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Terrorist writings
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 12:35 pm
by shonky
Read this in Apocalypse Culture 2 the other year (interesting read if you can stomach some of the more repulsive subject matter) and then found it from the Wikipedia link on the Unabomber, Ted Kacynzski.
http://www.sacredfools.org/CrimeScene/C ... sStory.htm
For someone that's generally regarded as a nut (albeit a ridiculously intelligent one), it did seem to be a good allegorical tale.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:00 pm
by ifp
hmm, not sure i get it. is he saying that the pursuit of human rights etc is causing the downfall of society?
he doesnt seem to offer much of an argument for it
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:12 pm
by shonky
ifp wrote:hmm, not sure i get it. is he saying that the pursuit of human rights etc is causing the downfall of society?
he doesnt seem to offer much of an argument for it
My perception of the text is that there are grave and dangerous perils for mankind environmentally that need to be addressed urgently but humanity is so busy arguing about it's own immediate needs, that the larger dangers are ignored.
Kacynski is known for his back to nature, almost luddite views and is a critic of political correctness, as he believes that it is a form of population control. Whilst most anti-pc writings are generally ways of people being bigoted in one form or another, the original term was used by the KKK of all people in order to address people in the "correct" manner - regardless of whether you hated them or not.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:50 pm
by nirz
interesting stuff that !
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 4:05 pm
by ifp
i though he was a white supremacist. did he have views on the environment too?
even so, i don't really see how having liberal views discounts taking action on the environment, if anything "liberals" are more likely to support envirnmenal action
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 7:34 pm
by pk-
it reads as a sort of libertarian's Tower of Babel story to me; the greater and greater feats of 'seamanship' and the intrinsic dangers that come with them as an allegory for the technological advances of mankind, the cold of the north signifying the cold inhumanity of modern society compared to his romanticised view of a rural, communal life signified by the warmer south.
his own anti-centralisation, anti-compromise politics are pretty obviously signposted.
interesting read, i'd never seen it before!
almost luddite
i thought he was a 'fundamentalist luddite' of sorts?
i mean to say that's what i thought drove him to undertake his campaign, i wasn't aware there was any other goal or agenda that he was pursuing. wasn't he a lecturer in biotechnology or something until he lost the plot?
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 8:30 pm
by rickyricardo
pk- wrote:
i thought he was a 'fundamentalist luddite' of sorts?
i mean to say that's what i thought drove him to undertake his campaign, i wasn't aware there was any other goal or agenda that he was pursuing. wasn't he a lecturer in biotechnology or something until he lost the plot?
He started the bombings to draw attention to his writings, specifically
"Industrial Society and It's Future", which is actually a good starting place to pick apart his theories. This story actually seems to be an allegory for the concepts he laid out in the "Feelings of Inferiority" and "Oversocialization" parts of that manifesto, where he rails against the left for abandoning socialist principles in favor of marginal interests (political correctness).
The whole manifesto is worth a good read, however.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 8:32 pm
by shonky
You can find out more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
By the way, I only posted this as I found an article in the Guardian this morning talking about consumerism which reminded me of this. I don't believe the guy was a white supremacist, no mention in this article anyway. You might be talking about the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 8:42 pm
by ifp
ah thats the one, i just dont know what im talkin about
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 8:50 pm
by pk-
Industrial Society and It's Future
nice, cheers for that link! i never knew he'd written so much, i'm printing that out now :]
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:00 pm
by shonky
By the way, the original article that made me recall the original post was
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... 44,00.html
which I think is also quite a good read if you're interested.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 10:57 pm
by metalboxproducts