I was inspired to do so after reading a post at one of my favorite anti-vegan blogs Let Them Eat Meat. Ex-vegan Let Them Eat Meat blogger, Rhys Souyhan, interviewed ex-vegan Erim Bilgin, who cited the Unabomber's indictment of Leftism and modern society as the turning point for him in realizing why he had adapted such an extreme diet as a means of feeling better about himself.
I learned about primitivism and this weird domestic terrorist, Kaczynski. I had heard about the Unabomber, but didn’t really know who he was. Out of curiosity, I read his “manifesto”, and bam! I couldn’t sleep all night, because I was busy walking up and down my room as my entire vegan story flashed in front of my eyes and I was talking to myself and taking notes on a piece of paper and just having the biggest brainstorm of my life. I’ll go ahead and say my life totally changed that night.
In the following months, I had the good fortune to be on a trip so I didn’t have access to all the vegan forums I frequented. I kept eating raw vegan, but I could see everything from the outside now, objectively. I went ahead and started questioning the values that civilization injects into us in order to keep the system running. I didn’t stop there, I questioned ethics, laws and even the idea of an observable objective reality. As you might’ve guessed, I came to the conclusion that none of them really exist.
Even though I kept eating raw vegan at that point, the countdown had begun. Somewhere within me, the rebellious adolescent was finally waking up at 19 years of age. I was giving the finger to every ideology out there, and veganism got its share. I didn’t care who thought what or how much my family would laugh at their determined vegan-for-life ideologist, I was vegan no more.
{Question from Rhys} - Why was reading about Ted Kaczynski such a big influence?
I must say the primary reason was the clarity and precision with which he described the city-dwelling liberal personality. It simply hit me in the face, he was so direct, there was no evading it. He was describing me in his text, and for the first time I could see myself for what I really had been all my life: Not a courageous moral warrior walking alone the path of righteousness in a world of sin, but rather a butthurt scoundrel trying to grab onto every piece of power he can find while disguising it as being morally superior in order to feel better about himself.
Seeing that, seeing how I was a part of it, things were clear. I would be loyal only to myself — what I wanted out of life, not what society told me I should want. It was then an easy choice, I would reject civilization, I’d embrace the animal. Time to stop playing Dungeons and Dragons and get out and swim in rivers, chop through thick forest, open your chest against the blazing ice wind and sleep under a million stars.
So, this part of the interview peaked my interest in actually googling up the manifesto and having a read for myself. I must say, the manifesto was rather insightful. In so many ways, I've come to similar conclusions on my own...completely independent of the influence of the Unabomber. I could see why the thoughts Kaczynski expressed could inspire some serious rumination.
"I could see everything from the outside now, objectively. I went ahead and started questioning the values that civilization injects into us in order to keep the system running."
In some ways, this statement really is my own muse for this blog. This is why I've never sought to stick to a single "genre" of blogging material (MRA, anti-feminism, game, paleo, conspiracy theory...lol). Once I came to the realization that our entire system is corrupt and unsustainable, and that it uses people as nothing more than human resources to be chewed up and spit out once all value has been consumed, I began to question anything and everything I once thought I "knew." His manifesto reveals that he basically did the same thing - except he really wanted to try and do something about it. He wanted to make We the Sheeple WAKE UP.
The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are
integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have
something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some
such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of
material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect.
To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost
impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for
example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the
present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been
accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would
not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the
entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if
these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon
have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the
mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our
message before the public with some chance of making a lasting
impression, we've had to kill people.
His analysis of the mass media culture and it's influence and means of distracting the people are dead on. His message had many valid points....but his actions reduced it to nothing more than the deranged rantings of a serial killer. I vaguely remember when he was caught and put on trial, as I barely paid attention to the story in the mass media. I simply bought the media storyline of "Whacknut Luddite Terrorist Finally Brought to Justice." Who would take the time to read a long-winded manifesto of a psychopath?
Well I guess now I must concede, that would be someone like me. I too have spent many a thought on the artificial constructs of our Brave New World Order society. And I found so much concordance with much of Kaczynski's insights. The following are some of the more of the profound thoughts he expressed for which I agree:
On law enforcement:
If a society needs a large, powerful law enforcement establishment, then there is something gravely wrong with that society; it must be subjecting people to severe pressures if so many refuse to follow the rules, or follow them only because forced. Many societies in the past have gotten by with little or no formal law-enforcement.
On freedom:
Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life. 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.
On the basic human need for achievement to develop satisfaction in life:
Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the "power process." This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.)
In the natural state, the human beings main goals are to find food, water, shelter and to procreate. Pass on those genes to propagate your genetic line. This is where the Kaczynski notes that our modern world has provided much of those basic necessities, giving many people the inability to find a proper channel for this need to engage in what he calls the "power process."
To try and meet this need, people channel their efforts into what he calls surrogate activity:
For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals ( that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives
himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the "mundane" business of satisfying their biological needs, but that it is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.
I can relate to his description of surrogate activities to try and fulfill that need for the power process when you work in a job that doesn't scratch that itch. When I used to work for the State Government, I really was just punching the time clock and couldn't care less about my job performance. I just wanted my paycheck, and all I used to think about was my next martial art class that week, or the hunt I was planning to go on with my buddies that weekend. My work as a human resource in the machine of State Government bureaucracy did not satisfy my need for this power process.
This next insight will sound familiar to the regulars of the manosphere:
Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which are terrible sins is modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system.
This is precisely the rationale behind the promotion of feminism by the system. Except it's not about small-scale communities, it's about emasculating an entire gender so that we all become tools of the system. This is also why the system loves the single mother household. They are certainly families that have been emasculated right at the source. As for a divorce father who is forced into alimony and child support slavery, he is certainly nothing more than a tool as well; a beast of burden, driven to work for the system's benefit rather than his own.
Kaczynski saw the horrible truth of much of our modern condition. He wanted to do something about it. Ultimately he failed. He thought the only way to bring attention to the craziness of a crazy society, was to take extreme action.
His response was wrong, because it did not gain him the kind of attention he sought to draw to his ideas.
But that doesn't mean his ideas and observations were without merit.
