...Industrial Society and Its Future

My disdain for the social circumstances of the present were stoked today after reading through Theodore Kaczynski's Manifesto. Here is a quotation from the section entitled 'Surrogate Activities', which seems to me a remarkably apt appraisal of a cruel social phenomena that I had lightly touched upon in several of my unpublished posts. The desire (nay need) for purpose and the fabrication of goals as a sort of psychological security blanket. Enjoy:

41. 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 strongly encourage you to read this text in its entirety. It is my belief that this whistle blower is one of the most admirable personalities of our age. While I cannot condone the use of violent force as a catalyst for awareness or vehicle of revenge; Theodore Kaczynski is a hero of so-called 'modern' thought. It is my personal belief that his insight into the schizophrenia of industrialized peoples is on par with Martin Heidegger's Question Concerning Technology, and could be taken as a less academic expatiation on those principles.