kurzweil in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines , and then mentioned in the article " Why the Future Doesn't Need Us " by computer scientist Bill Joy . As of 2000, Industrial Society and Its Future remained on college reading lists and the green anarchist and eco-extremist movements came to hold Kaczynski's writing in high regard, with the manifesto finding

3136-413: Was unsatisfied with the book and his lack of control in its publication. Kaczynski's 2019 book Technological Slavery, Volume One. Revised and Expanded Edition updates his 1995 manifesto with more relevant references and defends his political philosophy in greater depth. In February 2021, Kaczynski wrote a new preface to his original 1995 manifesto. Anti-technology Neo-Luddism or new Luddism

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