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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26324 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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The line of reasoning enabled by putting forth the Unabomber is not only intellectually lazy but also grossly uninformed. To truly understand the arguments against industrial civilization, it's imperative to read Jacques Ellul (as well as Weil, Postman, McLuhan, even Heidegger, etc.), whose work provides a foundational lens for critiquing technology's role in society that far predates and is ultimately superior to Kaczynski's infamous manifesto.

Wut? Have you even read "Industrial Society and Its Future"? It's an absolute masterpiece of philosophy. You don't even seem to disagree with his thesis. This is like if someone told me, "I did not care for The Godfather," and then upon further examination they declared that they love Italian Mafia movies, but just hate The Godfather in particular. Huh?

Every open-minded educated person knows the 14 words, "the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." Do they remember these words because some recluse killed a few people with mail bombs in the 80s? No, they remember them because they are an authentic summary of a 35,000 word magnum opus.

I have not read Ellul's "The Technological Society," but I did scroll through a PDF I found online. It gives every indication of being an overlong dull drag. Each and every page of Kaczynski drips with insight. His truth bombs are more powerful than his potassium chlorate ever could have been.

Every open-minded educated person knows the 14 words, "the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." Do they remember these words because some recluse killed a few people with mail bombs in the 80s?

Yes, I broadly think this is why they remember them. I mean - how much else of the manifesto do they remember? Maybe I'm arguing too much from my own state of mind here, but I'd wager - nothing. That one sentence is punchy without saying too much that one may disagree with in the specifics, it's universally recognizeable, and most importantly, it's spicy, in no small part because of its association with terror. This all combines to make it a memetic winner.

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