Quotes from book
Industrial Society and Its Future

Industrial Society and Its Future

Theodore Kaczynski

He was a gifted mathematician, one of the youngest people to ever teach at Berkeley, a product of the CIA's MKUltra program while a student at Harvard, a recluse and a part-time philosopher. He was also a terrorist, known to the FBI by the acronym UNABOM (UNiversity and Airline BOMBer), thus the media moniker UNABOMBER. His manifesto, "Industrial Society & Its Future" is, in part, the disturbed rantings of a neo-Luddite, as well as a critical analysis of late, modern capitalism and the ills of an over-consumptive society seemingly hell-bent on its own destruction.

“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Introduction", item 1
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Nature of Freedom", paragraph 94
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Technology Is A More Powerful Social Force Than The Aspiration For Freedom", item 125
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to do.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Some Principles of History", paragraph 104
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Power Process", item 36
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Control of Human Behavior", item 160
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Introduction", item 3
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“We are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Oversocialization", item 25
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Introduction", item 2
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“Some people have low susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques. These are the people who aren't interested in money. Material acquisition does not serve their need for the power process.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"How Some People Adjust", item 81
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that scientists put into their work.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Motives of Scientists", item 87
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“And then there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be satisfied with a purely physical sense of power (the good combat soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting skills that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors).”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Autonomy", item 43
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.
"Control of Human Behavior", item 145
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Feelings of Inferiority", item 12
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call feelings of inferiority and oversocialization. Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Psychology of Modern Leftism", item 9
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Surrogate Activities", item 40
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities have been widely recognized as sources of social problems. But we do not believe they are enough to account for the extent of the problems that are seen today.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Sources Of Social Problems", item 53
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"The Nature of Freedom", item 94
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Disruption Of The Power Process In Modern Society", item 64
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

“The concept of “mental health” in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress.”

Theodore Kaczynski book Industrial Society and Its Future

"Restriction on Freedom is Unavoidable in Industrial Society", item 119
Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

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