Are We Slaves to Technology?
Reviewing the book ‘Technological Slavery’
** Trigger warning alert **
This is the manifesto of K*czynski, an American domestic terrorist. He killed 3 people and injured 23 in a bombing campaign to draw attention to this anti-technology manifesto. He was arrested in 1996 and has 8 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
I do not condone his actions. What he did was wrong and evil. However, that should not be a reason to ignore some of his philosophical ideas, in the same way that we should not ignore Plato because of sexist views or Heidegger because he was part of the Nazi party.
In fact, making sure that these philosophical discussions occur might prevent such terror acts. He did what he did precisely because no one listened to what he was saying. Censoring his work is misguided and very counter-productive.
I’m already very interested in views about technology, which made me interested in the book. And I was particularly curious about Kaczynski’s work because I’ve always had an odd fascination with people who are extremely smart and yet do extremely insane things for the sake of their beliefs. Of course, just because they are smart or they do extreme things does not mean their views are correct, but if there is anyone who would have a messianic role that would free us from a delusion, it would most certainly come in this type of person.
Imagine that you are in a dystopian society, which no one recognizes as dystopian, which creates immense suffering and threatens mankind. It’s not hard to imagine the lengths one could go to in those situations. So I feel a kind of compulsion towards such people because while you can easily argue that they are just crazy if it so happens that society is crazy instead. They could be the sane ones, and you would ignore the most important truth possible simply because it’s against the status quo. The fact that I’ve seen several people consider the work of high-quality and not just mindless reactionary ramblings propelled me further to read it.
The main work from Kaczynski is “Industrial Society and Its Future”, which was the original manifesto he wanted to get publicity for. The edition I have read is an expanded one, which includes extra letters, notes and appendices that clarify or expand his work. It's considered unfinished because he’s constantly under the threat of his communication being cut out from the outside world, which cause the material to never be published. I enjoyed the extra material and it has interesting additions and clarifications, but for most people, I don’t think it’s worth it. The original text of Industrial Society and Its Future has his key ideas and it’s quite short, I think most people ought to read it as it requires little time investment.
Reading the main text was honestly scary. Because he was considered such a revolutionary, I expected his views to be crazy, but most of his ideas not only I agree with, but in fact that I wrote about a couple of years ago. I write in a quasi-depersonalized manner in which I try to express an idea and doesn’t necessarily reflect my true beliefs, but nevertheless, I do hold a similar anti-technological sentiment, but I’ve always considered that those beliefs a slightly delirious part of my personality. But seeing them confirmed in such explicit light almost freaked me out.
His main thesis is that technology is inherently harmful to mankind, particularly the technology after the industrial revolution. This is quite a hard thing to explain and appreciate in our technology-obsessed society, but it is a reasonable position if analyzed carefully. What made me shift towards a somewhat anti-technological stance, and in my opinion, Kaczynski’s strongest point, was my realization that while technology is antithetical to the core of humanity, but its progression is incremental. What makes this truly frightening is when you realize that technology cannot be stopped. Not only because it’s a slow progression that doesn’t offer any meaningful point to stop that won’t eventually be overcome, but also because technology comes with so many benefits, particularly regarding comfort and economic prosperity.
In fact, many technological advances, and the most problematic ones, can be advanced by claiming that they help mankind, and in a way, that’s definitely true. The best case being genetic engineering, which is mentioned often and well-argued. Not only is technology beneficial, but one can even argue that not using it or not developing it further is immoral as it has the ability to decrease suffering. The most horrifying cognizance is that this makes technological progression inevitable, and then one can easily see Kaczynski’s perspective and despair. And the more technological our society becomes, the harder it is to reverse it. His drastic actions were in part due to his belief that we are in a narrow period where reversing society is still possible, but that will soon no longer be the case, and it will hit a point of no return.
The way technology develops, and the consequences of it are not the easiest to explain, and thus I won’t cover it in detail here. Kaczynski does a fantastic job of presenting the case, so if you’re interested, simply read his short manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future”, no further reading or letters are required. But if you decide to read this, I highly recommend reading the novel “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster beforehand. It deals with the same theme but in a literary form that is incredibly well done and it is a good non-political introduction to breaking the pro-technological view that we culturally inherent. If you think Kaczynski is just batshit insane, I would consider Forster’s reading mandatory to understand Kaczynski’s worldview fully. Both texts would add up to around 200 pages.
The ideas in the book aren’t exactly original, and several philosophers have expressed similar views and concerns, however, what makes this text so valuable is that it’s presented in an incredibly easy-to-digest format. There is no heavy philosophical jargon, and despite the work being uncompleted, it is surprisingly well-organized and coherent. Therefore I believe it’s the single best resource with an anti-technological stance available.
I was pleasantly surprised by how academic and well-thought-out the text was. He is not only smart but incredibly knowledgeable, and his views are anything but random. They are rooted in a deep knowledge of history, psychology and anthropology, and sociology. This does not mean he can’t be wrong nor that his interpretations are automatically correct, but it can easily be considered a solid academic work if it wasn’t for his actions and radical political views. I was particularly impressed by his study of the history of previous revolutions (such as the Bolsheviks) to shed light on what type of action would be productive or not.
Despite my complements of the work, I don’t agree with everything, far from it. First of all, I don’t like the political tone of the book. He heavily criticizes the left, particularly in its modern social justice forms. While I understand the criticism and partially agree with some of his analysis, nevertheless, as a whole I think it’s not completely fair. It is oversimplistic, and it is heavily distorted to fit his anti-technology ideology. Despite this, I do think some of his claims about “left psychology” are valid, even though exaggerated. Some of the best points have been well articulated by Thomas Sowell.
If you consider yourself on the left, you will most definitely not enjoy this part, and I don’t blame you. But this anti-left sentiment does not invalidate his anti-technological stance, and try to be open-minded and truly see where he is coming from. While it is natural to cringe at some claims, don’t be tempted to dismiss everything outright just because it critiques your political group.
I think this is one of the major flaws of his work, which alienates a lot of people from the political left. This is even more problematic because the left could be a great ally in this endeavor, especially with environmental concerns, which are one of the key themes problems for Kaczynski. He does give his reasoning for being so anti-left, in remarkable detail, but I don’t quite buy it, and I think is mistaken of how he views the topic.
This political approach also has the consequence of attracting the type of people that are anti-left, and thus his ideas and movements start to get infiltrated by far right. While, in my opinion, Kaczynski himself is not far-right, a lot of his anti-left views can easily be wrongly misunderstood as if is against social justice in general, and this is definitely an element that will inevitably be exploited. This can even be seen in his letters, in which sometimes he seems to correct a far-right political analysis from his correspondent and try to return the problem to technology.
There were other areas that I disagreed with. I think that his view of surrogate activities (artificial activities beyond physical satisfaction) is misguided, and he greatly misrepresents how human beings pursue meaningful activities and how that relates to survival instincts and a life well-lived. It feels in some sense that he is taking his personality traits as a prescriptive philosophical position. However, I find his argument of the system artificially forcing people into STEM fields exclusively due to technological and economic concerns very compelling and something that rarely gets attention.
His erroneous view of human activities relates to how he views the identity and existential crisis of modernity. He seems to reject existentialism completely, and it seems to imply that the desire to create meaning is completely awry, a misunderstanding of how human beings exist in the world. While I think his views have support from the lifestyles of more traditional societies, I think that’s caused by their particular culture, which does not have the same existential problems that we have due to a completely altered worldview. However, does this not necessarily mean the traditional worldview is correct, and that the natural state of humanity, which does not seek to find meaning beyond a traditional life focused on survival and leisure, is the right one.
This is related to his neglect of meaning in his philosophy. His worldview seems to have little concern for matters of spirituality and self-transcendence. The little role it has is taken is within his anti-technological ideology. Any spirituality is to be found in a pre-technological state, and that’s all that there is to it. I find this incredibly naive, and it largely causes his oversimplification of the existential crisis of modern man. He is absolutely correct of the existential threat from modern society and technology, but reducing everything to it is very reductionist.
I also disagree with his revolutionary position. He thinks that mankind needs to reject post-industrial society, and he advocates for a revolutionary group to literally destroy society as we currently know it. I certainly don’t agree with the bombings, but I wouldn’t even agree that we should reject technology completely. For one, I’m unsure if the net benefit is worth it. While Kaczynski has great care in order not to fall into the noble savage myth, and he addressed this at length, nevertheless, I think a lot of drawbacks are very significant.
He fully acknowledges the consequences but thinks they are worth it nevertheless. I understand the position, but I think it’s wrong. Even more so because we wouldn’t go back to a nomadic lifestyle, he admits that agriculture would eventually develop, and even concludes that medieval serfdom would likely emerge again. In fact, I’m not even sure if modern society wouldn’t simply develop again with time. While he does offer good arguments against it, I wasn’t completely convinced. And the fact that he doesn’t view serfdom as a big deal when compared to the societal conditions that are given with a technological state only further convinces me that his analysis of the net benefit from renouncing modern society is crooked.
Furthermore, regardless of the net benefit of reverting society to a pre-technological state, I certainly don’t think such a revolution is possible. While he gives a good analysis of why he thinks it can be done, and I was deeply impressed by how well thought out his plan is, I still think it would be impossible in our current globalized society. Nevertheless, I was amazed by his explanation of how our technological society could be disrupted. It really gave me the sense that it is not as stable as we think, and the interconnectedness of technology (relying on other technologies, which rely on other technologies) does make it relatively easy for large-scale destabilization, to a degree that I never dreamed of. But I still think that won’t be enough, and such disruptions will always be fixed. For it to work, it would have to be a massive global coordinated effort, which will never happen. And to reiterate, this is assuming that I would support the revolution, which I do not.
I honestly didn’t expect the work to be so thought-provoking, and the amount of sheer insight that is presented is very underrated. I think it just didn’t gain more popularity due to its political anti-left stance, as I mentioned. I disagree with many points, but his fundamental analysis of the consequences of our technological society is not just good, but in my opinion, completely spot on. I understand that many won’t think so, and I wouldn’t either a few years ago, but as I got older and learned more, I truly think his analysis is correct.
A lot of it applies to our current situation. Still, if you truly take seriously future developments as Kaczynski describes, particularly in genetic engineering and surveillance, it makes his case really strong. And it’s close to impossible to deny the dystopia that will bring. What makes the work so grim for me is that I think his views are correct, but his solution incorrect. And while I don’t agree with his solution, I can’t really give an alternative either. It seems that I have no choice to succumb to the system, to the machine. It truly makes me wonder if he isn’t correct after all, and my disagreement comes from a subconscious cowardliness of engaging in a revolution (ignoring the deontological problems that bring), in addition to the fear of losing modern comforts, even if they truly aren’t worth the existential cost we pay for them. It’s a remarkable work, and if you’re interested in the topic of technology, this is an absolute must-read it.
As mentioned, I think reading “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster beforehand is recommended, and try to keep an open mind while reading Kaczynski’s work. Don’t reject it outright because you disagree with some political points, fully embrace his worldview and then analyze it in its own right. While this review is long, it didn’t scratch the surface of what he covers, and a lot of the evidence and arguments presented. While I think he is wrong in many ways, he is definitely not mad, and if anything more sane than the common person by a manyfold. His supposed diagnosis of “paranoid schizophrenia and paranoid personality disorder” by a psychiatrist during the trial if anything, strengthens his position.
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