Unabomber Manifesto - ouroboros ponderosa

activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to thepursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of histime and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effortrequired him to use his physical and mental facilities in a varied andinteresting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did notattain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person's pursuit of a goalX is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in marine biology clearlyconstituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohitohad had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasksin order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have feltdeprived because he didn't know all about the anatomy and lifecyclesof marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex andlove (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people,even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feeldeprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationshipwith a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessiveamount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogateactivity.)40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary tosatisfy one's physical needs. It is enough to go through a trainingprogram to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work ontime and exert very modest effort needed to hold a job. The onlyrequirements are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all,simple obedience. If one has those, society takes care of one fromcradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take physicalnecessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstreamsociety.) Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full ofsurrogate activities. These include scientific work, athleticachievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation,climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and materialgoods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additionalphysical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issuesthat are not important for the activist personally, as in the case ofwhite activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities. Theseare not always pure surrogate activities, since for many people theymay be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have somegoal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive forprestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant socialactivism by hostility. But for most people who pursue them, theseactivities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, themajority of scientists will probably agree that the "fulfillment" they getfrom their work is more important than the money and prestige theyearn.41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are lesssatisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that peoplewould want to attain even if their need for the power process werealready fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many ormost cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activitiesWest. They always opposed Western military resistance tocommunist aggression. Leftish types all over the world vigorouslyprotested the U.S. military action in Vietnam, but when the USSRinvaded Afghanistan they did nothing. Not that they approved of theSoviet actions; but because of their leftist faith, they just couldn't bearto put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of ouruniversities where "political correctness" has become dominant, thereare probably many leftish types who privately disapprove of thesuppression of academic freedom, but they go along with it anyway.226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mildand fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a wholeform having a totalitarian tendency.227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still farfrom clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't seem tobe much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into awhole spectrum of activist movements. Yet not all activist movementsare leftist, and some activist movements (e.g., radicalenvironmentalism) seem to include both personalities of the leftisttype and personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought toknow better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of leftists fadeout gradually into varieties of non-leftists and we ourselves wouldoften be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is nota leftist. To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftismis defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article,and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment indeciding who is a leftist.228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism.These criteria cannot be applied in a cut and dried manner. Someindividuals may meet some of the criteria without being leftists, someleftists may not meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to useyour judgment.229. The leftist is oriented toward large scale collectivism. Heemphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty ofsociety to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitudetoward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to befor gun control, for sex education and other psychologically"enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmativeaction, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tendsto be against competition and against violence, but he often findsexcuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of usingthe common catch-phrases of the left like "racism," "sexism,""homophobia," "capitalism," "imperialism," "neocolonialism,""genocide," "social change," "social justice," "social responsibility."Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency tosympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights,ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights, political correctness.