Critique of “Industrial Society and Its Future”

Though Theodore Kaczynski articulates key issues that plague our contemporary societies in Industrial Society and Its Future with a precise diction that is quite challenging to deny, the manifesto’s diagnosis for these problems is directed towards incorrect targets. The problems involving power, autonomy, and societal control are incorrectly attributed as intrinsic to technological development, rather than a separate field that exists in human nature that both uses and takes the form of technology. Kaczynski’s description of “real” vs. surrogate activities is flawed and oversimplifies man’s psychological needs down to a primitive level. Furthermore, Kaczynski’s attack on technology as a source of authoritative control ignores hierarchical control as a prominent symptom of human nature and exercise of power and does not consider technology and this desire for power as separate entities. Kaczynski goes on to violate his own historical axioms articulated in the same work, by concluding that a revolution bent on destroying the modern socio-economic and political “system” is the most effective way to solve the problems articulated in the manifesto’s discourse.

The diagnosis of problems as purely a result of the “system” is flawed partially due to Kaczynski's description of “the power process.” [1] Kaczynski argues that man has a physical and psychological necessity for the creation, pursuit, and attainment of goals, and doing so with both autonomy and a reasonable rate of attainment success. In industrial society, however, Kaczynski argues that the fulfillment of our biological needs has become too easy, while other worthwhile goals are impossible to succeed in, due to the control of society being held in the hands of few powerful elites. He articulates how “surrogate activities’’ [1] are an attempt by many to fill the void of the power process; these activities can include work, school, sports, entertainment, status, money, and power. Kaczynski defines “surrogate activities’’ as those that would be disregarded by a human if his or her biological needs required sufficient “physical and mental faculties…to be used in a varied and interesting way” to fulfill their biological needs. Further arguments utilize the premise that surrogate activities cannot properly fulfill the power process, and that fulfillment of biological needs always will complete the power process.

This premise is an oversimplification of the human psyche. Kaczynski only considers biological needs and does not consider the human drive for identity, inclusion, and societal acceptance. He also overlooks various instances of individuals neglecting basic biological needs in pursuit of what might be considered a “surrogate activity,” a popular theme among scientists, artists, and literary scholars, which Kaczynski attacks in depth within the Manifesto. If these are truly surrogate activities, biological needs should necessarily be prioritized above the activity. Kaczynski assumes “meaning” in work to be a constant for all individuals, seeming to consider “meaningful” work that which has a concrete outcome or purpose. When expressing the psychological phenomenon that Kaczynski describes as the “power process,” it may be more beneficial for one to apply Nietzsche’s “Will to Power,” [2] or more acutely Marx’s “Alienation from Labor” [3] when considering the industrial-economical issues brought up in Kaczynski’s Manifesto. These concepts incorporate more than biological needs, expressing the possibility that the concept as a human desire can be satisfied in a multitude of societies and living conditions, not simply primitive ones.

The “power process” also neglects how society came to be as industrially advanced as it is today. After all, the “power process” describes a natural human will to set and achieve goals. Is this not a process of progress and achievement? Is this drive not what brought the industrial behemoth that dominates today’s society to fruition? Kaczynski makes no argument that the “power process” is a deceptive desire that brings undesirable circumstances into this world; on the contrary, the power process is the center of what his Manifesto seeks to restore. With this process being a foundational goal to strive towards fulfilling, industrialization seems to be a logical step in said fulfillment, acting as one of the many products of this “power process.”

In addition to a faulty premise of human nature and power fulfillment, Kaczynski assumes technology to be the rudimentary force that deprives society of individual autonomy and institutes authoritative control. This is simply false on a historical and biological premise. The animal kingdom is filled with instinctively occurring hierarchies, seen in chimpanzees, wolves, bees, and even lobsters. [4] Hierarchical structures of authority are not man-made, and clearly not the result of industrialization. (Kaczynski’s conjecture that technology tightens the grip of “the system” on individual autonomy and forces increased compliance does bear some truth, but this will not be discussed here.) We look at primitive human society and see evidence of hierarchical structures, both in societies and in families. This can be seen most notably within Native American cultures, where kings ruled tribes, often with much more authority than seen in developed nations today. These tribes were all relatively secluded, each utilizing only “local technology,” which Kaczynski permits as acceptable in an ideal non-industrial society. This iron grip of control is seen within Greek, Roman, Byantine, Asian, and more empires, all “ancient” in nature, which is exactly what Kaczynski is attempting to regress back to. Each instituted both a hierarchical structure and strict authoritative control over the general population. The methods of this control varied physically, socially, and mentally (and haven’t stopped evolving,) but still persisted, whether a society is “industrial” or not. Technology is merely the most modern tool that the elite choose to repress individual autonomy. Not only does Kaczynski want to remove an inseparable aspect of human nature, but his preferred method of doing so is at worst a maniacal pipe dream and at best an unlikely gamble.

Kaczynski makes some astute critiques about current industrial society, but his proposed solution to these problems borders on luck, especially if we apply the laws of history that he himself proposes early in the manifesto. He states that a revolution bent solely on the tearing down of modern industrial society is the goal of his so-called “Freedom Club,” and nothing more. It is stated early in the manifesto as one of the laws of history that “a new kind of society cannot be designed on paper.” [1] It is also stated in the same section, however, that “If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance.” [1] It logically follows that any attempt to tear down the current “system” will have unimagined consequences; it may only increase the extent to which “the system” controls us.

Kaczynski attempts to justify the current “system’s” destruction by using the simile of a stronger and weaker man. He states that the stronger man will inevitably infringe on more and more of the weaker man’s land until the stronger man controls all of it, and the weaker man will be obliged to obey. Kaczynski goes on to argue that if the stronger man were to fall ill, it is the moral right of the weaker man to kill the stronger man. If the weaker man simply takes his original land back, he will eventually be oppressed again by the strong man once the strong man has healed. This is a fallacious simile; it does not represent the true nature of technology vs. nature or man vs. authority. It may be noted that, when the strong man is sick, the weak man is now the man with the power, temporarily making him the stronger man. If he goes and kills the original strong man, is the originally weak man much better than the originally strong? The comparison of a human conflict for power translates poorly to the comparison of nature vs. technology. Moreover, Kaczynski’s remark that if the weak man does not kill the sick strong man, the healthy strong man will eventually take back power allows us to see an even more persistent enemy of Kaczynski’s proposed solution: the fact that technological development will always endure in human nature.

If the weak man kills the strong man, the weak man will never have to worry about infringement from the strong man ever again. If the “Freedom Club” were to successfully overthrow the current “system,” and society (by chance) reverted to more primitive, localized-technological times, there is no guarantee that technology would never again become as strong a force as it is today. We have already established that technological development and innovation are ingrained in human nature, and to remove the technology would be to alter human nature. Kaczynski seems to be arguing from a standpoint of persevering the purest forms of human nature and power processes. His proposed revolution is predicated on the destruction of one of the fruits of natural human endeavor.

We conclude that Kaczynski’s solution to the problems he articulates regarding modern Industrial Society is not only ineffective and based on rules that he has created to address these problems, but partially flies against what he is attempting to return the human race to. These faults manifest as cracks in the foundation for his arguments, including an oversimplified theory of man’s basic biological drives and a misguided notion of man’s inclination towards exertion of authority is not separable from technology. These foundational flaws provide an unstable basis for arguments presented regarding how humanity should fix our current situation — through blind revolution. The arbitrary and extreme nature of this notion glosses over the previously articulated logical errors and results in an ineffective solution to the issues Kaczynski describes.

Side Note: Personal Opinion

This section contains content that is highly personalized opinion; there is no right or wrong answer to this concept, as it is based on morality. The manifesto is predicated on an age-old question, and one of the answers Kaczynski seems to imply is a truth based on his solution to industrial society. The question is this: is it justifiable to kill a few thousand (or million) people now, to produce a society/hierarchy that will benefit many more people in the future? This is the question that the 20th century forced us to ask ourselves; it is the question that caused the great casualty of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus’s relationship. Kaczynski assumes that the killing of humans now and destruction of their current lives is justified by the end goal: the destruction of the system. I personally disagree for multiple reasons.

1. There is no way to know whether the killing of people now will guarantee the desired future. It is my opinion that any method to create a planned future predicated on killing innocent people against their will is not a future that we want to live in. (Note that Kaczynski would disagree with the notion of a “planned future”)
2. Even if the planned future occurred as planned, how do we know that this future would be better than before? We are simply too ignorant as a race to determine what is truly beneficial for all of humanity, and we may never have the capacity to decide what truly is.
3. Our technological world relies on constant upkeeping of systems that would wreak havoc on us and the planet if they were to fail (such as Nuclear power plants.)
4. It is unlikely that enough external force could be leveraged against the system to demolish it. A more tactful approach would be through partially internal competition.

Considering these two points, my personal moral and logical considerations tell me that the ends simply do not justify such cruel and gruesome means forced on populations by an authoritative structure.

Sources

[1] “Industrial Society and Its Future.” Ted Kaczynski. Published 8/19/1995. Accessed 1/5/2021.

[2] “Beyond Good and Evil.” Friedrich Nietzsche. Published 1886. Accessed 1/5/2021.

[3] “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” Karl Marx. Published 1844. Accessed 1/5/2021.

[4] “Understanding Hierarchies in Nature and Society.” Josh Nilaya. Published 5/20/2015. Accessed 1/5/2021.