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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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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

What? No. He thought the tech made people unhappy and destroyed the planet, and leftism to him is just an example of psychological suffering. "What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type".

I think his argument was a bit more nuanced than that, but it's been a long time since I read his manifesto. His issue as I understood it, was that modern technology acted as an artificial surrogate that distorted 'healthy' and normal human behavior. I think you could make a compelling argument for that, even today. Jaron Lanier's (who's basically a techie Ted Kaczynski without a life sentence) made a fairly strong case for the dangers of social media. I've increasingly come aboard to that same conclusion.

WRT leftism, I think he was striking at the ideological foundations that sit at the core of the philosophy. Some interesting studies in political psychology, also indicate that our sociopolitical and philosophical viewpoints are inextricably linked to our early childhood experience and psychology.