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Unabomber's Manifesto
The following is full text of the Unabomber's Manifesto.
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INTRODUCTION
1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have
been a disaster
for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy
of
those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they
have
destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have
subjected
human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological
suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as
well) and have
inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued
development of technology will worsen the situation. It
will certainly
subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict
greater damage
on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater
social
disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead
to increased
physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.
2. The industrial-technological system may survive or
it may break
down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low
level of
physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing
through a
long and very painful period of adjustment and only at
the cost of
permanently reducing human beings and many other living
organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.
Furthermore,
if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable:
There is
no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent
it from
depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still
be very
painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous
the
results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break
down it had
best break down sooner rather than later.
4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial
system.
This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it
may be sudden
or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few
decades. We
can't predict any of that. But we do outline in a very
general way the
measures that those who hate the industrial system should
take in
order to prepare the way for a revolution against that
form of
society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its
object will be
to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological
basis
of the present society.
5. In this article we give attention to only some of the
negative
developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological
system. Other such developments we mention only briefly
or ignore
altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other
developments
as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine
our
discussion to areas that have received insufficient public
attention
or in which we have something new to say. For example,
since there are
well-developed environmental and wilderness movements,
we have written
very little about environmental degradation or the destruction
of wild
nature, even though we consider these to be highly important.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM
6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply
troubled
society. One of the most widespread manifestations of
the craziness of
our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology
of leftism can
serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems
of modern
society in general.
7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th
century
leftism could have been practically identified with socialism.
Today
the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can
properly be
called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article
we have in
mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct"
types,
feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights
activists and
the like. But not everyone who is associated with one
of these
movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in
discussing
leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a
psychological
type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what
we mean by
"leftism" will emerge more clearly in the course of our
discussion of
leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)
8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good
deal less
clear than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to be
any remedy for
this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and
approximate
way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are
the main
driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim
to be telling
the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion
is
meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the
question of
the extent to which our discussion could be applied to
the leftists of
the 19th and early 20th century.
9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern
leftism we
call "feelings of inferiority" and "oversocialization."
Feelings of
inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a
whole, while
oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain
segment of
modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.
FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY
10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority
feelings
in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related
traits: low
self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies,
defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern
leftists tend
to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed)
and that these
feelings are decisive in determining the direction of
modern leftism.
11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything
that is said
about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we
conclude that
he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency
is
pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or
not they belong
to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They
are
hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities.
The terms
"negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African,
an
Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no
derogatory
connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine
equivalents
of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations
have been
attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some
animal
rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word
"pet" and
insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftist
anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything
about
primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted
as negative.
They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate."
They seem
almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that
any primitive
culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply
that
primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point
out the
hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)
12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect"
terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller,
Asian immigrant,
abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists,
many of
whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come
from
privileged strata of society. Political correctness has
its stronghold
among university professors, who have secure employment
with
comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual,
white
males from middle-class families.
13. Many leftists have an intense identification with
the problems of
groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated
(American
Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior.
The leftists
themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would
never admit
it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it
is precisely
because they do see these groups as inferior that they
identify with
their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians,
etc., ARE
inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women
are as
strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a
fear that women
may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of
being strong,
good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western
civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality.
The
reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly
do not
correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate
the West
because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric
and so
forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist
countries or in
primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them,
or at best he
GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY
points
out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where
they appear in
Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults
are not the
leftist's real motive for hating America and the West.
He hates
America and the West because they are strong and successful.
16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative",
"enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the
liberal and
leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic,
pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's
needs for them,
take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has
an inner sense
of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems
and satisfy
his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept
of
competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals
tend to
focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they
take an
orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there
were no hope
of accomplishing anything through rational calculation
and all that
was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the
moment.
18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason,
science,
objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally
relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions
about the
foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if
at all, the
concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is
obvious that
modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed
logicians
systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge.
They are deeply
involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality.
They attack
these concepts because of their own psychological needs.
For one
thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to
the extent
that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power.
More
importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality
because they
classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior)
and
other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist's
feelings
of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any
classification
of some things as successful or superior and other things
as failed or
inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists
of the
concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests.
Leftists are
antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities
or behavior
because such explanations tend to make some persons appear
superior or
inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the
credit or
blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus
if a person is
"inferior" it is not his fault, but society's, because
he has not been
brought up properly.
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose
feelings of
inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully,
a self-promoter,
a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly
lost faith
in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and
self-worth, but
he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity
to be strong,
and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant
behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that.
His feelings
of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive
of himself as
individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism
of the
leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large
organization
or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics.
Leftists
protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally
provoke
police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may
often be
effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to
an end but
because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is
a leftist
trait.
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated
by compassion
or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a
role for the
leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and
moral principle
cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility
is too
prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive
for power.
Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated
to be of
benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying
to help.
For example, if one believes that affirmative action is
good for black
people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action
in hostile or
dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive
to take a
diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at
least verbal
and symbolic concessions to white people who think that
affirmative
action discriminates against them. But leftist activists
do not take
such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional
needs.
Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead,
race problems
serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility
and
frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm
black
people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward
the white
majority tends to intensify race hatred.
22. If our society had no social problems at all, the
leftists would
have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves
with an excuse
for making a fuss.
23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to
be an accurate
description of everyone who might be considered a leftist.
It is only
a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.
OVERSOCIALIZATION
24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate
the
process by which children are trained to think and act
as society
demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he
believes in and
obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as
a functioning
part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that
many leftists
are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as
a rebel.
Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists
are not such
rebels as they seem.
25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that
no one can
think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example,
we are not
supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody
at some
time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not.
Some people are
so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and
act morally
imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings
of guilt,
they continually have to deceive themselves about their
own motives
and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that
in reality
have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized"
to describe
such people. [2]
26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense
of
powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most
important means
by which our society socializes children is by making
them feel
ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's
expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular
child is
especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling
ashamed of
HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the
oversocialized
person are more restricted by society's expectations than
are those of
the lightly socialized person. The majority of people
engage in a
significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they
commit petty
thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work,
they hate
someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded
trick
to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person
cannot do
these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself
a sense of
shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot
even
experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are
contrary to
the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts.
And
socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are
socialized to
confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under
the heading
of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on
a psychological
leash and spends his life running on rails that society
has laid down
for him. In many oversocialized people this results in
a sense of
constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship.
We suggest
that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties
that human
beings inflict on one another.
27. We argue that a very important and influential segment
of the
modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization
is of
great importance in determining the direction of modern
leftism.
Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals
or
members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university
intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized
segment of our
society and also the most left-wing segment.
28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get
off his
psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling.
But usually
he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic
values of
society. Generally speaking, the goals of today's leftists
are NOT in
conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary,
the left takes
an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and
then accuses
mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples:
racial
equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people,
peace as opposed
to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression,
kindness to
animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual
to serve
society and the duty of society to take care of the individual.
All
these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or
at least of
its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These
values are
explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most
of the
material presented to us by the mainstream communications
media and
the educational system. Leftists, especially those of
the
oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these
principles but
justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some
degree of
truth) that society is not living up to these principles.
29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized
leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional
attitudes of our
society while pretending to be in rebellion against it.
Many leftists
push for affirmative action, for moving black people into
high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools
and more
money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass"
they
regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the
black man into
the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a
scientist just
like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will
reply that the
last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy
of the white
man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture.
But in
what does this preservation of African American culture
consist? It
can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style
food,
listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing
and going
to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it
can express
itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects
more
leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black
man conform
to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study
technical
subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his
life climbing
the status ladder to prove that black people are as good
as white.
They want to make black fathers "responsible." they want
black gangs
to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values
of the
industrial-technological system. The system couldn't care
less what
kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he
wears or what
religion he believes in as long as he studies in school,
holds a
respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible"
parent,
is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he
may deny it,
the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black
man into the
system and make him adopt its values.
30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the
oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental
values of our
society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized
leftists have
gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society's
most important
principles by engaging in physical violence. By their
own account,
violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other
words, by
committing violence they break through the psychological
restraints
that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized
these restraints have been more confining for them than
for others;
hence their need to break free of them. But they usually
justify their
rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage
in violence
they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
31. We realize that many objections could be raised to
the foregoing
thumb-nail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation
is
complex, and anything like a complete description of it
would take
several volumes even if the necessary data were available.
We claim
only to have indicated very roughly the two most important
tendencies
in the psychology of modern leftism.
32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the
problems of our
society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies
and
defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they
are especially
noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society.
And
today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent
than any
previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat,
how to
exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and
so forth.
THE POWER PROCESS
33. 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.) The fourth element
is more
difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone.
We call it
autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).
34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have
anything he
wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but
he will
develop serious psychological problems. At first he will
have a lot of
fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized.
Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History
shows that
leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is
not true of
fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain
their power.
But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to
exert
themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized,
even
though they have power. This shows that power is not enough.
One must
have goals toward which to exercise one's power.
35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the
physical
necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing
and shelter are
made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat
obtains
these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death
if the goals are
physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment
of the goals
is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain
goals
throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem
or depression.
37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems,
a human
being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and
he must have a
reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.
SURROGATE ACTIVITIES
38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and
demoralized.
For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking
into decadent
hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in
which he
became distinguished. When people do not have to exert
themselves to
satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial
goals for
themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals
with the same
energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would
have put
into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats
of the
Roman Empire had their literary pretentions; many European
aristocrats
a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy
in hunting,
though they certainly didn't need the meat; other aristocracies
have
competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth;
and a few
aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.
39. We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate
an activity that
is directed toward an artificial goal that people set
up for
themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward,
or let us
say, merely for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they
get from
pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification
of
surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much
time and energy
to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had
to devote most
of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs,
and if that
effort required him to use his physical and mental facilities
in a
varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived
because
he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the
person's
pursuit of a goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's
studies in
marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity,
since it is
pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time
working at
interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the
necessities of
life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn't
know all about
the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the
other hand the
pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate
activity,
because most people, even if their existence were otherwise
satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their
lives without
ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite
sex. (But
pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really
needs, can
be a surrogate activity.)
40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is
necessary to
satisfy one's physical needs. It is enough to go through
a training
program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come
to work on
time and exert very modest effort needed to hold a job.
The only
requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence, and
most of all,
simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care
of one from
cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot
take
physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking
here of
mainstream society.) Thus it is not surprising that modern
society is
full of surrogate activities. These include scientific
work, athletic
achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary
creation,
climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and
material goods
far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional
physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses
issues
that are not important for the activist personally, as
in the case of
white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities.
These
are not always pure surrogate activities, since for many
people they
may be motivated in part by needs other than the need
to have some
goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part
by a drive
for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings,
militant social activism by hostility. But for most people
who pursue
them, these activities are in large part surrogate activities.
For
example, the majority of scientists will probably agree
that the
"fulfillment" they get from their work is more important
than the
money and prestige they earn.
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.
have
a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.
AUTONOMY
42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be
necessary for
every individual. But most people need a greater or lesser
degree of
autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts
must be
undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their
own
direction and control. Yet most people do not have to
exert this
initiative, direction and control as single individuals.
It is usually
enough to act as a member of a SMALL group. Thus if half
a dozen
people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful
joint
effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process
will be
served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down
from above
that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative,
then
their need for the power process will not be served. The
same is true
when decisions are made on a collective bases if the group
making the
collective decision is so large that the role of each
individual is
insignificant [5]
43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little
need for
autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak or they
satisfy it by
identifying themselves with some powerful organization
to which they
belong. And then there are unthinking, animal types who
seem to be
satisfied with a purely physical sense of power(the good
combat
soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting
skills
that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to
his superiors).
44. But for most people it is through the power process-having
a goal,
making an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining t the goal-that
self-esteem,
self-confidence and a sense of power are acquired. When
one does not
have adequate opportunity to go throughout the power process
the
consequences are (depending on the individual and on the
way the power
process is disrupted) boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem,
inferiority feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety,
guilt,
frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable
hedonism,
abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders,
etc. [6]
SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society,
but in
modern industrial society they are present on a massive
scale. We
aren't the first to mention that the world today seems
to be going
crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies.
There is
good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from
less stress
and frustration and was better satisfied with his way
of life than
modern man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and
light in
primitive societies. Abuse of women and common among the
Australian
aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some
of the American
Indian tribes. But is does appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING
the kinds of
problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph
were far less
common among primitive peoples than they are in modern
society.
46. We attribute the social and psychological problems
of modern
society to the fact that that society requires people
to live under
conditions radically different from those under which
the human race
evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns
of
behavior that the human race developed while living under
the earlier
conditions. It is clear from what we have already written
that we
consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the
power process
as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which
modern
society subjects people. But it is not the only one. Before
dealing
with disruption of the power process as a source of social
problems we
will discuss some of the other sources.
47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial
society
are excessive density of population, isolation of man
from nature,
excessive rapidity of social change and the break-down
of natural
small-scale communities such as the extended family, the
village or
the tribe.
48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and
aggression.
The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation
of man from
nature are consequences of technological progress. All
pre-industrial
societies were predominantly rural. The industrial Revolution
vastly
increased the size of cities and the proportion of the
population that
lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has
made it possible
for the Earth to support a far denser population than
it ever did
before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding
because
it puts increased disruptive powers in people's hands.
For example, a
variety of noise-making devices: power mowers, radios,
motorcycles,
etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people
who want
peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their
use is
restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated
by the
regulations... But if these machines had never been invented
there
would have been no conflict and no frustration generated
by them.)
49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually
changes
only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore
a sense of
security. In the modern world it is human society that
dominates
nature rather than the other way around, and modern society
changes
very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there
is no stable
framework.
50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the
decay of
traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support
technological
progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs
to them that
you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology
and the
economy of a society with out causing rapid changes in
all other
aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes
inevitably
break down traditional values.
51.The breakdown of traditional values to some extent
implies the
breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional
small-scale
social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social
groups is also
promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require
or tempt
individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves
from their
communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS
TO weaken family
ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently.
In modern
society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system
and only
secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the
internal
loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities were
stronger than
loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their
own
advantage at the expense of the system.
52. 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 in
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. [7]
53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities
have been
widely recognized as sources of social problems. but we
do not believe
they are enough to account for the extent of the problems
that are
seen today.
54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and crowded,
yet their
inhabitants do not seem to have suffered from psychological
problems
to the same extent as modern man. In America today there
still are
uncrowded rural areas, and we find there the same problems
as in urban
areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in the
rural areas.
Thus crowding does not seem to be the decisive factor.
55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during
the 19th
century, the mobility of the population probably broke
down extended
families and small-scale social groups to at least the
same extent as
these are broken down today. In fact, many nuclear families
lived by
choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within several
miles,
that they belonged to no community at all, yet they do
not seem to
have developed problems as a result.
56.Furthermore, change in American frontier society was
very rapid and
deep. A man might be born and raised in a log cabin, outside
the reach
of law and order and fed largely on wild meat; and by
the time he
arrived at old age he might be working at a regular job
and living in
an ordered community with effective law enforcement. This
was a deeper
change that that which typically occurs in the life of
a modern
individual, yet it does not seem to have led to psychological
problems. In fact, 19th century American society had an
optimistic and
self-confident tone, quite unlike that of today's society.
[8]
57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the
sense
(largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him, whereas
the 19th
century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified)
that he
created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer
settled on a
piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm
through his
own effort. In those days an entire county might have
only a couple of
hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous
entity
than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated
as a
member of a relatively small group in the creation of
a new, ordered
community. One may well question whether the creation
of this
community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied
the
pioneer's need for the power process.
58. It would be possible to give other examples of societies
in which
there has been rapid change and/or lack of close community
ties
without he kind of massive behavioral aberration that
is seen in
today's industrial society. We contend that the most important
cause
of social and psychological problems in modern society
is the fact
that people have insufficient opportunity to go through
the power
process in a normal way. We don't mean to say that modern
society is
the only one in which the power process has been disrupted.
Probably
most if not all civilized societies have interfered with
the power '
process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern industrial
society the problem has become particularly acute. Leftism,
at least
in its recent (mid-to-late -20th century) form, is in
part a symptom
of deprivation with respect to the power process.
DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY
59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those
drives that
can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can
be satisfied
but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that
cannot be
adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes.
The power
process is the process of satisfying the drives of the
second group.
The more drives there are in the third group, the more
there is
frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression,
etc.
60. In modern industrial society natural human drives
tend to be
pushed into the first and third groups, and the second
group tends to
consist increasingly of artificially created drives.
61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally
fall into
group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of
serious effort.
But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities
to
everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence
physical needs
are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about
whether the
effort needed to hold a job is "minimal"; but usually,
in lower- to
middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely
that of
obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit
or stand and do
what you are told to do in the way you are told to do
it. Seldom do
you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case
you have hardly
any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process
is not
well served.)
62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often
remain in group
2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the
individual.
[10] But, except for people who have a particularly strong
drive for
status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives
is
insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power
process.
63. So certain artificial needs have been created that
fall into group
2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising
and
marketing techniques have been developed that make many
people feel
they need things that their grandparents never desired
or even dreamed
of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to
satisfy these
artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see
paragraphs
80-82.) Modern man must satisfy his need for the power
process largely
through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the
advertising and
marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.
64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority,
these
artificial forms of the power process are insufficient.
A theme that
appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics
of the second
half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness
that afflicts
many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is
often called
by other names such as "anomic" or "middle-class vacuity.")
We suggest
that the so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search
for a sense
of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate
activity. It
may be that existentialism is in large part a response
to the
purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in
modern society
is the search for "fulfillment." But we think that for
the majority of
people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that
is, a
surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory
fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy
the need for
the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be
fully
satisfied only through activities that have some external
goal, such
as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.
65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning
money, climbing
the status ladder or functioning as part of the system
in some other
way, most people are not in a position to pursue their
goals
AUTONOMOUSLY. Most workers are someone else's employee
as, as we
pointed out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing
what they are
told to do in the way they are told to do it. Even most
people who are
in business for themselves have only limited autonomy.
It is a chronic
complaint of small-business persons and entrepreneurs
that their hands
are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of these
regulations
are doubtless unnecessary, but for the most part government
regulations are essential and inevitable parts of our
extremely
complex society. A large portion of small business today
operates on
the franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street
Journal a few
years ago that many of the franchise-granting companies
require
applicants for franchises to take a personality test that
is designed
to EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because
such
persons are not sufficiently docile to go along obediently
with the
franchise system. This excludes from small business many
of the people
who most need autonomy.
66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system
does FOR them
or TO them than by virtue of what they do for themselves.
And what
they do for themselves is done more and more along channels
laid down
by the system. Opportunities tend to be those that the
system
provides, the opportunities must be exploited in accord
with the rules
and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by experts
must be
followed if there is to be a chance of success.
67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society
through a
deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of autonomy
in pursuit of
goals. But it is also disrupted because of those human
drives that
fall into group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately
satisfy no
matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives
is the need for
security. Our lives depend on decisions made by other
people; we have
no control over these decisions and usually we do not
even know the
people who make them. ("We live in a world in which relatively
few
people - maybe 500 or 1,00 - make the important decisions"
- Philip B.
Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by Anthony Lewis,
New York
Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives depend on whether safety
standards
at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how
much
pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much
pollution into
our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is;
whether we
lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government
economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most
individuals
are not in a position to secure themselves against these
threats to
more [than] a very limited extent. The individual's search
for
security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense
of
powerlessness.
68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically
less secure
than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy;
hence
modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount
of insecurity
that is normal for human beings. but psychological security
does not
closely correspond with physical security. What makes
us FEEL secure
is not so much objective security as a sense of confidence
in our
ability to take care of ourselves. Primitive man, threatened
by a
fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense
or travel in
search of food. He has no certainty of success in these
efforts, but
he is by no means helpless against the things that threaten
him. The
modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many
things
against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens
in food,
environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion
of his
privacy by large organizations, nation-wide social or
economic
phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.
69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against
some of the
things that threaten him; disease for example. But he
can accept the
risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of
things, it is
no one's fault, unless is the fault of some imaginary,
impersonal
demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be
MAN-MADE. They
are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by
other persons
whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence.
Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.
70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security
in his own
hands (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL
group)
whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of
persons or
organizations that are too remote or too large for him
to be able
personally to influence them. So modern man's drive for
security tends
to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter,
etc.) his
security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort,
whereas in
other areas he CANNOT attain security. (The foregoing
greatly
simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in
a rough,
general way how the condition of modern man differs from
that of
primitive man.)
71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that
are necessary
frustrated in modern life, hence fall into group 3. One
may become
angry, but modern society cannot permit fighting. In many
situations
it does not even permit verbal aggression. When going
somewhere one
may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel slowly,
but one
generally has no choice but to move with the flow of traffic
and obey
the traffic signals. One may want to do one's work in
a different way,
but usually one can work only according to the rules laid
down by
one's employer. In many other ways as well, modern man
is strapped
down by a network of rules and regulations (explicit or
implicit) that
frustrate many of his impulses and thus interfere with
the power
process. Most of these regulations cannot be disposed
with, because
the are necessary for the functioning of industrial society.
72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely permissive.
In
matters that are irrelevant to the functioning of the
system we can
generally do what we please. We can believe in any religion
we like
(as long as it does not encourage behavior that is dangerous
to the
system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long
as we practice
"safe sex"). We can do anything we like as long as it
is UNIMPORTANT.
But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly
to regulate
our behavior.
73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules
and not only
by the government. Control is often exercised through
indirect
coercion or through psychological pressure or manipulation,
and by
organizations other than the government, or by the system
as a whole.
Most large organizations use some form of propaganda [14]
to
manipulate public attitudes or behavior. Propaganda is
not limited to
"commercials" and advertisements, and sometimes it is
not even
consciously intended as propaganda by the people who make
it. For
instance, the content of entertainment programming is
a powerful form
of propaganda. An example of indirect coercion: There
is no law that
says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer's
orders.
Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live
in the wild
like primitive people or from going into business for
ourselves. But
in practice there is very little wild country left, and
there is room
in the economy for only a limited number of small business
owners.
Hence most of us can survive only as someone else's employee.
74. We suggest that modern man's obsession with longevity,
and with
maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to
an advanced
age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation
with
respect to the power process. The "mid-life crisis" also
is such a
symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children
that is fairly
common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive
societies.
75. In primitive societies life is a succession of stages.
The needs
and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there
is no
particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage.
A young man
goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting
not for
sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary
for food.
(In young women the process is more complex, with greater
emphasis on
social power; we won't discuss that here.) This phase
having been
successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance
about
settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family.
(In
contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having
children
because they are too busy seeking some kind of "fulfillment."
We
suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience
of the
power process -- with real goals instead of the artificial
goals of
surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised
his children,
going through the power process by providing them with
the physical
necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is
done and he is
prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long)
and death. Many
modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the
prospect of
death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend
trying to
maintain their physical condition, appearance and health.
We argue
that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact
that they
have never put their physical powers to any use, have
never gone
through the power process using their bodies in a serious
way. It is
not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for
practical
purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the
modern man, who
has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking
from his car
to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process
has been
satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept
the end of
that life.
76. In response to the arguments of this section someone
will say,
"Society must find a way to give people the opportunity
to go through
the power process." For such people the value of the opportunity
is
destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them.
What they
need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long
as the system
GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a
leash. To attain
autonomy they must get off that leash.
HOW SOME PEOPLE ADJUST
77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society suffers
from
psychological problems. Some people even profess to be
quite satisfied
with society as it is. We now discuss some of the reasons
why people
differ so greatly in their response to modern society.
78. First, there doubtless are differences in the strength
of the
drive for power. Individuals with a weak drive for power
may have
relatively little need to go through the power process,
or at least
relatively little need for autonomy in the power process.
These are
docile types who would have been happy as plantation darkies
in the
Old South. (We don't mean to sneer at "plantation darkies"
of the Old
South. To their credit, most of the slaves were NOT content
with their
servitude. We do sneer at people who ARE content with
servitude.)
79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in pursuing
which
they satisfy their need for the power process. For example,
those who
have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend
their whole
lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting
bored with that
game.
80. People vary in their susceptibility to advertising
and marketing
techniques. Some people are so susceptible that, even
if they make a
great deal of money, they cannot satisfy their constant
craving for
the shiny new toys that the marketing industry dangles
before their
eyes. So they always feel hard-pressed financially even
if their
income is large, and their cravings are frustrated.
81. Some people have low susceptibility to advertising
and marketing
techniques. These are the people who aren't interested
in money.
Material acquisition does not serve their need for the
power process.
82. People who have medium susceptibility to advertising
and marketing
techniques are able to earn enough money to satisfy their
craving for
goods and services, but only at the cost of serious effort
(putting in
overtime, taking a second job, earning promotions, etc.)
Thus material
acquisition serves their need for the power process. But
it does not
necessarily follow that their need is fully satisfied.
They may have
insufficient autonomy in the power process (their work
may consist of
following orders) and some of their drives may be frustrated
(e.g.,
security, aggression). (We are guilty of oversimplification
in
paragraphs 80-82 because we have assumed that the desire
for material
acquisition is entirely a creation of the advertising
and marketing
industry. Of course it's not that simple.
83. Some people partly satisfy their need for power by
identifying
themselves with a powerful organization or mass movement.
An
individual lacking goals or power joins a movement or
an organization,
adopts its goals as his own, then works toward these goals.
When some
of the goals are attained, the individual, even though
his personal
efforts have played only an insignificant part in the
attainment of
the goals, feels (through his identification with the
movement or
organization) as if he had gone through the power process.
This
phenomenon was exploited by the fascists, nazis and communists.
Our
society uses it, too, though less crudely. Example: Manuel
Noriega was
an irritant to the U.S. (goal: punish Noriega). The U.S.
invaded
Panama (effort) and punished Noriega (attainment of goal).
The U.S.
went through the power process and many Americans, because
of their
identification with the U.S., experienced the power process
vicariously. Hence the widespread public approval of the
Panama
invasion; it gave people a sense of power. [15] We see
the same
phenomenon in armies, corporations, political parties,
humanitarian
organizations, religious or ideological movements. In
particular,
leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking
to satisfy
their need for power. But for most people identification
with a large
organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy
the need for
power.
84. Another way in which people satisfy their need for
the power
process is through surrogate activities. As we explained
in paragraphs
38-40, a surrogate activity that is directed toward an
artificial goal
that the individual pursues for the sake of the "fulfillment"
that he
gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain
the goal
itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for
building
enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or
acquiring a
complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in
our society
devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or
stamp
collecting. Some people are more "other-directed" than
others, and
therefore will more readily attack importance to a surrogate
activity
simply because the people around them treat it as important
or because
society tells them it is important. That is why some people
get very
serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports,
or
bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas
others who are
more clear-sighted never see these things as anything
but the
surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never
attach
enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the
power process
in that way. It only remains to point out that in many
cases a
person's way of earning a living is also a surrogate activity.
Not a
PURE surrogate activity, since part of the motive for
the activity is
to gain the physical necessities and (for some people)
social status
and the luxuries that advertising makes them want. But
many people put
into their work far more effort than is necessary to earn
whatever
money and status they require, and this extra effort constitutes
a
surrogate activity. This extra effort, together with the
emotional
investment that accompanies it, is one of the most potent
forces
acting toward the continual development and perfecting
of the system,
with negative consequences for individual freedom (see
paragraph 131).
Especially, for the most creative scientists and engineers,
work tends
to be largely a surrogate activity. This point is so important
that is
deserves a separate discussion, which we shall give in
a moment
(paragraphs 87-92).
85. In this section we have explained how many people
in modern
society do satisfy their need for the power process to
a greater or
lesser extent. But we think that for the majority of people
the need
for the power process is not fully satisfied. In the first
place,
those who have an insatiable drive for status, or who
get firmly
"hooked" or a surrogate activity, or who identify strongly
enough with
a movement or organization to satisfy their need for power
in that
way, are exceptional personalities. Others are not fully
satisfied
with surrogate activities or by identification with an
organization
(see paragraphs 41, 64). In the second place, too much
control is
imposed by the system through explicit regulation or through
socialization, which results in a deficiency of autonomy,
and in
frustration due to the impossibility of attaining certain
goals and
the necessity of restraining too many impulses.
86. But even if most people in industrial-technological
society were
well satisfied, we (FC) would still be opposed to that
form of
society, because (among other reasons) we consider it
demeaning to
fulfill one's need for the power process through surrogate
activities
or through identification with an organization, rather
then through
pursuit of real goals.
THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
87. Science and technology provide the most important
examples of
surrogate activities. Some scientists claim that they
are motivated by
"curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists
work on
highly specialized problem that are not the object of
any normal
curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician
or an
entomologist curious about the properties of
isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist
is curious
about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because
chemistry
is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about
the
appropriate classification of a new species of beetle?
No. That
question is of interest only to the entomologist, and
he is interested
in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity.
If the
chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously
to
obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised
their
abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific
pursuit,
then they couldn't giver a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane
or the
classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds
for postgraduate
education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker
instead of
a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested
in
insurance matters but would have cared nothing about
isopropyltrimethylmethane. In any case it is not normal
to put into
the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time
and effort that
scientists put into their work. The "curiosity" explanation
for the
scientists' motive just doesn't stand up.
88. The "benefit of humanity" explanation doesn't work
any better.
Some scientific work has no conceivable relation to the
welfare of the
human race - most of archaeology or comparative linguistics
for
example. Some other areas of science present obviously
dangerous
possibilities. Yet scientists in these areas are just
as enthusiastic
about their work as those who develop vaccines or study
air pollution.
Consider the case of Dr. Edward Teller, who had an obvious
emotional
involvement in promoting nuclear power plants. Did this
involvement
stem from a desire to benefit humanity? If so, then why
didn't Dr.
Teller get emotional about other "humanitarian" causes?
If he was such
a humanitarian then why did he help to develop the H-bomb?
As with
many other scientific achievements, it is very much open
to question
whether nuclear power plants actually do benefit humanity.
Does the
cheap electricity outweigh the accumulating waste and
risk of
accidents? Dr. Teller saw only one side of the question.
Clearly his
emotional involvement with nuclear power arose not from
a desire to
"benefit humanity" but from a personal fulfillment he
got from his
work and from seeing it put to practical use.
89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible
rare
exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire
to benefit
humanity but the need to go through the power process:
to have a goal
(a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research)
and to
attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is
a surrogate
activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment
they get
out of the work itself.
90. Of course, it's not that simple. Other motives do
play a role for
many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists
may be
persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status
(see
paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation
for their
work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority
of the
general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising
and
marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving
for goods
and services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity.
But it is
in large part a surrogate activity.
91. Also, science and technology constitute a mass power
movement, and
many scientists gratify their need for power through identification
with this mass movement (see paragraph 83).
92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to
the real
welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient
only to
the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government
officials and corporation executives who provide the funds
for
research.
THE NATURE OF FREEDOM
93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological
society cannot
be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively
narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But because "freedom"
is a word
that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make
clear what
kind of freedom we are concerned with.
94. By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through
the power
process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate
activities, and without interference, manipulation or
supervision from
anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom
means being in
control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL
group) of
the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing,
shelter
and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's
environment. 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.
It is
important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness
(see
paragraph 72).
95. It is said that we live in a free society because
we have a
certain number of constitutionally guaranteed rights.
But these are
not as important as they seem. The degree of personal
freedom that
exists in a society is determined more by the economic
and
technological structure of the society than by its laws
or its form of
government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New England
were
monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance
were
controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies
one gets
the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom
than out
society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient
mechanisms for enforcing the ruler's will: There were
no modern,
well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications,
no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about
the lives of
average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade
control.
96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example
that of
freedom of the press. We certainly don't mean to knock
that right: it
is very important tool for limiting concentration of political
power
and for keeping those who do have political power in line
by publicly
exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of
the press is of
very little use to the average citizen as an individual.
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.
97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but
they do not
serve to guarantee much more than what could be called
the bourgeois
conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception,
a "free"
man is essentially an element of a social machine and
has only a
certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms
that are
designed to serve the needs of the social machine more
than those of
the individual. Thus the bourgeois's "free" man has economic
freedom
because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom
of the press
because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political
leaders;
he has a rights to a fair trial because imprisonment at
the whim of
the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly
the
attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty
only if
they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived
by the
bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar
view of
freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C.
Tan, "Chinese
Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 202,
explains the
philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: "An individual
is
granted rights because he is a member of society and his
community
life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole
society of
the nation." And on page 259 Tan states that according
to Carsum Chang
(Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in
China) freedom
had to be used in the interest of the state and of the
people as a
whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can
use it only
as someone else prescribes? FC's conception of freedom
is not that of
Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble
with such
theorists is that they have made the development and application
of
social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently
the theories
are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more
than the needs
of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society
on which
the theories are imposed.
98. One more point to be made in this section: It should
not be
assumed that a person has enough freedom just because
he SAYS he has
enough. Freedom is restricted in part by psychological
control of
which people are unconscious, and moreover many people's
ideas of what
constitutes freedom are governed more by social convention
than by
their real needs. For example, it's likely that many leftists
of the
oversocialized type would say that most people, including
themselves
are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the
oversocialized
leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high
level of
socialization.
SOME PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY
99. Think of history as being the sum of two components:
an erratic
component that consists of unpredictable events that follow
no
discernible pattern, and a regular component that consists
of
long-term historical trends. Here we are concerned with
the long-term
trends.
100. FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects
a
long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change
will almost
always be transitory - the trend will soon revert to its
original
state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up
political
corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term
effect;
sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps
back in. The
level of political corruption in a given society tends
to remain
constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution
of the society.
Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if
accompanied by
widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society
won't be
enough.) If a small change in a long-term historical trend
appears to
be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the
direction in
which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is
not altered
but only pushed a step ahead.
101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend
were not
stable with respect to small changes, it would wander
at random rather
than following a definite direction; in other words it
would not be a
long-term trend at all.
102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently
large
to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, than
it will alter
the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a
system in which
all parts are interrelated, and you can't permanently
change any
important part without change all the other parts as well.
103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large
enough to
alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences
for the
society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless
various
other societies have passed through the same change and
have all
experienced the same consequences, in which case one can
predict on
empirical grounds that another society that passes through
the same
change will be like to experience similar consequences.)
104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be
designed on
paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society
in advance,
then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed
to.
105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity
of
human societies. A change in human behavior will affect
the economy of
a society and its physical environment; the economy will
affect the
environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy
and the
environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable
ways;
and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far
too complex to
be untangled and understood.
106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally
choose
the form of their society. Societies develop through processes
of
social evolution that are not under rational human control.
107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other
four.
108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally
speaking an
attempt at social reform either acts in the direction
in which the
society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates
a change
that would have occurred in any case) or else it only
has a transitory
effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old
groove. To
make a lasting change in the direction of development
of any important
aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution
is
required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an
armed uprising
or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle,
a
revolution never changes only one aspect of a society;
and by the
third principle changes occur that were never expected
or desired by
the revolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when revolutionaries
or
utopians set up a new kind of society, it never works
out as planned.
109. The American Revolution does not provide a counterexample.
The
American "Revolution" was not a revolution in our sense
of the word,
but a war of independence followed by a rather far-reaching
political
reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the direction
of
development of American society, nor did they aspire to
do so. They
only freed the development of American society from the
retarding
effect of British rule. Their political reform did not
change any
basic trend, but only pushed American political culture
along its
natural direction of development. British society, of
which American
society was an off-shoot, had been moving for a long time
in the
direction of representative democracy. And prior to the
War of
Independence the Americans were already practicing a significant
degree of representative democracy in the colonial assemblies.
The
political system established by the Constitution was modeled
on the
British system and on the colonial assemblies. With major
alteration,
to be sure - there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers
took a very
important step. But it was a step along the road the English-speaking
world was already traveling. The proof is that Britain
and all of its
colonies that were populated predominantly by people of
British
descent ended up with systems of representative democracy
essentially
similar to that of the United States. If the Founding
Fathers had lost
their nerve and declined to sign the Declaration of Independence,
our
way of life today would not have been significantly different.
Maybe
we would have had somewhat closer ties to Britain, and
would have had
a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of a Congress
and President.
No big deal. Thus the American Revolution provides not
a
counterexample to our principles but a good illustration
of them.
110. Still, one has to use common sense in applying the
principles.
They are expressed in imprecise language that allows latitude
for
interpretation, and exceptions to them can be found. So
we present
these principles not as inviolable laws but as rules of
thumb, or
guides to thinking, that may provide a partial antidote
to naive ideas
about the future of society. The principles should be
borne constantly
in mind, and whenever one reaches a conclusion that conflicts
with
them one should carefully reexamine one's thinking and
retain the
conclusion only if one has good, solid reasons for doing
so.
INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED
111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly
difficult it
would be to reform the industrial system in such a way
as to prevent
it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom.
There has been
a consistent tendency, going back at least to the Industrial
Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at
a high cost in
individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence any change
designed to
protect freedom from technology would be contrary to a
fundamental
trend in the development of our society.
Consequently, such a change either would be a transitory
one -- soon
swamped by the tide of history -- or, if large enough
to be permanent
would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the
first and
second principles. Moreover, since society would be altered
in a way
that could not be predicted in advance (third principle)
there would
be great risk. Changes large enough to make a lasting
difference in
favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would
realized that
they would gravely disrupt the system. So any attempts
at reform would
be too timid to be effective. Even if changes large enough
to make a
lasting difference were initiated, they would be retracted
when their
disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent changes
in favor
of freedom could be brought about only by persons prepared
to accept
radical, dangerous and unpredictable alteration of the
entire system.
In other words, by revolutionaries, not reformers.
112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing
the supposed
benefits of technology will suggest naive schemes for
some new form of
society that would reconcile freedom with technology.
Apart from the
fact that people who make suggestions seldom propose any
practical
means by which the new form of society could be set up
in the first
place, it follows from the fourth principle that even
if the new form
of society could be once established, it either would
collapse or
would give results very different from those expected.
113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly improbably
that
any way of changing society could be found that would
reconcile
freedom with modern technology. In the next few sections
we will give
more specific reasons for concluding that freedom and
technological
progress are incompatible.
RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM IS UNAVOIDABLE IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY
114. As explained in paragraph 65-67, 70-73, modern man
is strapped
down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate
depends on
the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions
he cannot
influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness
of
arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in
any
technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate
human
behavior closely in order to function. At work, people
have to do what
they are told to do, otherwise production would be thrown
into chaos.
Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules.
To allow any
substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats
would
disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due
to
differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised
their
discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom
could be
eliminated, but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our
lives by
large organizations is necessary for the functioning of
industrial-technological society. The result is a sense
of
powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may
be, however,
that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced
by
psychological tools that make us want to do what the system
requires
of us. (Propaganda [14], educational techniques, "mental
health"
programs, etc.)
115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways
that are
increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human
behavior. For
example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and
engineers. It
can't function without them. So heavy pressure is put
on children to
excel in these fields. It isn't natural for an adolescent
human being
to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed
in study. A
normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact
with the
real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children
are
trained to do are in natural harmony with natural human
impulses.
Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained
in active
outdoor pursuits -- just the sort of things that boys
like. But in our
society children are pushed into studying technical subjects,
which
most do grudgingly.
116. Because of the constant pressure that the system
exerts to modify
human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number
of people
who cannot or will not adjust to society's requirements:
welfare
leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government
rebels, radical
environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of
various kinds.
117. In any technologically advanced society the individual's
fate
MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence
to any
great extent. A technological society cannot be broken
down into
small, autonomous communities, because production depends
on the
cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines.
Such a
society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO
be made that
affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects,
say, a
million people, then each of the affected individuals
has, on the
average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision.
What
usually happens in practice is that decisions are made
by public
officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists,
but
even when the public votes on a decision the number of
voters
ordinarily is too large for the vote of any one individual
to be
significant. [17] Thus most individuals are unable to
influence
measurably the major decisions that affect their lives.
Their is no
conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically advanced
society.
The system tries to "solve" this problem by using propaganda
to make
people WANT the decisions that have been made for them,
but even if
this "solution" were completely successful in making people
feel
better, it would be demeaning.
118 Conservatives and some others advocate more "local
autonomy."
Local communities once did have autonomy, but such autonomy
becomes
less and less possible as local communities become more
enmeshed with
and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities,
computer
networks, highway systems, the mass communications media,
the modern
health care system. Also operating against autonomy is
the fact that
technology applied in one location often affects people
at other
locations far away. Thus pesticide or chemical use near
a creek may
contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles downstream,
and the
greenhouse effect affects the whole world.
119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human
needs.
Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified
to fit the needs
of the system. This has nothing to do with the political
or social
ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system.
It is the
fault of technology, because the system is guided not
by ideology but
by technical necessity. [18] Of course the system does
satisfy many
human needs, but generally speaking it does this only
to the extent
that it is to the advantage of the system to do it. It
is the needs of
the system that are paramount, not those of the human
being. For
example, the system provides people with food because
the system
couldn't function if everyone starved; it attends to people's
psychological needs whenever it can CONVENIENTLY do so,
because it
couldn't function if too many people became depressed
or rebellious.
But the system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must
exert
constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to
the needs of the
system. Too much waste accumulating? The government, the
media, the
educational system, environmentalists, everyone inundates
us with a
mass of propaganda about recycling. Need more technical
personnel? A
chorus of voices exhorts kids to study science. No one
stops to ask
whether it is inhumane to force adolescents to spend the
bulk of their
time studying subjects most of them hate. When skilled
workers are put
out of a job by technical advances and have to undergo
"retraining,"
no one asks whether it is humiliating for them to be pushed
around in
this way. It is simply taken for granted that everyone
must bow to
technical necessity and for good reason: If human needs
were put
before technical necessity there would be economic problems,
unemployment, shortages or worse. The concept of "mental
health" in
our society is defined largely by the extent to which
an individual
behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does
so without
showing signs of stress.
120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for
autonomy
within the system are no better than a joke. For example,
one company,
instead of having each of its employees assemble only
one section of a
catalogue, had each assemble a whole catalogue, and this
was supposed
to give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some
companies have
tried to give their employees more autonomy in their work,
but for
practical reasons this usually can be done only to a very
limited
extent, and in any case employees are never given autonomy
as to
ultimate goals -- their "autonomous" efforts can never
be directed
toward goals that they select personally, but only toward
their
employer's goals, such as the survival and growth of the
company. Any
company would soon go out of business if it permitted
its employees to
act otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a socialist
system,
workers must direct their efforts toward the goals of
the enterprise,
otherwise the enterprise will not serve its purpose as
part of the
system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is
not possible
for most individuals or small groups to have much autonomy
in
industrial society. Even the small-business owner commonly
has only
limited autonomy. Apart from the necessity of government
regulation,
he is restricted by the fact that he must fit into the
economic system
and conform to its requirements. For instance, when someone
develops a
new technology, the small-business person often has to
use that
technology whether he wants to or not, in order to remain
competitive.
THE 'BAD' PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE 'GOOD'
PARTS
121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be
reformed in
favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified
system in
which all parts are dependent on one another. You can't
get rid of the
"bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts.
Take
modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science
depends on
progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science
and other
fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive,
high-tech
equipment that can be made available only by a technologically
progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can't
have much
progress in medicine without the whole technological system
and
everything that goes with it.
122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without
the rest of
the technological system, it would by itself bring certain
evils.
Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered.
People
with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able
to survive and
reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against
genes for
diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout
the
population. (This may be occurring to some extent already,
since
diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through
the use of
insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases
susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation
of the
population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics
program or
extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that
man in the
future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance,
or of God
(depending on your religious or philosophical opinions),
but a
manufactured product.
123. If you think that big government interferes in your
life too much
NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the
genetic
constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably
follow
the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings,
because the
consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would
be disastrous.
[19]
124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about
"medical
ethics." But a code of ethics would not serve to protect
freedom in
the face of medical progress; it would only make matters
worse. A code
of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be in
effect a means
of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings.
Somebody
(probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would decide
that such and
such applications of genetic engineering were "ethical"
and others
were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their
own values on
the genetic constitution of the population at large. Even
if a code of
ethics were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the
majority
would be imposing their own values on any minorities who
might have a
different idea of what constituted an "ethical" use of
genetic
engineering. The only code of ethics that would truly
protect freedom
would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of
human beings,
and you can be sure that no such code will ever be applied
in a
technological society. No code that reduced genetic engineering
to a
minor role could stand up for long, because the temptation
presented
by the immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible,
especially since to the majority of people many of its
applications
will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating
physical and
mental diseases, giving people the abilities they need
to get along in
today's world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be
used
extensively, but only in ways consistent with the needs
of the
industrial-technological system. [20]
TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE ASPIRATION
FOR FREEDOM
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between
technology and freedom, because technology is by far the
more powerful
social force and continually encroaches on freedom through
REPEATED
compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of
whom at the
outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is
more powerful
than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the
other's land.
The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, "OK, let's
compromise.
Give me half of what I asked." The weak one has little
choice but to
give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands
another piece
of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By
forcing a long
series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful
one eventually
gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between
technology
and freedom.
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful
social force
than the aspiration for freedom.
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten
freedom
often turns out to threaten freedom often turns out to
threaten it
very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized
transport. A
walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at
his own pace
without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent
of
technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were
introduced
they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no
freedom away
from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile
if he didn't
want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile
could travel
much faster than the walking man. But the introduction
of motorized
transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict
greatly
man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous,
it
became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In
a car,
especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just
go where one
likes at one's own pace one's movement is governed by
the flow of
traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down
by various
obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing
registration,
insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments
on
purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport
is no longer
optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport
the
arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that
the majority
of people no longer live within walking distance of their
place of
employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities,
so that
they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation.
Or else they
must use public transportation, in which case they have
even less
control over their own movement than when driving a car.
Even the
walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city
he continually
has to stop and wait for traffic lights that are designed
mainly to
serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes
it dangerous
and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note the important
point we
have illustrated with the case of motorized transport:
When a new item
of technology is introduced as an option that an individual
can accept
or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional.
In many
cases the new technology changes society in such a way
that people
eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually
narrows our
sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED
BY ITSELF
appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing,
rapid
long-distance communications . . . how could one argue
against any of
these things, or against any other of the innumerable
technical
advances that have made modern society? It would have
been absurd to
resist the introduction of the telephone, for example.
It offered many
advantages and no disadvantages. Yet as we explained in
paragraphs
59-76, all these technical advances taken together have
created world
in which the average man's fate is no longer in his own
hands or in
the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of
politicians,
corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians
and
bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence.
[21]
The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic
engineering, for example. Few people will resist the introduction
of a
genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary disease
It does no
apparent harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large
number of
genetic improvements taken together will make the human
being into an
engineered product rather than a free creation of chance
(or of God,
or whatever, depending on your religious beliefs).
129 Another reason why technology is such a powerful social
force is
that, within the context of a given society, technological
progress
marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed.
Once a
technical innovation has been introduced, people usually
become
dependent on it, unless it is replaced by some still more
advanced
innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals
on a
new item of technology, but, even more, the system as
a whole becomes
dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system
today if
computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system
can move in
only one direction, toward greater technologization. Technology
repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back -- short
of the
overthrow of the whole technological system.
130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens
freedom at
many different points at the same time (crowding, rules
and
regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large
organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques,
genetic
engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance
devices and
computers, etc.) To hold back any ONE of the threats to
freedom would
require a long different social struggle. Those who want
to protect
freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks
and the
rapidity with which they develop, hence they become pathetic
and no
longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately
would be
futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the
technological
system as a whole; but that is revolution not reform.
131. Technicians (we use this term in its broad sense
to describe all
those who perform a specialized task that requires training)
tend to
be so involved in their work (their surrogate activity)
that when a
conflict arises between their technical work and freedom,
they almost
always decide in favor of their technical work. This is
obvious in the
case of scientists, but it also appears elsewhere: Educators,
humanitarian groups, conservation organizations do not
hesitate to use
propaganda or other psychological techniques to help them
achieve
their laudable ends. Corporations and government agencies,
when they
find it useful, do not hesitate to collect information
about
individuals without regard to their privacy. Law enforcement
agencies
are frequently inconvenienced by the constitutional rights
of suspects
and often of completely innocent persons, and they do
whatever they
can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to restrict or
circumvent
those rights. Most of these educators, government officials
and law
officers believe in freedom, privacy and constitutional
rights, but
when these conflict with their work, they usually feel
that their work
is more important.
132. It is well known that people generally work better
and more
persistently when striving for a reward than when attempting
to avoid
a punishment or negative outcome. Scientists and other
technicians are
motivated mainly by the rewards they get through their
work. But those
who oppose technilogiccal invasions of freedom are working
to avoid a
negative outcome, consequently there are a few who work
persistently
and well at this discouraging task. If reformers ever
achieved a
signal victory that seemed to set up a solid barrier against
further
erosion of freedom through technological progress, most
would tend to
relax and turn their attention to more agreeable pursuits.
But the
scientists would remain busy in their laboratories, and
technology as
it progresses would find ways, in spite of any barriers,
to exert more
and more control over individuals and make them always
more dependent
on the system.
133. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions,
customs or
ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against
technology.
History shows that all social arrangements are transitory;
they all
change or break down eventually. But technological advances
are
permanent within the context of a given civilization.
Suppose for
example that it were possible to arrive at some social
arrangements
that would prevent genetic engineering from being applied
to human
beings, or prevent it from being applied in such a ways
as to threaten
freedom and dignity. Still, the technology would remain
waiting.
Sooner or later the social arrangement would break down.
Probably
sooner, given that pace of change in our society. Then
genetic
engineering would begin to invade our sphere of freedom,
and this
invasion would be irreversible (short of a breakdown of
technological
civilization itself). Any illusions about achieving anything
permanent
through social arrangements should be dispelled by what
is currently
happening with environmental legislation. A few years
ago it seemed
that there were secure legal barriers preventing at least
SOME of the
worst forms of environmental degradation. A change in
the political
wind, and those barriers begin to crumble.
134. For all of the foregoing reasons, technology is a
more powerful
social force than the aspiration for freedom. But this
statement
requires an important qualification. It appears that during
the next
several decades the industrial-technological system will
be undergoing
severe stresses due to economic and environmental problems,
and
especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation,
rebellion,
hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties).
We
hope that the stresses through which the system is likely
to pass will
cause it to break down, or at least weaken it sufficiently
so that a
revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular
moment
the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful
than
technology.
135. In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak neighbor
who is
left destitute by a strong neighbor who takes all his
land by forcing
on him a series of compromises. But suppose now that the
strong
neighbor gets sick, so that he is unable to defend himself.
The weak
neighbor can force the strong one to give him his land
back, or he can
kill him. If he lets the strong man survive and only forces
him to
give his land back, he is a fool, because when the strong
man gets
well he will again take all the land for himself. The
only sensible
alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one
while he has
the chance. In the same way, while the industrial system
is sick we
must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover
from its
sickness, it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.
SIMPLER SOCIAL PROBLEMS HAVE PROVED INTRACTABLE
136. If anyone still imagines that it would be possible
to reform the
system in such a way as to protect freedom from technology,
let him
consider how clumsily and for the most part unsuccessfully
our society
has dealt with other social problems that are far more
simple and
straightforward. Among other things, the system has failed
to stop
environmental degradation, political corruption, drug
trafficking or
domestic abuse.
137. Take our environmental problems, for example. Here
the conflict
of values is straightforward: economic expedience now
versus saving
some of our natural resources for our grandchildren [22]
But on this
subject we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from
the people
who have power, and nothing like a clear, consistent line
of action,
and we keep on piling up environmental problems that our
grandchildren
will have to live with. Attempts to resolve the environmental
issue
consist of struggles and compromises between different
factions, some
of which are ascendant at one moment, others at another
moment. The
line of struggle changes with the shifting currents of
public opinion.
This is not a rational process, or is it one that is likely
to lead to
a timely and successful solution to the problem. Major
social
problems, if they get "solved" at all, are rarely or never
solved
through any rational, comprehensive plan. They just work
themselves
out through a process in which various competing groups
pursing their
own usually short-term) self-interest [23] arrive (mainly
by luck) at
some more or less stable modus vivendi. In fact, the principles
we
formulated in paragraphs 100-106 make it seem doubtful
that rational,
long-term social planning can EVER be successful. 138.
Thus it is
clear that the human race has at best a very limited capacity
for
solving even relatively straightforward social problems.
How then is
it going to solve the far more difficult and subtle problem
of
reconciling freedom with technology? Technology presents
clear-cut
material advantages, whereas freedom is an abstraction
that means
different things to different people, and its loss is
easily obscured
by propaganda and fancy talk.
139. And note this important difference: It is conceivable
that our
environmental problems (for example) may some day be settled
through a
rational, comprehensive plan, but if this happens it will
be only
because it is in the long-term interest of the system
to solve these
problems. But it is NOT in the interest of the system
to preserve
freedom or small-group autonomy. On the contrary, it is
in the
interest of the system to bring human behavior under control
to the
greatest possible extent. Thus, while practical considerations
may
eventually force the system to take a rational, prudent
approach to
environmental problems, equally practical considerations
will force
the system to regulate human behavior ever more closely
(preferably by
indirect means that will disguise the encroachment on
freedom.) This
isn't just our opinion. Eminent social scientists (e.g.
James Q.
Wilson) have stressed the importance of "socializing"
people more
effectively.
REVOLUTION IS EASIER THAN REFORM
140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system
cannot be
reformed in a such a way as to reconcile freedom with
technology. The
only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological
system
altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an
armed
uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change
in the nature
of society.
141. People tend to assume that because a revolution involves
a much
greater change than reform does, it is more difficult
to bring about
than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances
revolution is
much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary
movement
can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement
cannot
inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular
social
problem A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems
at one
stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind
of ideal for
which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices.
For this
reasons it would be much easier to overthrow the whole
technological
system than to put effective, permanent restraints on
the development
of application of any one segment of technology, such
as genetic
engineering, but under suitable conditions large numbers
of people may
devote themselves passionately to a revolution against
the
industrial-technological system. As we noted in paragraph
132,
reformers seeking to limite certain aspects of technology
would be
working to avoid a negative outcome. But revolutionaries
work to gain
a powerful reward -- fulfillment of their revolutionary
vision -- and
therefore work harder and more persistently than reformers
do.
142. Reform is always restrainde by the fear of painful
consequences
if changes go too far. But once a revolutionary fever
has taken hold
of a society, people are willing to undergo unlimited
hardships for
the sake of their revolution. This was clearly shown in
the French and
Russian Revolutions. It may be that in such cases only
a minority of
the population is really committed to the revolution,
but this
minority is sufficiently large and active so that it becomes
the
dominant force in society. We will have more to say about
revolution
in paragraphs 180-205.
CONTROL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
143. Since the beginning of civilization, organized societies
have had
to put pressures on human beings of the sake of the functioning
of the
social organism. The kinds of pressures vary greatly from
one society
to another. Some of the pressures are physical (poor diet,
excessive
labor, environmental pollution), some are psychological
(noise,
crowding, forcing humans behavior into the mold that society
requires). In the past, human nature has been approximately
constant,
or at any rate has varied only within certain bounds.
Consequently,
societies have been able to push people only up to certain
limits.
When the limit of human endurance has been passed, things
start going
rong: rebellion, or crime, or corruption, or evasion of
work, or
depression and other mental problems, or an elevated death
rate, or a
declining birth rate or something else, so that either
the society
breaks down, or its functioning becomes too inefficient
and it is
(quickly or gradually, through conquest, attrition or
evolution)
replaces by some more efficient form of society.
[25]
144. Thus human nature has in the past put certain limits
on the
development of societies. People coud be pushed only so
far and no
farther. But today this may be changing, because modern
technology is
developing way of modifying human beings.
145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions
that amke
them terribley unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take
away their
unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening
to some extent
in our own society. It is well known that the rate of
clinical
depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades.
We believe
that this is due to disruption fo the power process, as
explained in
paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing
rate of
depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions
that exist in
today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that
make people
depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs.
In effect,
antidepressants area a means of modifying an individual's
internal
state in such a way as to enable him to toelrate social
conditions
that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know
that
depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring
here to
those cases in which environment plays the predominant
role.)
146. Drugs that affect the mind are only one example of
the methods of
controlling human behavior that modern society is developing.
Let us
look at some of the other methods.
147. To start with, there are the techniques of surveillance.
Hidden
video cameras are now used in most stores and in many
other places,
computers are used to collect and process vast amounts
of information
about individuals. Information so obtained greatly increases
the
effectiveness of physical coercion (i.e., law enforcement).[26]
Then
there are the methods of propaganda, for which the mass
communication
media provide effective vehicles. Efficient techniques
have been
developed for winning elections, selling products, influencing
public
opinion. The entertainment industry serves as an important
psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it
is dishing out
large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides
modern man
with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television,
videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration,
dissatisfaction. Many primitive peoples, when they don't
have work to
do, are quite content to sit for hours at a time doing
nothing at all,
because they are at peace with themselves and their world.
But most
modern people must be contantly occupied or entertained,
otherwise the
get "bored," i.e., they get fidgety, uneasy, irritable.
148. Other techniques strike deeper that the foregoing.
Education is
no longer a simple affair of paddling a kid's behind when
he doesn't
know his lessons and patting him on the head when he does
know them.
It is becoming a scientific technique for controlling
the child's
development. Sylvan Learning Centers, for example, have
had great
success in motivating children to study, and psychological
techniques
are also used with more or less success in many conventional
schools.
"Parenting" techniques that are taught to parents are
designed to make
children accept fundamental values of the system and behave
in ways
that the system finds desirable. "Mental health" programs,
"intervention" techniques, psychotherapy and so forth
are ostensibly
designed to benefit individuals, but in practice they
usually serve as
methods for inducing individuals to think and behave as
the system
requires. (There is no contradiction here; an individual
whose
attitudes or behavior bring him into conflict with the
system is up
against a force that is too powerful for him to conquer
or escape
from, hence he is likely to suffer from stress, frustration,
defeat.
His path will be much easier if he thinks and behaves
as the system
requires. In that sense the system is acting for the benefit
of the
individual when it brainwashes him into conformity.) Child
abuse in
its gross and obvious forms is disapproved in most if
not all
cultures. Tormenting a child for a trivial reason or no
reason at all
is something that appalls almost everyone. But many psychologists
interpret the concept of abuse much more broadly. Is spanking,
when
used as part of a rational and consistent system of discipline,
a form
of abuse? The question will ultimately be decided by whether
or not
spanking tends to produce behavior that makes a person
fit in well
with the existing system of society. In practice, the
word "abuse"
tends to be interpreted to include any method of child-rearing
that
produces behavior inconvenient for the system. Thus, when
they go
beyond the prevention of obvious, senseless cruelty, programs
for
preventing "child abuse" are directed toward the control
of human
behavior of the system.
149. Presumably, research will continue to increas the
effectiveness
of psychological techniques for controlling human behavior.
But we
think it is unlikely that psychological techniques alone
will be
sufficient to adjust human beings to the kind of society
that
technology is creating. Biological methods probably will
have to be
used. We have already mentiond the use of drugs in this
connection.
Neurology may provide other avenues of modifying the human
mind.
Genetic engineering of human beings is already beginning
to occur in
the form of "gene therapy," and there is no reason to
assume the such
methods will not eventually be used to modify those aspects
of the
body that affect mental funtioning.
150. As we mentioned in paragraph 134, industrial society
seems likely
to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part
to problems of
human behavior and in part to economic and environmental
problems. And
a considerable proportion of the system's economic and
environmental
problems result from the way human beings behave. Alienation,
low
self-esteem, depression, hostility, rebellion; children
who won't
study, youth gangs, illegal drug use, rape, child abuse
, other
crimes, unsafe sex, teen pregnancy, population growth,
political
corruption, race hatred, ethnic rivalry, bitter ideological
conflict
(i.e., pro-choice vs. pro-life), political extremism,
terrorism,
sabotage, anti-government groups, hate groups. All these
threaten the
very survival of the system. The system will be FORCED
to use every
practical means of controlling human behavior.
151. The social disruption that we see today is certainly
not the
result of mere chance. It can only be a result fo the
conditions of
life that the system imposes on people. (We have argued
that the most
important of these conditions is disruption of the power
process.) If
the systems succeeds in imposing sufficient control over
human
behavior to assure itw own survival, a new watershed in
human history
will have passed. Whereas formerly the limits of human
endurance have
imposed limits on the development of societies (as we
explained in
paragraphs 143, 144), industrial-technological society
will be able to
pass those limits by modifying human beings, whether by
psychological
methods or biological methods or both. In the future,
social systems
will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings.
Instead, human
being will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system.
[27] 152. Generally speaking, technological control over
human
behavior will probably not be introduced with a totalitarian
intention
or even through a conscious desire to restrict human freedom.
[28]
Each new step in the assertion of control over the human
mind will be
taken as a rational response to a problem that faces society,
such as
curing alcoholism, reducing the crime rate or inducing
young people to
study science and engineering. In many cases, there will
be
humanitarian justification. For example, when a psychiatrist
prescribes an anti-depressant for a depressed patient,
he is clearly
doing that individual a favor. It would be inhumane to
withhold the
drug from someone who needs it. When parents send their
children to
Sylvan Learning Centers to have them manipulated into
becoming
enthusiastic about their studies, they do so from concern
for their
children's welfare. It may be that some of these parents
wish that one
didn't have to have specialized training to get a job
and that their
kid didn't have to be brainwashed into becoming a computer
nerd. But
what can they do? They can't change society, and their
child may be
unemployable if he doesn't have certain skills. So they
send him to
Sylvan.
153. Thus control over human behavior will be introduced
not by a
calculated decision of the authorities but through a process
of social
evolution (RAPID evolution, however). The process will
be impossible
to resist, because each advance, considered by itself,
will appear to
be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making
the advance
will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved
in making
the advance will seem to be less than that which would
result from not
making it (see paragraph 127). Propaganda for example
is used for many
good purposes, such as discouraging child abuse or race
hatred. [14]
Sex education is obviously useful, yet the effect of sex
education (to
the extent that it is successful) is to take the shaping
of sexual
attitudes away from the family and put it into the hands
of the state
as represented by the public school system.
154. Suppose a biological trait is discovered that increases
the
likelihood that a child will grow up to be a criminal
and suppose some
sort of gene therapy can remove this trait. [29] Of course
most
parents whose children possess the trait will have them
undergo the
therapy. It would be inhumane to do otherwise, since the
child would
probably have a miserable life if he grew up to be a criminal.
But
many or most primitive societies have a low crime rate
in comparison
with that of our society, even though they have neither
high-tech
methods of child-rearing nor harsh systems of punishment.
Since there
is no reason to suppose that more modern men than primitive
men have
innate predatory tendencies, the high crime rate of our
society must
be due to the pressures that modern conditions put on
people, to which
many cannot or will not adjust. Thus a treatment designed
to remove
potential criminal tendencies is at least in part a way
of
re-engineering people so that they suit the requirements
of the
system.
155. Our society tends to regard as a "sickness" any mode
of thought
or behavior that is inconvenient for the system, and this
is plausible
because when an individual doesn't fit into the system
it causes pain
to the individual as well as problems for the system.
Thus the
manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system
is seen as a
"cure" for a "sickness" and therefore as good.
156. In paragraph 127 we pointed out that if the use of
a new item of
technology is INITIALLY optional, it does not necessarily
REMAIN
optional, because the new technology tends to change society
in such a
way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual
to
function without using that technology. This applies also
to the
technology of human behavior. In a world in which most
children are
put through a program to make them enthusiastic about
studying, a
parent will almost be forced to put his kid through such
a program,
because if he does not, then the kid will grow up to be,
comparatively
speaking, an ignoramus and therefore unemployable. Or
suppose a
biological treatment is discovered that, without undesirable
side-effects, will greatly reduce the psychological stress
from which
so many people suffer in our society. If large numbers
of people
choose to undergo the treatment, then the general level
of stress in
society will be reduced, so that it will be possible for
the system to
increase the stress-producing pressures. In fact, something
like this
seems to have happened already with one of our society's
most
important psychological tools for enabling people to reduce
(or at
least temporarily escape from) stress, namely, mass entertainment
(see
paragraph 147). Our use of mass entertainment is "optional":
No law
requires us to watch television, listen to the radio,
read magazines.
Yet mass entertainment is a means of escape and stress-reduction
on
which most of us have become dependent. Everyone complains
about the
trashiness of television, but almost everyone watches
it. A few have
kicked the TV habit, but it would be a rare person who
could get along
today without using ANY form of mass entertainment. (Yet
until quite
recently in human history most people got along very nicely
with no
other entertainment than that which each local community
created for
itself.) Without the entertainment industry the system
probably would
not have been able to get away with putting as much stress-producing
pressure on us as it does.
157. Assuming that industrial society survives, it is
likely that
technology will eventually acquire something approaching
complete
control over human behavior. It has been established beyond
any
rational doubt that human thought and behavior have a
largely
biological basis. As experimenters have demonstrated,
feelings such as
hunger, pleasure, anger and fear can be turned on and
off by
electrical stimulation of appropriate parts of the brain.
Memories can
be destroyed by damaging parts of the brain or they can
be brought to
the surface by electrical stimulation. Hallucinations
can be induced
or moods changed by drugs. There may or may not be an
immaterial human
soul, but if there is one it clearly is less powerful
that the
biological mechanisms of human behavior. For if that were
not the case
then researchers would not be able so easily to manipulate
human
feelings and behavior with drugs and electrical currents.
158. It presumably would be impractical for all people
to have
electrodes inserted in their heads so that they could
be controlled by
the authorities. But the fact that human thoughts and
feelings are so
open to biological intervention shows that the problem
of controlling
human behavior is mainly a technical problem; a problem
of neurons,
hormones and complex molecules; the kind of problem that
is accessible
to scientific attack. Given the outstanding record of
our society in
solving technical problems, it is overwhelmingly probable
that great
advances will be made in the control of human behavior.
159. Will public resistance prevent the introduction of
technological
control of human behavior? It certainly would if an attempt
were made
to introduce such control all at once. But since technological
control
will be introduced through a long sequence of small advances,
there
will be no rational and effective public resistance. (See
paragraphs
127,132, 153.)
160. To those who think that all this sounds like science
fiction, we
point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's
fact. The
Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment
and way
of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology
is
increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself
will be
altered as radically as his environment and way of life
have been.
HUMAN RACE AT A CROSSROADS
161. But we have gotten ahead of our story. It is one
thing to develop
in the laboratory a series of psychological or biological
techniques
for manipulating human behavior and quite another to integrate
these
techniques into a functioning social system. The latter
problem is the
more difficult of the two. For example, while the techniques
of
educational psychology doubtless work quite well in the
"lab schools"
where they are developed, it is not necessarily easy to
apply them
effectively throughout our educational system. We all
know what many
of our schools are like. The teachers are too busy taking
knives and
guns away from the kids to subject them to the latest
techniques for
making them into computer nerds. Thus, in spite of all
its technical
advances relating to human behavior the system to date
has not been
impressively successful in controlling human beings. The
people whose
behavior is fairly well under the control of the system
are those of
the type that might be called "bourgeois." But there are
growing
numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels
against the
system: welfare leaches, youth gangs cultists, satanists,
nazis,
radical environmentalists, militiamen, etc..
162. The system is currently engaged in a desperate struggle
to
overcome certain problems that threaten its survival,
among which the
problems of human behavior are the most important. If
the system
succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior
quickly
enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break
down. We
think the issue will most likely be resolved within the
next several
decades, say 40 to 100 years.
163. Suppose the system survives the crisis of the next
several
decades. By that time it will have to have solved, or
at least brought
under control, the principal problems that confront it,
in particular
that of "socializing" human beings; that is, making people
sufficiently docile so that their behavior no longer threatens
the
system. That being accomplished, it does not appear that
there would
be any further obstacle to the development of technology,
and it would
presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which
is complete
control over everything on Earth, including human beings
and all other
important organisms. The system may become a unitary,
monolithic
organization, or it may be more or less fragmented and
consist of a
number of organizations coexisting in a relationship that
includes
elements of both cooperation and competition, just as
today the
government, the corporations and other large organizations
both
cooperate and compete with one another. Human freedom
mostly will have
vanished, because individuals and small groups will be
impotent
vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology
and an
arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools
for
manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance
and
physical coercion. Only a small number of people will
have any real
power, and even these probably will have only very limited
freedom,
because their behavior too will be regulated; just as
today our
politicians and corporation executives can retain their
positions of
power only as long as their behavior remains within certain
fairly
narrow limits.
164. Don't imagine that the systems will stop developing
further
techniques for controlling human beings and nature once
the crisis of
the next few decades is over and increasing control is
no longer
necessary for the system's survival. On the contrary,
once the hard
times are over the system will increase its control over
people and
nature more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered
by
difficulties of the kind that it is currently experiencing.
Survival
is not the principal motive for extending control. As
we explained in
paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists carry on
their work
largely as a surrogate activity; that is, they satisfy
their need for
power by solving technical problems. They will continue
to do this
with unabated enthusiasm, and among the most interesting
and
challenging problems for them to solve will be those of
understanding
the human body and mind and intervening in their development.
For the
"good of humanity," of course.
165. But suppose on the other hand that the stresses of
the coming
decades prove to be too much for the system. If the system
breaks down
there may be a period of chaos, a "time of troubles" such
as those
that history has recorded: at various epochs in the past.
It is
impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time
of troubles,
but at any rate the human race would be given a new chance.
The
greatest danger is that industrial society may begin to
reconstitute
itself within the first few years after the breakdown.
Certainly there
will be many people (power-hungry types especially) who
will be
anxious to get the factories running again.
166. Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude
to
which the industrial system is reducing the human race.
First, we must
work to heighten the social stresses within the system
so as to
increase the likelihood that it will break down or be
weakened
sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible.
Second,
it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that
opposes
technology and the industrial society if and when the
system becomes
sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help
to assure that,
if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants
will be
smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted.
The
factories should be destroyed, technical books burned,
etc.
HUMAN SUFFERING
167. The industrial system will not break down purely
as a result of
revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary
attack unless its own internal problems of development
lead it into
very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down
it will do so
either spontaneously, or through a process that is in
part spontaneous
but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown
is sudden, many
people will die, since the world's population has become
so overblown
that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced
technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so
that reduction
of the population can occur more through lowering of the
birth rate
than through elevation of the death rate, the process
of
de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and
involve much
suffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology
can be
phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially
since the
technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it
therefore
cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe,
but maybe not.
In the first place, revolutionaries will not be able to
break the
system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that
there would
be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself
anyway; and
the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences
of
its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries,
by hastening
the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent
of the
disaster.
168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle
and death
against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us,
freedom and
dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance
of physical
pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may
be better to
die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live
a long but
empty and purposeless life.
169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the
survival of
the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown
of the
system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing
to
cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient
cultures, that
for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship
with
each other and their environment, have been shattered
by contact with
industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue
of
economic, environmental, social and psychological problems.
One of the
effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been
that over much
of the world traditional controls on population have been
thrown out
of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that
it implies.
Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread
throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West
(see
paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a
result of ozone
depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental
problems that
cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation
has shown, new
technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators
and
irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate
abut
what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?
170. "Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to
fix all that! We
will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering,
make everybody
healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said
200 years ago.
The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty,
make
everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite
different. The
technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving)
in their
understanding of social problems. They are unaware of
(or choose to
ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly
beneficial
ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long
sequence of
other changes, most of which are impossible to predict
(paragraph
103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is
very probable
that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer
docile,
happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will
create social
systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that
the present one.
For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine
by
creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But
this will allow
the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and
it is well
known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression.
This is
merely one example of the PREDICTABLE problems that will
arise. We
emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical
progress will
lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly
that it has
been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult
period of
trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs
out of their
Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there
will be great
suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of
industrial
society would involve less suffering than the breakdown
of that
society would. Technology has gotten the human race into
a fix from
which there is not likely to be any easy escape.
THE FUTURE
171. But suppose now that industrial society does survive
the next
several decade and that the bugs do eventually get worked
out of the
system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system
will it be?
We will consider several possibilities.
172. First let us postulate that the computer scientists
succeed in
developing intelligent machines that can do all things
better that
human beings can do them. In that case presumably all
work will be
done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and
no human effort
will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The
machines might
be permitted to make all of their own decisions without
human
oversight, or else human control over the machines might
be retained.
173. If the machines are permitted to make all their own
decisions, we
can't make any conjectures as to the results, because
it is impossible
to guess how such machines might behave. We only point
out that the
fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines.
It might
be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough
to hand
over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting
neither that
the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the
machines nor
that the machines would willfully seize power. What we
do suggest is
that the human race might easily permit itself to drift
into a
position of such dependence on the machines that it would
have no
practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions.
As
society and the problems that face it become more and
more complex and
machines become more and more intelligent, people will
let machines
make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made
decisions will bring better result than man-made ones.
Eventually a
stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary
to keep the
system running will be so complex that human beings will
be incapable
of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines
will be in
effective control. People won't be able to just turn the
machines off,
because they will be so dependent on them that turning
them off would
amount to suicide.
174. On the other hand it is possible that human control
over the
machines may be retained. In that case the average man
may have
control over certain private machines of his own, such
as his car of
his personal computer, but control over large systems
of machines will
be in the hands of a tiny elite -- just as it is today,
but with two
difference. Due to improved techniques the elite will
have greater
control over the masses; and because human work will no
longer be
necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden
on the
system. If the elite is ruthless the may simply decide
to exterminate
the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use
propaganda or
other psychological or biological techniques to reduce
the birth rate
until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the
world to the
elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-hearted liberals,
they may
decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest
of the human
race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs
are
satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically
hygienic
conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep
him busy, and
that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment"
to cure
his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless
that people will
have to be biologically or psychologically engineered
either to remove
their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate"
their
drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered
human
beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly
will
not be free. They will have been reduced to the status
of domestic
animals.
175. But suppose now that the computer scientists do not
succeed in
developing artificial intelligence, so that human work
remains
necessary. Even so, machines will take care of more and
more of the
simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus
of human
workers at the lower levels of ability. (We see this happening
already. There are many people who find it difficult or
impossible to
get work, because for intellectual or psychological reasons
they
cannot acquire the level of training necessary to make
themselves
useful in the present system.) On those who are employed,
ever-increasing demands will be placed; They will need
more and m ore
training, more and more ability, and will have to be ever
more
reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be
more and more
like cells of a giant organism. Their tasks will be increasingly
specialized so that their work will be, in a sense, out
of touch with
the real world, being concentrated on one tiny slice of
reality. The
system will have to use any means that I can, whether
psychological or
biological, to engineer people to be docile, to have the
abilities
that the system requires and to "sublimate" their drive
for power into
some specialized task. But the statement that the people
of such a
society will have to be docile may require qualification.
The society
may find competitiveness useful, provided that ways are
found of
directing competitiveness into channels that serve that
needs of the
system. We can imagine into channels that serve the needs
of the
system. We can imagine a future society in which there
is endless
competition for positions of prestige an power. But no
more than a
very few people will ever reach the top, where the only
real power is
(see end of paragraph 163). Very repellent is a society
in which a
person can satisfy his needs for power only by pushing
large numbers
of other people out of the way and depriving them of THEIR
opportunity
for power.
176. Once can envision scenarios that incorporate aspects
of more than
one of the possibilities that we have just discussed.
For instance, it
may be that machines will take over most of the work that
is of real,
practical importance, but that human beings will be kept
busy by being
given relatively unimportant work. It has been suggested,
for example,
that a great development of the service of industries
might provide
work for human beings. Thus people will would spend their
time
shinning each others shoes, driving each other around
inn taxicab,
making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's
tables,
etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for
the human race
to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling
lives
in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous
outlets
(drugs, , crime, "cults," hate groups) unless they were
biological or
psychologically engineered to adapt them to such a way
of life.
177. Needless to day, the scenarios outlined above do
not exhaust all
the possibilities. They only indicate the kinds of outcomes
that seem
to us mots likely. But wee can envision no plausible scenarios
that
are any more palatable that the ones we've just described.
It is
overwhelmingly probable that if the industrial-technological
system
survives the next 40 to 100 years, it will by that time
have developed
certain general characteristics: Individuals (at least
those of the
"bourgeois" type, who are integrated into the system and
make it run,
and who therefore have all the power) will be more dependent
than ever
on large organizations; they will be more "socialized"
that ever and
their physical and mental qualities to a significant extent
(possibly
to a very great extent ) will be those that are engineered
into them
rather than being the results of chance (or of God's will,
or
whatever); and whatever may be left of wild nature will
be reduced to
remnants preserved for scientific study and kept under
the supervision
and management of scientists (hence it will no longer
be truly wild).
In the long run (say a few centuries from now) it is it
is likely that
neither the human race nor any other important organisms
will exist as
we know them today, because once you start modifying organisms
through
genetic engineering there is no reason to stop at any
particular
point, so that the modifications will probably continue
until man and
other organisms have been utterly transformed.
178. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that
technology is
creating for human begins a new physical and social environment
radically different from the spectrum of environments
to which natural
selection has adapted the human race physically and psychological.
If
man is not adjust to this new environment by being artificially
re-engineered, then he will be adapted to it through a
long an painful
process of natural selection. The former is far more likely
that the
latter.
179. It would be better to dump the whole stinking system
and take the
consequences.
STRATEGY
180. The technophiles are taking us all on an utterly
reckless ride
into the unknown. Many people understand something of
what
technological progress is doing to us yet take a passive
attitude
toward it because they think it is inevitable. But we
(FC) don't think
it is inevitable. We think it can be stopped, and we will
give here
some indications of how to go about stopping it.
181. As we stated in paragraph 166, the two main tasks
for the present
are to promote social stress and instability in industrial
society and
to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology
and the
industrial system. When the system becomes sufficiently
stressed and
unstable, a revolution against technology may be possible.
The pattern
would be similar to that of the French and Russian Revolutions.
French
society and Russian society, for several decades prior
to their
respective revolutions, showed increasing signs of stress
and
weakness. Meanwhile, ideologies were being developed that
offered a
new world view that was quite different from the old one.
In the
Russian case, revolutionaries were actively working to
undermine the
old order. Then, when the old system was put under sufficient
additional stress (by financial crisis in France, by military
defeat
in Russia) it was swept away by revolution. What we propose
in
something along the same lines.
182. It will be objected that the French and Russian Revolutions
were
failures. But most revolutions have two goals. One is
to destroy an
old form of society and the other is to set up the new
form of society
envisioned by the revolutionaries. The French and Russian
revolutionaries failed (fortunately!) to create the new
kind of
society of which they dreamed, but they were quite successful
in
destroying the existing form of society.
183. But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support,
must have
a positive ideals well as a negative one; it must be FOR
something as
well as AGAINST something. The positive ideal that we
propose is
Nature. That is , WILD nature; those aspects of the functioning
of the
Earth and its living things that are independent of human
management
and free of human interference and control. And with wild
nature we
include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of
the
functioning of the human individual that are not subject
to regulation
by organized society but are products of chance, or free
will, or God
(depending on your religious or philosophical opinions).
184. Nature makes a perfect counter-ideal to technology
for several
reasons. Nature (that which is outside the power of the
system) is the
opposite of technology (which seeks to expand indefinitely
the power
of the system). Most people will agree that nature is
beautiful;
certainly it has tremendous popular appeal. The radical
environmentalists ALREADY hold an ideology that exalts
nature and
opposes technology. [30] It is not necessary for the sake
of nature to
set up some chimerical utopia or any new kind of social
order. Nature
takes care of itself: It was a spontaneous creation that
existed long
before any human society, and for countless centuries
many different
kinds of human societies coexisted with nature without
doing it an
excessive amount of damage. Only with the Industrial Revolution
did
the effect of human society on nature become really devastating.
To
relieve the pressure on nature it is not necessary to
create a special
kind of social system, it is only necessary to get rid
of industrial
society. Granted, this will not solve all problems. Industrial
society
has already done tremendous damage to nature and it will
take a very
long time for the scars to heal. Besides, even pre-industrial
societies can do significant damage to nature. Nevertheless,
getting
rid of industrial society will accomplish a great deal.
It will
relieve the worst of the pressure on nature so that the
scars can
begin to heal. It will remove the capacity of organized
society to
keep increasing its control over nature (including human
nature).
Whatever kind of society may exist after the demise of
the industrial
system, it is certain that most people will live close
to nature,
because in the absence of advanced technology there is
not other way
that people CAN live. To feed themselves they must be
peasants or
herdsmen or fishermen or hunter, etc., And, generally
speaking, local
autonomy should tend to increase, because lack of advanced
technology
and rapid communications will limit the capacity of governments
or
other large organizations to control local communities.
185. As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial
society -- well, you can't eat your cake and have it too.
To gain one
thing you have to sacrifice another.
186. Most people hate psychological conflict. For this
reason they
avoid doing any serious thinking about difficult social
issues, and
they like to have such issues presented to them in simple,
black-and-white terms: THIS is all good and THAT is all
bad. The
revolutionary ideology should therefore be developed on
two levels.
187. On the more sophisticated level the ideology should
address
itself to people who are intelligent, thoughtful and rational.
The
object should be to create a core of people who will be
opposed to the
industrial system on a rational, thought-out basis, with
full
appreciation of the problems and ambiguities involved,
and of the
price that has to be paid for getting rid of the system.
It is
particularly important to attract people of this type,
as they are
capable people and will be instrumental in influencing
others. These
people should be addressed on as rational a level as possible.
Facts
should never intentionally be distorted and intemperate
language
should be avoided. This does not mean that no appeal can
be made to
the emotions, but in making such appeal care should be
taken to avoid
misrepresenting the truth or doing anything else that
would destroy
the intellectual respectability of the ideology.
188. On a second level, the ideology should be propagated
in a
simplified form that will enable the unthinking majority
to see the
conflict of technology vs. nature in unambiguous terms.
But even on
this second level the ideology should not be expressed
in language
that is so cheap, intemperate or irrational that it alienates
people
of the thoughtful and rational type. Cheap, intemperate
propaganda
sometimes achieves impressive short-term gains, but it
will be more
advantageous in the long run to keep the loyalty of a
small number of
intelligently committed people than to arouse the passions
of an
unthinking, fickle mob who will change their attitude
as soon as
someone comes along with a better propaganda gimmick.
However,
propaganda of the rabble-rousing type may be necessary
when the system
is nearing the point of collapse and there is a final
struggle between
rival ideologies to determine which will become dominant
when the old
world-view goes under.
189. Prior to that final struggle, the revolutionaries
should not
expect to have a majority of people on their side. History
is made by
active, determined minorities, not by the majority, which
seldom has a
clear and consistent idea of what it really wants. Until
the time
comes for the final push toward revolution [31], the task
of
revolutionaries will be less to win the shallow support
of the
majority than to build a small core of deeply committed
people. As for
the majority, it will be enough to make them aware of
the existence of
the new ideology and remind them of it frequently; though
of course it
will be desirable to get majority support to the extent
that this can
be done without weakening the core of seriously committed
people.
190. Any kind of social conflict helps to destabilize
the system, but
one should be careful about what kind of conflict one
encourages. The
line of conflict should be drawn between the mass of the
people and
the power-holding elite of industrial society (politicians,
scientists, upper-level business executives, government
officials,
etc..). It should NOT be drawn between the revolutionaries
and the
mass of the people. For example, it would be bad strategy
for the
revolutionaries to condemn Americans for their habits
of consumption.
Instead, the average American should be portrayed as a
victim of the
advertising and marketing industry, which has suckered
him into buying
a lot of junk that he doesn't need and that is very poor
compensation
for his lost freedom. Either approach is consistent with
the facts. It
is merely a matter of attitude whether you blame the advertising
industry for manipulating the public or blame the public
for allowing
itself to be manipulated. As a matter of strategy one
should generally
avoid blaming the public.
191. One should think twice before encouraging any other
social
conflict than that between the power-holding elite (which
wields
technology) and the general public (over which technology
exerts its
power). For one thing, other conflicts tend to distract
attention from
the important conflicts (between power-elite and ordinary
people,
between technology and nature); for another thing, other
conflicts may
actually tend to encourage technologization, because each
side in such
a conflict wants to use technological power to gain advantages
over
its adversary. This is clearly seen in rivalries between
nations. It
also appears in ethnic conflicts within nations. For example,
in
America many black leaders are anxious to gain power for
African
Americans by placing back individuals in the technological
power-elite. They want there to be many black government
officials,
scientists, corporation executives and so forth. In this
way they are
helping to absorb the African American subculture into
the
technological system. Generally speaking, one should encourage
only
those social conflicts that can be fitted into the framework
of the
conflicts of power--elite vs. ordinary people, technology
vs nature.
192. But the way to discourage ethnic conflict is NOT
through militant
advocacy of minority rights (see paragraphs 21, 29). Instead,
the
revolutionaries should emphasize that although minorities
do suffer
more or less disadvantage, this disadvantage is of peripheral
significance. Our real enemy is the industrial-technological
system,
and in the struggle against the system, ethnic distinctions
are of no
importance.
193. The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily
involve an armed uprising against any government. It may
or may not
involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL
revolution.
Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics.
[32]
194. Probably the revolutionaries should even AVOID assuming
political
power, whether by legal or illegal means, until the industrial
system
is stressed to the danger point and has proved itself
to be a failure
in the eyes of most people. Suppose for example that some
"green"
party should win control of the United States Congress
in an election.
In order to avoid betraying or watering down their own
ideology they
would have to take vigorous measures to turn economic
growth into
economic shrinkage. To the average man the results would
appear
disastrous: There would be massive unemployment, shortages
of
commodities, etc. Even if the grosser ill effects could
be avoided
through superhumanly skillful management, still people
would have to
begin giving up the luxuries to which they have become
addicted.
Dissatisfaction would grow, the "green" party would be
voted out of of
fice and the revolutionaries would have suffered a severe
setback. For
this reason the revolutionaries should not try to acquire
political
power until the system has gotten itself into such a mess
that any
hardships will be seen as resulting from the failures
of the
industrial system itself and not from the policies of
the
revolutionaries. The revolution against technology will
probably have
to be a revolution by outsiders, a revolution from below
and not from
above.
195. The revolution must be international and worldwide.
It cannot be
carried out on a nation-by-nation basis. Whenever it is
suggested that
the United States, for example, should cut back on technological
progress or economic growth, people get hysterical and
start screaming
that if we fall behind in technology the Japanese will
get ahead of
us. Holy robots The world will fly off its orbit if the
Japanese ever
sell more cars than we do! (Nationalism is a great promoter
of
technology.) More reasonably, it is argued that if the
relatively
democratic nations of the world fall behind in technology
while nasty,
dictatorial nations like China, Vietnam and North Korea
continue to
progress, eventually the dictators may come to dominate
the world.
That is why the industrial system should be attacked in
all nations
simultaneously, to the extent that this may be possible.
True, there
is no assurance that the industrial system can be destroyed
at
approximately the same time all over the world, and it
is even
conceivable that the attempt to overthrow the system could
lead
instead to the domination of the system by dictators.
That is a risk
that has to be taken. And it is worth taking, since the
difference
between a "democratic" industrial system and one controlled
by
dictators is small compared with the difference between
an industrial
system and a non-industrial one. [33] It might even be
argued that an
industrial system controlled by dictators would be preferable,
because
dictator-controlled systems usually have proved inefficient,
hence
they are presumably more likely to break down. Look at
Cuba.
196. Revolutionaries might consider favoring measures
that tend to
bind the world economy into a unified whole. Free trade
agreements
like NAFTA and GATT are probably harmful to the environment
in the
short run, but in the long run they may perhaps be advantageous
because they foster economic interdependence between nations.
I will
be eaier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide
basis if he
world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any
on major nation
will lead to its breakdwon in al industrialized nations.
the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because
they foster
economic interdependence between nations. It will be easier
to destroy
the industrial system on a worldwide basis if the world
economy is so
unified that its breakdown in any one major nation will
lead to its
breakdown in all industrialized nations.
197. Some people take the line that modern man has too
much power, too
much control over nature; they argue for a more passive
attitude on
the part of the human race. At best these people are expressing
themselves unclearly, because they fail to distinguish
between power
for LARGE ORGANIZATIONS and power for INDIVIDUALS and
SMALL GROUPS. It
is a mistake to argue for powerlessness and passivity,
because people
NEED power. Modern man as a collective entity--that is,
the industrial
system--has immense power over nature, and we (FC) regard
this as
evil. But modern INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS OF INDIVIDUALS
have far
less power than primitive man ever did. Generally speaking,
the vast
power of "modern man" over nature is exercised not by
individuals or
small groups but by large organizations. To the extent
that the
average modern INDIVIDUAL can wield the power of technology,
he is
permitted to do so only within narrow limits and only
under the
supervision and control of the system. (You need a license
for
everything and with the license come rules and regulations).
The
individual has only those technological powers with which
the system
chooses to provide him. His PERSONAL power over nature
is slight.
198. Primitive INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS actually had
considerable
power over nature; or maybe it would be better to say
power WITHIN
nature. When primitive man needed food he knew how to
find and prepare
edible roots, how to track game and take it with homemade
weapons. He
knew how to protect himself from heat, cold, rain, dangerous
animals,
etc. But primitive man did relatively little damage to
nature because
the COLLECTIVE power of primitive society was negligible
compared to
the COLLECTIVE power of industrial society.
199. Instead of arguing for powerlessness and passivity,
one should
argue that the power of the INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM should be
broken, and
that this will greatly INCREASE the power and freedom
of INDIVIDUALS
and SMALL GROUPS.
200. Until the industrial system has been thoroughly wrecked,
the
destruction of that system must be the revolutionaries'
ONLY goal.
Other goals would distract attention and energy from the
main goal.
More importantly, if the revolutionaries permit themselves
to have any
other goal than the destruction of technology, they will
be tempted to
use technology as a tool for reaching that other goal.
If they give in
to that temptation, they will fall right back into the
technological
trap, because modern technology is a unified, tightly
organized
system, so that, in order to retain SOME technology, one
finds oneself
obliged to retain MOST technology, hence one ends up sacrificing
only
token amounts of technology.
201. Suppose for example that the revolutionaries took
"social
justice" as a goal. Human nature being what it is, social
justice
would not come about spontaneously; it would have to be
enforced. In
order to enforce it the revolutionaries would have to
retain central
organization and control. For that they would need rapid
long-distance
transportation and communication, and therefore all the
technology
needed to support the transportation and communication
systems. To
feed and clothe poor people they would have to use agricultural
and
manufacturing technology. And so forth. So that the attempt
to insure
social justice would force them to retain most parts of
the
technological system. Not that we have anything against
social
justice, but it must not be allowed to interfere with
the effort to
get rid of the technological system.
202. It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to
attack the
system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing
else they must
use the communications media to spread their message.
But they should
use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack
the
technological system.
203. Imagine an alcoholic sitting with a barrel of wine
in front of
him. Suppose he starts saying to himself, "Wine isn't
bad for you if
used in moderation. Why, they say small amounts of wine
are even good
for you! It won't do me any harm if I take just one little
drink..."
Well you know what is going to happen. Never forget that
the human
race with technology is just like an alcoholic with a
barrel of wine.
204. Revolutionaries should have as many children as they
can. There
is strong scientific evidence that social attitudes are
to a
significant extent inherited. No one suggests that a social
attitude
is a direct outcome of a person's genetic constitution,
but it appears
that personality traits tend, within the context of our
society, to
make a person more likely to hold this or that social
attitude.
Objections to these findings have been raised, but objections
are
feeble and seem to be ideologically motivated. In any
event, no one
denies that children tend on the average to hold social
attitudes
similar to those of their parents. From our point of view
it doesn't
matter all that much whether the attitudes are passed
on genetically
or through childhood training. In either case the ARE
passed on.
205. The trouble is that many of the people who are inclined
to rebel
against the industrial system are also concerned about
the population
problems, hence they are apt to have few or no children.
In this way
they may be handing the world over to the sort of people
who support
or at least accept the industrial system. To insure the
strength of
the next generation of revolutionaries the present generation
must
reproduce itself abundantly. In doing so they will be
worsening the
population problem only slightly. And the most important
problem is to
get rid of the industrial system, because once the industrial
system
is gone the world's population necessarily will decrease
(see
paragraph 167); whereas, if the industrial system survives,
it will
continue developing new techniques of food production
that may enable
the world's population to keep increasing almost indefinitely.
206. With regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points
on which
we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal
must be the
elimination of modern technology, and that no other goal
can be
allowed to compete with this one. For the rest, revolutionaries
should
take an empirical approach. If experience indicates that
some of the
recommendations made in the foregoing paragraphs are not
going to give
good results, then those recommendations should be discarded.
TWO KINDS OF TECHNOLOGY
207. An argument likely to be raised against our proposed
revolution
is that it is bound to fail, because (it is claimed) throughout
history technology has always progressed, never regressed,
hence
technological regression is impossible. But this claim
is false.
208. We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which
we will
call small-scale technology and organization-dependent
technology.
Small-scale technology is technology that can be used
by small-scale
communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent
technology is technology that depends on large-scale social
organization. We are aware of no significant cases of
regression in
small-scale technology. But organization-dependent technology
DOES
regress when the social organization on which it depends
breaks down.
Example: When the Roman Empire fell apart the Romans'
small-scale
technology survived because any clever village craftsman
could build,
for instance, a water wheel, any skilled smith could make
steel by
Roman methods, and so forth. But the Romans' organization-dependent
technology DID regress. Their aqueducts fell into disrepair
and were
never rebuilt. Their techniques of road construction were
lost. The
Roman system of urban sanitation was forgotten, so that
until rather
recent times did the sanitation of European cities that
of Ancient
Rome.
209. The reason why technology has seemed always to progress
is that,
until perhaps a century or two before the Industrial Revolution,
most
technology was small-scale technology. But most of the
technology
developed since the Industrial Revolution is organization-dependent
technology. Take the refrigerator for example. Without
factory-made
parts or the facilities of a post-industrial machine shop
it would be
virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen
to build a
refrigerator. If by some miracle they did succeed in building
one it
would be useless to them without a reliable source of
electric power.
So they would have to dam a stream and build a generator.
Generators
require large amounts of copper wire. Imagine trying to
make that wire
without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas
suitable for
refrigeration? It would be much easier to build an icehouse
or
preserve food by drying or picking, as was done before
the invention
of the refrigerator.
210. So it is clear that if the industrial system were
once thoroughly
broken down, refrigeration technology would quickly be
lost. The same
is true of other organization-dependent technology. And
once this
technology had been lost for a generation or so it would
take
centuries to rebuild it, just as it took centuries to
build it the
first time around. Surviving technical books would be
few and
scattered. An industrial society, if built from scratch
without
outside help, can only be built in a series of stages:
You need tools
to make tools to make tools to make tools ... . A long
process of
economic development and progress in social organization
is required.
And, even in the absence of an ideology opposed to technology,
there
is no reason to believe that anyone would be interested
in rebuilding
industrial society. The enthusiasm for "progress" is a
phenomenon
particular to the modern form of society, and it seems
not to have
existed prior to the 17th century or thereabouts.
211. In the late Middle Ages there were four main civilizations
that
were about equally "advanced": Europe, the Islamic world,
India, and
the Far East (China, Japan, Korea). Three of those civilizations
remained more or less stable, and only Europe became dynamic.
No one
knows why Europe became dynamic at that time; historians
have their
theories but these are only speculation. At any rate,
it is clear that
rapid development toward a technological form of society
occurs only
under special conditions. So there is no reason to assume
that
long-lasting technological regression cannot be brought
about.
212. Would society EVENTUALLY develop again toward an
industrial-technological form? Maybe, but there is no
use in worrying
about it, since we can't predict or control events 500
or 1,000 years
in the future. Those problems must be dealt with by the
people who
will live at that time.
THE DANGER OF LEFTISM
213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership
in a
movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological
type are often
unattracted to a rebellious or activist movement whose
goals and
membership are not initially leftist. The resulting influx
of leftish
types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist
one, so
that leftist goals replace or distort the original goals
of the
movement.
214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and
opposes
technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance
and must avoid
all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long
run
inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and
with the
elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist;
it seeks to
bind together the entire world (both nature and the human
race) into a
unified whole. But this implies management of nature and
of human life
by organized society, and it requires advanced technology.
You can't
have a united world without rapid transportation and communication,
you can't make all people love one another without sophisticated
psychological techniques, you can't have a "planned society"
without
the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is
driven by the
need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective
basis,
through identification with a mass movement or an organization.
Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because
technology is
too valuable a source of collective power.
215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks
it on an
individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals
and small groups
to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives.
He opposes
technology because it makes small groups dependent on
large
organizations.
216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but
they will oppose
it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological
system is
controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant
in
society, so that the technological system becomes a tool
in the hands
of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote
its growth.
In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism
has shown
again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia
were
outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the
secret police,
they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities,
and so forth;
but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed
a tighter
censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than
any that had
existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities
at least
as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a
couple of
decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities,
leftist
professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom,
but today, in
those universities where leftists have become dominant,
they have
shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's
academic
freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will
happen with
leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone
else if
they ever get it under their own control.
217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most power-hungry
type,
repeatedly, have first cooperated with non-leftist revolutionaries,
as
well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination,
and later
have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves.
Robespierre
did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did
it in the
Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in
1938 and Castro
and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history
of leftism,
it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries
today to
collaborate with leftists.
218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is
a kind of
religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense
because
leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of any
supernatural
being. But for the leftist, leftism plays a psychological
role much
like that which religion plays for some people. The leftist
NEEDS to
believe in leftism; it plays a vital role in his psychological
economy. His beliefs are not easily modified by logic
or facts. He has
a deep conviction that leftism is morally Right with a
capital R, and
that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist
morality on
everyone. (However, many of the people we are referring
to as
"leftists" do not think of themselves as leftists and
would not
describe their system of beliefs as leftism. We use the
term "leftism"
because we don't know of any better words to designate
the spectrum of
related creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights,
political
correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements
have a
strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs 227-230.)
219. Leftism is totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is
in a position
of power it tends to invade every private corner and force
every
thought into a leftist mold. In part this is because of
the
quasi-religious character of leftism; everything contrary
to leftists
beliefs represents Sin. More importantly, leftism is a
totalitarian
force because of the leftists' drive for power. The leftist
seeks to
satisfy his need for power through identification with
a social
movement and he tries to go through the power process
by helping to
pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph
83). But no
matter how far the movement has gone in attaining its
goals the
leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a
surrogate
activity (see paragraph 41). That is, the leftist's real
motive is not
to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality
he is motivated
by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and
then reaching a
social goal.[35]
Consequently the leftist is never satisfied with the goals
he has
already attained; his need for the power process leads
him always to
pursue some new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities
for
minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical
equality
of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors
in some
corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority,
the
leftist has to re-educated him. And ethnic minorities
are not enough;
no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward
homosexuals,
disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people,
and on and on
and on. It's not enough that the public should be informed
about the
hazards of smoking; a warning has to be stamped on every
package of
cigarettes. Then cigarette advertising has to be restricted
if not
banned. The activists will never be satisfied until tobacco
is
outlawed, and after that it will be alco hot then junk
food, etc.
Activists have fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable.
But now
they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that
they will
want to ban something else they consider unwholesome,
then another
thing and then another. They will never be satisfied until
they have
complete control over all child rearing practices. And
then they will
move on to another cause.
220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL
the things that
were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted
EVERY social
change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within
a couple of
years the majority of leftists would find something new
to complain
about, some new social "evil" to correct because, once
again, the
leftist is motivated less by distress at society's ills
than by the
need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions
on
society.
221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts
and behavior
by their high level of socialization, many leftists of
the
over-socialized type cannot pursue power in the ways that
other people
do. For them the drive for power has only one morally
acceptable
outlet, and that is in the struggle to impose their morality
on
everyone.
222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized
type, are True
Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer's book, "The True
Believer." But
not all True Believers are of the same psychological type
as leftists.
Presumably a truebelieving nazi, for instance is very
different
psychologically from a truebelieving leftist. Because
of their
capacity for single-minded devotion to a cause, True Believers
are a
useful, perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary
movement.
This presents a problem with which we must admit we don't
know how to
deal. We aren't sure how to harness the energies of the
True Believer
to a revolution against technology. At present all we
can say is that
no True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution
unless his
commitment is exclusively to the destruction of technology.
If he is
committed also to another ideal, he may want to use technology
as a
tool for pursuing that other ideal (see paragraphs 220,
221).
223. Some readers may say, "This stuff about leftism is
a lot of crap.
I know John and Jane who are leftish types and they don't
have all
these totalitarian tendencies." It's quite true that many
leftists,
possibly even a numerical majority, are decent people
who sincerely
believe in tolerating others' values (up to a point) and
wouldn't want
to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals.
Our remarks
about leftism are not meant to apply to every individual
leftist but
to describe the general character of leftism as a movement.
And the
general character of a movement is not necessarily determined
by the
numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved
in the
movement.
224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist
movements
tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry type because
power-hungry
people are those who strive hardest to get into positions
of power.
Once the power-hungry types have captured control of the
movement,
there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly
disapprove of
many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves
to
oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and
because they
cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders.
True, SOME
leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies
that
emerge, but they generally lose, because the power-hungry
types are
better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian
and have taken
care to build themselves a strong power base.
225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and other
countries
that were taken over by leftists. Similarly, before the
breakdown of
communism in the USSR, leftish types in the West would
seldom
criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that
the USSR did
many wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses
for the
communists and begin talking about the faults of the West.
They always
opposed Western military resistance to communist aggression.
Leftish
types all over the world vigorously protested the U.S.
military action
in Vietnam, but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they
did nothing.
Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because
of their
leftist faith, they just couldn't bear to put themselves
in opposition
to communism. Today, in those of our universities where
"political
correctness" has become dominant, there are probably many
leftish
types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic
freedom,
but they go along with it anyway.
226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally
mild
and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism
as a whole
form having a totalitarian tendency.
227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness.
It is still far
from clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't
seem to
be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented
into a whole
spectrum of activist movements. Yet not all activist movements
are
leftist, and some activist movements (e.g.., radical environmentalism)
seem to include both personalities of the leftist type
and
personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought
to know better
than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of leftists
fade out
gradually into varieties of non-leftists and we ourselves
would often
be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is
or is not a
leftist. To the extent that it is defined at all, our
conception of
leftism is 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 in
deciding 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.
Some individuals may meet some of the criteria without
being leftists,
some leftists may not meet any of the criteria. Again,
you just have
to use your judgment.
229. The leftist is oriented toward largescale collectivism.
He
emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society
and the duty of
society to take care of the individual. He has a negative
attitude
toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone.
He tends to be
for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically
"enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmative
action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with
victims. He
tends to be against competition and against violence,
but he often
finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence.
He is fond of
using the 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 to sympathize with the following movements: feminism,
gay
rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights
political
correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with ALL
of these
movements is almost certainly a leftist. [36]
230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who are
most
power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or
by a dogmatic
approach to ideology. However, the most dangerous leftists
of all may
be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays
of
aggressiveness and refrain from advertising their leftism,
but work
quietly and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values,
"enlightened" psychological techniques for socializing
children,
dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth.
These
crypto-leftists (as we may call them) approximate certain
bourgeois
types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ
from them in
psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois
tries to
bring people under control of the system in order to protect
his way
of life, or he does so simply because his attitudes are
conventional.
The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control
of the system
because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology.
The
crypto-leftist is differentiated from the average leftist
of the
oversocialized type by the fact that his rebellious impulse
is weaker
and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated
from the
ordinary well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there
is some deep
lack within him that makes it necessary for him to devote
himself to a
cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe
his
(well-sublimated) drive for power is stronger than that
of the average
bourgeois.
FINAL NOTE
231. Throughout this article we've made imprecise statements
and
statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications
and
reservations attached to them; and some of our statements
may be
flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need
for brevity
made it impossible for us to fomulate our assertions more
precisely or
add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in
a discussion of
this
kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and
that can
sometimes be wrong. So we don't claim that this article
expresses more
than a crude approximation to the truth.
232. All the same we are reasonably confident that the
general
outlines of the picture we have painted here are roughly
correct. We
have portrayed leftism in its modern form as a phenomenon
peculiar to
our time and as a symptom of the disruption of the power
process. But
we might possibly be wrong about this. Oversocialized
types who try to
satisfy their drive for power by imposing their morality
on everyone
have certainly been around for a long time. But we THINK
that the
decisive role played by feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem,
powerlessness, identification with victims by people who
are not
themselves victims, is a peculiarity of modern leftism.
Identification
with victims by people not themselves victims can be seen
to some
extent in 19th century leftism and early Christianity
but as far as we
can make out, symptoms of low self-esteem, etc., were
not nearly so
evident in these movements, or in any other movements,
as they are in
modern leftism. But we are not in a position to assert
confidently
that no such movements have existed prior to modern leftism.
This is a
significant question to which historians ought to give
their
attention.
NOTES
1. (Paragraph 19) We are asserting that ALL, or even most,
bullies and
ruthless competitors suffer from feelings of inferiority.
2. (Paragraph 25) During the Victorian period many oversocialized
people suffered from serious psychological problems as
a result of
repressing or trying to repress their sexual feelings.
Freud
apparently based his theories on people of this type.
Today the focus
of socialization has shifted from sex to aggression.
3. (Paragraph 27) Not necessarily including specialists
in engineering
"hard" sciences.
4. (Paragraph 28) There are many individuals of the middle
and upper
classes who resist some of these values, but usually their
resistance
is more or less covert. Such resistance appears in the
mass media only
to a very limited extent. The main thrust of propaganda
in our society
is in favor of the stated values.
The main reasons why these values have become, so to speak,
the
official values of our society is that they are useful
to the
industrial system. Violence is discouraged because it
disrupts the
functioning of the system. Racism is discouraged because
ethnic
conflicts also disrupt the system, and discrimination
wastes the
talent of minority-group members who could be useful to
the system.
Poverty must be "cured" because the underclass causes
problems for the
system and contact with the underclass lowers the moral
of the other
classes. Women are encouraged to have careers because
their talents
are useful to the system and, more importantly because
by having
regular jobs women become better integrated into the system
and tied
directly to it rather than to their families. This helps
to weaken
family solidarity. (The leaders of the system say they
want to
strengthen the family, but they really mean is that they
want the
family to serve as an effective tool for socializing children
in
accord with the needs of the system. We argue in paragraphs
51,52 that
the system cannot afford to let the family or other small-scale
social
groups be strong or autonomous.)
5. (Paragraph 42) It may be argued that the majority of
people don't
want to make their own decisions but want leaders to do
their thinking
for them. There is an element of truth in this. People
like to make
their own decisions in small matters, but making decisions
on
difficult, fundamental questions require facing up to
psychological
conflict, and most people hate psychological conflict.
Hence they tend
to lean on others in making difficult decisions. The majority
of
people are natural followers, not leaders, but they like
to have
direct personal access to their leaders and participate
to some extent
in making difficult decisions. At least to that degree
they need
autonomy.
6. (Paragraph 44) Some of the symptoms listed are similar
to those
shown by caged animals.
To explain how these symptoms arise from deprivation with
respect to
the power process:
Common-sense understanding of human nature tells one that
lack of
goals whose attainment requires effort leads to boredom
and that
boredom, long continued, often leads eventually to depression.
Failure
to obtain goals leads to frustration and lowering of self-esteem.
Frustration leads to anger, anger to aggression, often
in the form of
spouse or child abuse. It has been shown that long-continued
frustration commonly leads to depression and that depression
tends to
cause guilt, sleep disorders, eating disorders and bad
feelings about
oneself. Those who are tending toward depression seek
pleasure as an
antidote; hence insatiable hedonism and excessive sex,
with
perversions as a means of getting new kicks. Boredom too
tends to
cause excessive pleasure-seeking since, lacking other
goals, people
often use pleasure as a goal. See accompanying diagram.
The foregoing
is a simplification. Reality is more complex, and of course
deprivation with respect to the power process is not the
ONLY cause of
the symptoms described. By the way, when we mention depression
we do
not necessarily mean depression that is severe enough
to be treated by
a psychiatrist. Often only mild forms of depression are
involved. And
when we speak of goals we do not necessarily mean long-term,
thought
out goals. For many or most people through much of human
history, the
goals of a hand-to-mouth existence (merely providing oneself
and one's
family with food from day to day) have been quite sufficient.
7. (Paragraph 52) A partial exception may be made for
a few passive,
inward looking groups, such as the Amish, which have little
effect on
the wider society. Apart from these, some genuine small-scale
communities do exist in America today. For instance, youth
gangs and
"cults". Everyone regards them as dangerous, and so they
are, because
the members of these groups are loyal primarily to one
another rather
than to the system, hence the system cannot control them.
Or take the
gypsies. The gypsies commonly get away with theft and
fraud because
their loyalties are such that they can always get other
gypsies to
give testimony that "proves" their innocence. Obviously
the system
would be in serious trouble if too many people belonged
to such
groups. Some of the early-20th century Chinese thinkers
who were
concerned with modernizing China recognized the necessity
of breaking
down small-scale social groups such as the family: "(According
to Sun
Yat-sen) The Chinese people needed a new surge of patriotism,
which
would lead to a transfer of loyalty from the family to
the state. .
.(According to Li Huang) traditional attachments, particularly
to the
family had to be abandoned if nationalism were to develop
to China."
(Chester C. Tan, Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth
Century,"
page 125, page 297.)
8. (Paragraph 56) Yes, we know that 19th century America
had its
problems, and serious ones, but for the sake of breviety
we have to
express ourselves in simplified terms.
9. (Paragraph 61) We leave aside the underclass. We are
speaking of
the mainstream.
10. (Paragraph 62) Some social scientists, educators,
"mental health"
professionals and the like are doing their best to push
the social
drives into group 1 by trying to see to it that everyone
has a
satisfactory social life.
11. (Paragraphs 63, 82) Is the drive for endless material
acquisition
really an artificial creation of the advertising and marketing
industry? Certainly there is no innate human drive for
material
acquisition. There have been many cultures in which people
have
desired little material wealth beyond what was necessary
to satisfy
their basic physical needs (Australian aborigines, traditional
Mexican
peasant culture, some African cultures). On the other
hand there have
also been many pre-industrial cultures in which material
acquisition
has played an important role. So we can't claim that today's
acquisition-oriented culture is exclusively a creation
of the
advertising and marketing industry. But it is clear that
the
advertising and marketing industry has had an important
part in
creating that culture. The big corporations that spend
millions on
advertising wouldn't be spending that kind of money without
solid
proof that they were getting it back in increased sales.
One member of
FC met a sales manager a couple of years ago who was frank
enough to
tell him, "Our job is to make people buy things they don't
want and
don't need." He then described how an untrained novice
could present
people with the facts about a product, and make no sales
at all, while
a trained and experienced professional salesman would
make lots of
sales to the same people. This shows that people are manipulated
into
buying things they don't really want.
12. (Paragraph 64) The problem of purposelessness seems
to have become
less serious during the last 15 years or so, because people
now feel
less secure physically and economically than they did
earlier, and the
need for security provides them with a goal. But purposelessness
has
been replaced by frustration over the difficulty of attaining
security. We emphasize the problem of purposelessness
because the
liberals and leftists would wish to solve our social problems
by
having society guarantee everyone's security; but if that
could be
done it would only bring back the problem of purposelessness.
The real
issue is not whether society provides well or poorly for
people's
security; the trouble is that people are dependent on
the system for
their security rather than having it in their own hands.
This, by the
way, is part of the reason why some people get worked
up about the
right to bear arms; possession of a gun puts that aspect
of their
security in their own hands.
13. (Paragraph 66) Conservatives' efforts to decrease
the amount of
government regulation are of little benefit to the average
man. For
one thing, only a fraction of the regulations can be eliminated
because most regulations are necessary. For another thing,
most of the
deregulation affects business rather than the average
individual, so
that its main effect is to take power from the government
and give it
to private corporations. What this means for the average
man is that
government interference in his life is replaced by interference
from
big corporations, which may be permitted, for example,
to dump more
chemicals that get into his water supply and give him
cancer. The
conservatives are just taking the average man for a sucker,
exploiting
his resentment of Big Government to promote the power
of Big Business.
14. (Paragraph 73) When someone approves of the purpose
for which
propaganda is being used in a given case, he generally
calls it
"education" or applies to it some similar euphemism. But
propaganda is
propaganda regardless of the purpose for which it is used.
15. (Paragraph 83) We are not expressing approval or disapproval
of
the Panama invasion. We only use it to illustrate a point.
16. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under
British rule
there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of
freedom than
there were after the American Constitution went into effect,
yet there
was more personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both
before and
after the War of Independence, than there was after the
Industrial
Revolution took hold in this country. We quote from "Violence
in
America: Historical and Comparative perspectives," edited
by Hugh
Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger
Lane, pages
476-478: "The progressive heightening of standards of
property, and
with it the increasing reliance on official law enforcement
(in 19th
century America). . .were common to the whole society.
. .[T]he change
in social behavior is so long term and so widespread as
to suggest a
connection with the most fundamental of contemporary social
processes;
that of industrial urbanization itself. . ."Massachusetts
in 1835 had
a population of some 660,940, 81 percent rural, overwhelmingly
preindustrial and native born. It's citizens were used
to considerable
personal freedom. Whether teamsters, farmers or artisans,
they were
all accustomed to setting their own schedules, and the
nature of their
work made them physically dependent on each other. . .Individual
problems, sins or even crimes, were not generally cause
for wider
social concern. . ."But the impact of the twin movements
to the city
and to the factory, both just gathering force in 1835,
had a
progressive effect on personal behavior throughout the
19th century
and into the 20th. The factory demanded regularity of
behavior, a life
governed by obedience to the rhythms of clock and calendar,
the
demands of foreman and supervisor. In the city or town,
the needs of
living in closely packed neighborhoods inhibited many
actions
previously unobjectionable.
Both blue- and white-collar employees in larger establishments
were
mutually dependent on their fellows. as one man's work
fit into
another's, so one man's business was no longer his own.
"The results
of the new organization of life and work were apparent
by 1900, when
some 76 percent of the 2,805,346 inhabitants of Massachusetts
were
classified as urbanites. Much violent or irregular behavior
which had
been tolerable in a casual, independent society was no
longer
acceptable in the more formalized, cooperative atmosphere
of the later
period. . .The move to the cities had, in short, produced
a more
tractable, more socialized, more 'civilized' generation
than its
predecessors."
17. (Paragraph 117) Apologists for the system are fond
of citing cases
in which elections have been decided by one or two votes,
but such
cases are rare.
18. (Paragraph 119) "Today, in technologically advanced
lands, men
live very similar lives in spite of geographical, religious
and
political differences. The daily lives of a Christian
bank clerk in
Chicago, a Buddhist bank clerk in Tokyo, a Communist bank
clerk in
Moscow are far more alike than the life any one of them
is like that
of any single man who lived a thousand years ago. These
similarities
are the result of a common technology. . ." L. Sprague
de Camp, "The
Ancient Engineers," Ballentine edition, page 17.
The lives of the three bank clerks are not IDENTICAL.
Ideology does
have SOME effect. But all technological societies, in
order to
survive, must evolve along APPROXIMATELY the same trajectory.
19. (Paragraph 123) Just think an irresponsible genetic
engineer might
create a lot of terrorists.
20. (Paragraph 124) For a further example of undesirable
consequences
of medical progress, suppose a reliable cure for cancer
is discovered.
Even if the treatment is too expensive to be available
to any but the
elite, it will greatly reduce their incentive to stop
the escape of
carcinogens into the environment.
21. (Paragraph 128) Since many people may find paradoxical
the notion
that a large number of good things can add up to a bad
thing, we will
illustrate with an analogy. Suppose Mr. A is playing chess
with Mr. B.
Mr. C, a Grand Master, is looking over Mr. A's shoulder.
Mr. A of
course wants to win his game, so if Mr. C points out a
good move for
him to make, he is doing Mr. A a favor. But suppose now
that Mr. C
tells Mr. A how to make ALL of his moves. In each particular
instance
he does Mr. A a favor by showing him his best move, but
by making ALL
of his moves for him he spoils the game, since there is
not point in
Mr. A's playing the game at all if someone else makes
all his moves.
The situation of modern man is analogous to that of Mr.
A. The system
makes an individual's life easier for him in innumerable
ways, but in
doing so it deprives him of control over his own fate.
22. (Paragraph 137) Here we are considering only the conflict
of
values within the mainstream. For the sake of simplicity
we leave out
of the picture "outsider" values like the idea that wild
nature is
more important than human economic welfare.
23. (Paragraph 137) Self-interest is not necessarily MATERIAL
self-interest. It can consist in fulfillment of some psychological
need, for example, by promoting one's own ideology or
religion.
24. (Paragraph 139) A qualification: It is in the interest
of the
system to permit a certain prescribed degree of freedom
in some areas.
For example, economic freedom (with suitable limitations
and
restraints) has proved effective in promoting economic
growth. But
only planned, circumscribed, limited freedom is in the
interest of the
system. The individual must always be kept on a leash,
even if the
leash is sometimes long( see paragraphs 94, 97).
25. (Paragraph 143) We don't mean to suggest that the
efficiency or
the potential for survival of a society has always been
inversely
proportional to the amount of pressure or discomfort to
which the
society subjects people. That is certainly not the case.
There is good
reason to believe that many primitive societies subjected
people to
less pressure than the European society did, but European
society
proved far more efficient than any primitive society and
always won
out in conflicts with such societies because of the advantages
conferred by technology.
26. (Paragraph 147) If you think that more effective law
enforcement
is unequivocally good because it suppresses crime, then
remember that
crime as defined by the system is not necessarily what
YOU would call
crime. Today, smoking marijuana is a "crime," and, in
some places in
the U.S.., so is possession of ANY firearm, registered
or not, may be
made a crime, and the same thing may happen with disapproved
methods
of child-rearing, such as spanking. In some countries,
expression of
dissident political opinions is a crime, and there is
no certainty
that this will never happen in the U.S., since no constitution
or
political system lasts forever.
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.
27. (Paragraph 151) To be sure, past societies have had
means of
influencing behavior, but these have been primitive and
of low
effectiveness compared with the technological means that
are now being
developed.
28. (Paragraph 152) However, some psychologists have publicly
expressed opinions indicating their contempt for human
freedom. And
the mathematician Claude Shannon was quoted in Omni (August
1987) as
saying, "I visualize a time when we will be to robots
what dogs are to
humans, and I'm rooting for the machines."
29. (Paragraph 154) This is no science fiction! After
writing
paragraph 154 we came across an article in Scientific
American
according to which scientists are actively developing
techniques for
identifying possible future criminals and for treating
them by a
combination of biological and psychological means. Some
scientists
advocate compulsory application of the treatment, which
may be
available in the near future. (See "Seeking the Criminal
Element", by
W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American, March 1995.) Maybe
you think this
is OK because the treatment would be applied to those
who might become
drunk drivers (they endanger human life too), then perhaps
to peel who
spank their children, then to environmentalists who sabotage
logging
equipment, eventually to anyone whose behavior is inconvenient
for the
system.
30. (Paragraph 184) A further advantage of nature as a
counter-ideal
to technology is that, in many people, nature inspires
the kind of
reverence that is associated with religion, so that nature
could
perhaps be idealized on a religious basis. It is true
that in many
societies religion has served as a support and justification
for the
established order, but it is also true that religion has
often
provided a basis for rebellion. Thus it may be useful
to introduce a
religious element into the rebellion against technology,
the more so
because Western society today has no strong religious
foundation.
Religion, nowadays either is used as cheap and transparent
support for
narrow, short-sighted selfishness (some conservatives
use it this
way), or even is cynically exploited to make easy money
(by many
evangelists), or has degenerated into crude irrationalism
(fundamentalist Protestant sects, "cults"), or is simply
stagnant
(Catholicism, main-line Protestantism). The nearest thing
to a strong,
widespread, dynamic religion that the West has seen in
recent times
has been the quasi-religion of leftism, but leftism today
is
fragmented and has no clear, unified inspiring goal.
Thus there is a religious vaccuum in our society that
could perhaps be
filled by a religion focused on nature in opposition to
technology.
But it would be a mistake to try to concoct artificially
a religion to
fill this role. Such an invented religion would probably
be a failure.
Take the "Gaia" religion for example. Do its adherents
REALLY believe
in it or are they just play-acting? If they are just play-acting
their
religion will be a flop in the end.
It is probably best not to try to introduce religion into
the conflict
of nature vs. technology unless you REALLY believe in
that religion
yourself and find that it arouses a deep, strong, genuine
response in
many other people.
31. (Paragraph 189) Assuming that such a final push occurs.
Conceivably the industrial system might be eliminated
in a somewhat
gradual or piecemeal fashion. (see paragraphs 4, 167 and
Note 4).
32. (Paragraph 193) It is even conceivable (remotely)
that the
revolution might consist only of a massive change of attitudes
toward
technology resulting in a relatively gradual and painless
disintegration of the industrial system. But if this happens
we'll be
very lucky. It's far more probably that the transition
to a
nontechnological society will be very difficult and full
of conflicts
and disasters.
33. (Paragraph 195) The economic and technological structure
of a
society are far more important than its political structure
in
determining the way the average man lives (see paragraphs
95, 119 and
Notes 16, 18).
34. (Paragraph 215) This statement refers to our particular
brand of
anarchism. A wide variety of social attitudes have been
called
"anarchist," and it may be that many who consider themselves
anarchists would not accept our statement of paragraph
215. It should
be noted, by the way, that there is a nonviolent anarchist
movement
whose members probably would not accept FC as anarchist
and certainly
would not approve of FC's violent methods.
35. (Paragraph 219) Many leftists are motivated also by
hostility, but
the hostility probably results in part from a frustrated
need for
power.
36. (Paragraph 229) It is important to understand that
we mean someone
who sympathizes with these MOVEMENTS as they exist today
in our
society. One who believes that women, homosexuals, etc.,
should have
equal rights is not necessarily a leftist. The feminist,
gay rights,
etc., movements that exist in our society have the particular
ideological tone that characterizes leftism, and if one
believes, for
example, that women should have equal rights it does not
necessarily
follow that one must sympathize with the feminist movement
as it
exists today.
If copyright problems make it impossible for this long
quotation to be
printed, then please change Note 16 to read as follows:
16. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under
British rule
there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of
freedom than
there were after the American Constitution went into effect,
yet there
was more personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both
before and
after the War of Independence, than there was after the
Industrial
Revolution took hold in this country. In "Violence in
America:
Historical and Comparative Perspectives," edited by Hugh
Davis Graham
and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger Lane, it is explained
how in
pre-industrial America the average person had greater
independence and
autonomy than he does today, and how the process of industrialization
necessarily led to the restriction of personal freedom.
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