WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 -- Here are excerpts from the Unabomber manifesto titled 'Industrial Society and its Future.' The 35,000-word document was published Tuesday by The Washington Post: NEWLN:INTRODUCTION
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in 'advanced' countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation... We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can't predict any of that...This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society. SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small- scale communities such as the extended family, the village of the tribe. .. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values. TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE ASPIRATION OF FREEDOM
...It appears that during the next several decades the industrial- technological system will be undergoing severe stress due to economic and environmental problems, and especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties). We hope that the stresses through which the system is likely to pass will cause it to break down, or at least will weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. If such a revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful than technology. STRATEGY
The revolution (against technology and industrialization) must be international and worldwide. It cannot be carried out on a nation-by- nation basis...It will be easier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if the world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any one major nation will lead to its breakdown in all industrialized nations. THE DANGER OF LEFTISM
...A movement that exalts nature and opposed technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology...
