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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38844 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Ted Kaczynski - the Unabomber - is dead.

I always found it interesting how, when I first learned about this guy, he was mostly portrayed as an ecoterrorist. The spectre of ecoterrorism and animal rights terrorism actually probably loomed larger in the 90s and early 00s than now, which might explain this. There was even a popular quiz with Unabomber and Al Gore quotes, purporting to demonstrate that the former American VP was just as extreme as the Unabomber.

However, if one actually reads the manifesto, or his other work, it soon becomes fairly clear the ecological aspect was not the central point of his critique, and didn't actually feature in it too much at all. He clearly felt some sort of a connection to the anarchoprimitivist and eco-anarchist movements, but mostly in the way of believing they might be allies and converts to his cause, not in the way of actually being one.

No, Ted K.'s true problem with the technological society was that it made people leftist. Since this is immediately obvious when one actually reads the manifesto in even a cursory way, and since during the last decades, parts of the extremely online right seem to have adopted "Uncle Ted" as some sort of a prophet, I don't suppose this actually needs much demonstrating, but to quote it:

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.

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 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.)

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 here 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 centuries.

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.

Not that this criticism is INVALID, of course, as such - I just always found it interesting how, despite the fact that Ted K. got what he wanted and his manifesto was printed very visibly in newspapers - the actual contents then went pretty much ignored until recently, and even now are acknowledged mainly in small and fringe circles. I don't suppose his death will ameliorate that situation.

For me, he's a classic example of someone for whom it was a ridiculous, comical injustice and indictment of modern sensibilities that he wasn't executed within a few weeks of being captured. Despite my sympathies for his political points, the murder and maiming and completely innocent people should always be met with the swift application of the death penalty in the public square. That such a man died peacefully, as an octogenarian, but only after being caged for decades is a sick injustice that seems ironically fitting with his critique of hypersocialization.

You are ok with innocent people occasionally getting executed by the government? That is what happens with capital punishment.

Not that necessarily that is my core emotional reason to dislike the death penalty, mind you. I find the whole idea of the government having the right to execute people to be grotesque.

I personally am not, but I'd argue that at least the false prison sentence has a chance of being proven as such and ended early. You can't really take back a false execution.

You can't take back decades of false imprisonment, either. No amount of money can make up for that.

But being alive and exonerated instead of going to the grave with the pain of knowing it was false seems like a benefit. Sure you don’t get those years back but at least you know your name was cleared.

Agreed, which is why I tend to be against both capital punishment and long prison sentences. I'd really like to see the US move away from a retributive model of justice to something more restorative. Less prison, more wage garnishment, and community service.

Well honestly, I don't know what this would do for the justice system as a whole, or how it would affect the rate of conviction. But what if you could insert a legal incentive, which says every wrongful conviction overturned within a category of some criminal tier (e.g. falsely convicted of murder, not petty crime for instance), would result in a $1 million dollar payout for every year they spent in prison? Or a substantial, life-long government pension?

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