Ted Kaczynski: The Misinterpreted Maniac

 The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.  These are the first (and most famous) words from the Unabomber's manifesto.  Theodore Kaczynski, who was writing under the pseudonym "FC" or "Freedom Club" demanded that his work be published in The Washington Post and The New York Times.  But before we go through his manifesto, let me first explain to you who Ted Kaczynski is, what led up to his bombings, the aftermath and the misinterpreted legacy he left behind.  I will try and keep this blog entry as factual as possible, but if you want to form your own opinion about Ted first, feel free to research on your own or to go watch Wendigoon's video about him, his video was my inspiration in creating this blog entry.  So without further ado, let me begin. 

Ted's childhood

Ted was born on May 22, 1942 and his early childhood was quite normal.  He was also exceptionally talented, having an IQ of 167.  But he was also socially challenged, yet he fit in well with his peers in the lower grades.  Ted was administerd and made to skip the 4th grade, which he felt made his social life harder as he didn't know how to socialize with the older kids.  In highschool Ted still performed incredibly well, so well indeed that he got to go to Harvard at 16 years old.  This is where the problems started. 

University life for Ted

While at Harvard, Ted was labelled as a mathematics prodigy.  Just to explain to you how smart Ted was, one of his former peers said this about him: "It's just an opinion - but Ted was brilliant [...] He could have become one of the greatest mathematicians in the country."   While there, Ted took part in a psychological experiment at Harvard that was conducted by Henry Murray.  In this experiment, the candidates were asked to present topics or opinions they felt strongly about, just to be insulted about them for the rest of the session.  And remember, this wasn't just once-off, Ted endured 200 hours of this.  Let me first take a detour and explain to you who Henry Murray was. 

 Henry Murrray was the assistant director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic.  During WW2, he left Harvard and worked in the OSS as a lieutenant colonel.  In 1959, he started his experiments at Harvard and it is widely believed that his experiments were apart of MK Ultra.  For those who don't know, MK Ultra was an illegal CIA experiment where people were experimented on to see if brainwashing and other forms of psychological warfare was possible to break people and get information out of them.  Some methods that was used includes but are not limited to psychoactive drugs like LSD, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation and verbal and sexual abuse.  Now why do I bring this up you may ask?  Well, the OSS was the precurser to the CIA and it is widely believed that Ted Kaczynski was a victim of MK Ultra.  

In 1962, Ted graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics.  He then started to write mathematical papers (specializing in complex analysis, specifically geometric function theory) and he also gave lectures at different universities.  His students usually said that he wasn't like a good lecturer but his colleages praised his hard-working attitude.  He also won the Sumner B. Myers Prize for Michigan's best mathematical dissertation in 1967.  Now, around this time Ted started to get strong fantasies about being transgender and he felt like he wanted to transition.  While he was waiting at the psychiatrist's office he said that he underwent a "major turning point" in his life.  He later wrote in his journal that he felt extreme hatred towards the psychiatrist and that he wanted to kill them.  On the 30th of June, 1969, Ted resigned from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Cabin Life and Nature 

In 1971, Ted moved to a small cabin outside of Lincoln, Montana.  There, Ted lived without running water or electricity and did odd jobs to support himself financially.  His initial plan was to just live self sufficiently and volunteer at the library where he went often.  There, Ted read various books, his favourite being The Technological Society.  At the cabin, Ted started to love nature.  He wrote that The Technological Society wrote exactly what he thought. Starting in 1975, Ted started to commit small acts of sabotage like arson and booby-trapping a developement close to his cabin.  It is also confirmed that Ted poisoned some of his neighbor's dogs.  On May 25, 1978 Ted planted his first bomb at the Northwestern University in Illinois, the victim being the universities police officer.  Luckily, he only got minor cuts and bruises from the explosion.  Something you need to keep in mind is that Ted wasn't great at creating bombs.  From the 15 bombs he planted, two was defused and three was lethal.  In this blog post I will only be focusing on the three lethal ones.  

The bombings and eventual arrest of the Unabomber

On December 11, 1985 a bomb that Ted planted went off at a computer shop in California, killing the owner Hugh Scrutton.  This was the first bomb that Ted planted that was lethal to the recipient.  The bombs were made to look like a package, so that the unsuspecting victims would open it.  On December 10, 1994 the second of Ted's bombs that resulted in death went off in New Jersey, killing the advertising director at Burson-Marsteller, Thomas J. Mosser.  Lastly, on April 24, 1995 the last bomb went off in Sacramento California, killing the president of the California Forestry Association, Gilbert Brent Murray.  This was also his last bomb before being caught.  The way Ted was found was through his brother David who saw the similarities between the Unabomber's manifesto (which was published on September 19, 1995) and Ted's way of writing.  So, he left an anonymous tip to the FBI about Ted's whereabouts.  This led to Ted's eventual arrest on April 3, 1996.  Ted was charged with 10 counts of illegally transporting, mailing and using bombs.  This resulted in him getting a life sentence without the possibility of parole.  Before sentencing him, he wanted to try the insanity plea, but after his lawyer advised against it Ted unsuccessfully tried to kill himself.  While in prison Ted befriended Timothy McVeigh, who commited the Oklahoma City bombing until his execution in 2001 and Ramzi Yousef, who was the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.  How ironic. 

The Unabomber's Manifesto

In this section I will just be skimming through Ted's main ideas and my opinion of them.  In the beginning Ted talks about how technology has resulted in people doing meaningless unfulfilling activities that he calls "surrogate activities".  Some examples he gives is scientific work, political activism and consuming entertainment.  He wrote that these activities will cause people feel power and make people hungry for more power.  He also wrote that technology could still be destroyed and we still have time to "save" ourselves if we return to a more primitive state of being.  Ted also wrote that technological society would cause people to lose freedom and before the system has complete control over humans, we still had time to stop it.  Ted then writes about modern leftism and how it has started to create hypersensitivity in people.  I think this is probably a good point to state that my blog is not political and I am only summarizing what Ted wrote.  He also wrote that leftism is in the long run "inconsistent with wild nature".  Ted critiqued the right too, saying that they are too trapped in man-made traditions that won't help his cause.  He also wrote that they too welcome technology with open arms.  He then also writes about how oversocialization isn't good for people (says the guy who lived in a cabin in the woods, go figure).  

In the manifesto Ted puts surrogate activities into three groups, the first being easily accessable, the second being those that can be satisfied with effort and the third group, those that can't be achieved no matter the effort.  He later writes about how the primitive man only has to worry about natural circumstances while the modern man worries about a lot of different things that are out of their hands, like wars and the threat of nuclear fallout.  Just to reiterate the point again, I'm only skimming through his manifesto.  If you want to read it for yourself, it is free online.  Moving on, Ted also writes that the bad of technology can't be separated from the good.  Eventhough Ted has stated that he is against propaganda, he wrote that it can be used for good to, like to discourage racism and child abuse.  One thing Ted wrote about that is slowly becoming true is that humans will not be able to be content or be able to relax without technology or that without technology people may become fidgety or irritated.  Ted later writes that "technophiles" thinks that they can solve anything with technology and that all problems will be easier to tackle with it.  He theorized that their attempt to solve all the problems with technology would only cause more.  

Ted also wrote his predictions of the future, that people will become increasingly more dependant on technology and machines.  He also wrote that technology will start to take over small tasks but over time take over bigger and bigger tasks until humans don't have to do anything anymore.  He goes on to  state that modern man has too much control over nature and that it is wrong.  Lastly, he writes that people who aren't victims usually likes to portray themselves as such.  He uses the example of 19th century leftism and early Christianity (eventhough they were killed and extremely persecuted back then). 

Ted's legacy

You don't have to search far on the internet to find people online who idolizes Ted and his actions.  People sometimes even call him "Uncle Ted" online.  You can most easily spot it in videos that criticizes technology or modern society with this image attached.  

A lot of people might read Ted's manifesto and understand his point of view and may even sympathize with him, but sometimes people forget that Ted killed 3 innocent people for what, selling computers?  Doing their jobs?  Because I can't see how killing an innocent computer shop owner could help stop "technological society" from progressing.  Ted is the handbook definition of right (kind of) idea, wrong method.  His views has inspired a new community online (how ironic) of people who want to, or are actively, living a more primitive lifestyle.  

In 2021 a film was released about Ted's life called "Ted K" and it follows his life post-university up to his arrest, starring Sharlto Copley.  It's a great movie if you found this blog post interesting.  

In conclusion...

Ted was a genius.  He was an extremely smart mathematician and could have become one of the greats in maths if he wanted to.  But instead he threw his life away for what exactly?  A cabin in the woods to build bombs in?  I think Ted was also right in some of his opinions on technology and how it would influence the corporate world, but I still don't think he was a "tortured genius" who wanted to better the world.  I believe that Ted hated humans and society, so he went to nature.  It's not like he loved nature because it's nature, I think he loved it because he hated modern society.  He just wanted a reason to hurt people and he found it.  

I myself dislike climate change a lot and I think that we as a society should try and protect the earth, but I wouldn't kill an innocent computer shop owner because of it.  Ted has left behind a legacy filled with misconceptions about him and his ideas and I hope this blog post helped to clear up some of those.

Ted, in my opinion, was a hateful person with some good ideas.  Some things he said I can agree with, like protecting nature and wanting it to not get hurt more than it already was, yet I can't agree with him killing 3 innocent people and injuring 12 more.  He is and will always stay an interesting character for discussion when talking about activism and protecting the earth.  I feel like this is the most appropriate spot to inform you that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, got cancer in March of 2023 and commited suicide by hanging on 10 June, 2023.  

This blog post took a lot of research and time to complete, so I hope you enjoyed reading it.  If you did enjoy it, maybe consider following my blog as you will be notified when I upload a new post (and it will make me happy).  Until next time, goodbye!