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           1Ideology, Violence, and Psychopathology: The Case of the “Unabomber” 
                           James Phillips
                           Introduction
          For those of you not familiar with the case, Theodore Kaczynski is an American citizen
      who terrorized the country for 17 years by sending mail bombs in a personal campaign against
      modern technology.  In his isolated cabin in the mountains of Montana Kaczynski had developed
      an extended critique of modern technology, and beginning in 1978 he began a career of violence
      toward individuals whom he identified as representative of the technological society. Finally, in
      1995, after wounding and murdering several individuals with mail bombs, and establishing his
      reputation as their perpetrator, referred to by the media as the “Unabomber,” he wrote a letter to
      the New York Times and Washington Post, the two most prominent newspapers in the country,
      declaring that he would desist in his terrorist activities if they would agree to publish his text,
      “Industrial Society and its Future,” also known as the “Manifesto,” a 35,000 word critique of
      modern technology. The two newspapers agreed to the terms and published the document.
          On April 3, 1996 Kaczynski was arrested at his cabin near Lincoln, Montana. The FBI
      were led to Kaczynski by his brother, David, who recognized his brother's authorship in the
      Manifesto published in the two newspapers. David Kaczynski made the decision to turn in his
      brother in the recognition that Ted was probably responsible for several murders and that more
      would probably follow if he remained free. The arrest brought an end to the 17-year career of the
      then 55 year old Unabomber, which began with a first mail bomb in 1978 and culminated on
      January 22, 1998 with a guilty plea to 13 federal bombing offenses resulting in the deaths of
      three men and serious injuries to several others. 
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          Theodore Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” offers a singularly vivid and provocative case
      study in the relationship between political extremism and psychopathology. Kaczynski is
      singular both in the grey area he occupies between ideology and psychopathology, on the one
      hand, and in the extraordinarily extensive documentation that is available through his own
      writings, 22,000 pages,  and the record of the legal process that ended in his conviction, on the
      other. 
                        Critique of Technology
          In this presentation I begin with a brief summary of Kaczynski’s ‘Manifesto’, and I do
      that for a specific purpose - to establish from the outset Kaczynski’s credentials as an articulate,
      thoughtful critic of contemporary industrial society. In his critique he joins the company of other
      analysts of modern technology such as Jacques Ellul, whom Kaczynski has read and
      incorporated into his own document. I will not attempt to compare the quality of Kaczynski’s
      work with that of better known critics of technology. I only want establish that his critique is
      carefully reasoned, stands on its own merits,  and has proved prescient in many ways. The point
      of presenting his work at the outset is that, were I to begin with his biography and save his
      critique for later, you would be inclined to dismiss it out of hand as the work of a deranged
      crank. 
          While I will focus in this summary on the ‘Manifesto’ of 2005, Kaczynski had long been
      interested in the critique of technology and had written a shorter, equally articulate essay in
      1971, well before he began his career of political terrorism. The 1971 document begins: “In these
      pages it is argued that continued scientific and technical progress will inevitably result in the
      extinction of individual liberty. I use the word ‘inevitably’ in the following sense: One might -
      possibly - imagine certain conditions of society in which liberty could coexist with technology,
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      but these conditions do not actually exist, and we know of no way to bring them about, so that, in
      practice, scientific progress will result in the extinction of individual liberty. Toward the end of
      this essay we propose what appears to be the only thing that bears any resemblance to a practical
      remedy for this situation.” Already in this early document we see that for Kaczynski the core
      issue is the relationship of modern technology and personal freedom. In the sections dealing with
      personal history we will see how that theme plays out both in his personal life and in his court
      process. 
          In the 1995 Manifesto, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” Kaczynski argues that modern
      industrial, technological civilization alienates us from the naturally evolved process of human
      labor and satisfaction that he calls "the power process."   Most people need some degree of
      autonomy in setting their own goals and achieving them through their own efforts, he argues,
      though the requirements of autonomy may be satisfied through participation in a small group that
      collaborates in attaining goals established by mutual consent.  But if people work under rigid
      orders handed down from above or if the group that makes collective decisions is so large that
      the role of each individual is insignificant, that need for autonomy will not be satisfied.
      Kaczynski argues that people acquire self-confidence, self-esteem and a sense of power through
      this process of setting and attaining their own goals and when that process is aborted, the
      consequences range from demoralization and loss of self-esteem to depression and anxiety and to
      child abuse and eating and sleep disorders: in short, most of the ills that psychiatrists regularly
      treat in our society. 
          Such problems may also occur in simpler societies, but not on the massive scale
      characteristic of modern industrial society, which "requires people to live under conditions
      radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways
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      that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under
      earlier conditions."  The density of modern urban populations since the industrial revolution
      and the rapidity of social change consequent upon the pace of technological innovation have
      created a world for which evolution did not prepare us: " For primitive societies, the natural
      world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and a sense of
      security. In the modern world human society  dominates nature rather than the other way
      around, and modern society changes rapidly due to technological change that there is no
      stable framework."  
          Kaczynski contends that the tension between our natural capacities and needs and this
      modern world are unavoidable features of this system: 
           The system has to force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from
           the natural pattern of human behavior....[M]odern 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. Granted, some restrictions on
           our freedom could be eliminated, but generally speaking, the regulation of our lives by