ISAIF Commentary - The power process

"33. (fr) Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the “power process.” This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clearcut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).

34. (fr) Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power."

Historical evidence proves this point very well. Pretty much every human society has had many examples of people (mostly located within the higher classes) who could obtain things effortlessly and ended up decaying in a condition of restlessness as a result. Think about the use of drugs for example: it's very common among rich people and youngsters, the two categories most accustomed to obtaining things effortlessly. When interrogated about their use of drugs, many youngsters answered they were doing them out of boredom. In a very similar way rich people have shown (to a quite higher degree compared to normal people) examples of self destructive behaviour involving the use of drugs which often resulted in death by overdose. The very same wish to escape from reality is in my opinion the underlying cause in both cases.

"35. (fr) Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
 
36. (fr) Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

37. (fr) Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals."

Since things in our society are mostly obtained effortless or rather not obtained at all, individuals will most of the time alternate moments of frustration to moments of boredom as a result of their reactions to the disruptment of the power process. This condition (which by the way had already been theorized by philosophers such as Schopenhauer)  will be analyzed more in depth later.

ISAIF Commentary - Oversocialization (part 2)

"29. (fr) Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion aginst it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black “underclass” they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system,make hima business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects most leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers “responsible,” they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial- technological system. The system couldn’t care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a “responsible” parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values."

This passage is crucial in understanding the kind of rebellion the author is advocating and why leftist movements fail in influencing the system with their own rebellions. Rebellions that focus on culture, governements, politics, moral values, etc. will ultimately pose no threat to the system. The technological base of our society is what mostly determines its rules, values and course of evolution. As a result, focusing on moral values and such will be as ineffective as trying to hit a boxer's hands instead of aiming for his head.


"30. (fr) We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of “liberation.” In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.


31. (fr) We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumbnail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.


32. (fr) The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth."

Rightwing liberals surely do have a point in criticizing the excessive control society is trying to exert over the individuals' private sphere. It's actually very similar to the church's tentatives of controlling the individuals' life and morality during the Middle Ages. With the difference this time we're even told it's all done for our own good.

ISAIF Commentary - Oversocialization (part 1)

24. (fr) Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. (fr) The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a nonmoral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.

I think I personally experienced oversocialization issues when I wasn't an atheist yet. At the very least I remember continously deceiving myself and trying to look for moral explanations of my own nonmoral behaviour. That's also where my personal hate for religions comes from.

26. (fr) Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialize person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot
do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human being inflict on one another.

.....I just can't help but agree with the last line.....

27. (fr) We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most leftwing segment.

28. (fr) The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy
by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

I believe oversocialized individuals do not exclusively belong to the leftwing segment however I agree that those guilty of the described behaviour (taking an accepted moral principle as their own and accusing society of violating it) most of the time do.

ISAIF Commentary - Feelings of inferiority (part 2)

"16. (fr) Words like “self-confidence”, “self-reliance”, “initiative”, “enterprise”, “optimism”, etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is antiindividualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve every one’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagohistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser."

While this traits might apply to the leftists I do not feel they necessarily belong to the liberals as well. Liberal ideology itself was historically born as a movement that enphasized on the individuals' and their capacity to economically produce and take care of themselves, strongly rejecting any influence from governments over the individuals' private sphere. I believe the reason the author considers them involved too is possibly because of liberals and leftists being somewhat close in the American political spectrum, but apart from this specific case my opinion remains the same: liberalism and leftism are radically different ideologies with a radical different history behind them.

"17. (fr) Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment."

I'm not an art expert but this kinda sounds like an exaggeration to me. Art is ambiguous and can be interpreted in very different ways too. The author could have proven his point without bringing art into this, which simply overcomplicates things.

"18. (fr) Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly."

Putting the blame on society becomes expecially important for the leftist if he himself hasn't been able to overcome the specific weakness he's now trying to blame on society. Apart from this, one should be very careful when attacking relativism and relativity of thought. Fortunately the author expressed himself clearly enough in saying he's attacking not the idea itself but rather the reasons for the leftists to support it. On a side note, I also believe leftists and people who hold a grudge on western culture in general have a tendence to overpraise exotic cultures and beliefs as a way of promoting an alternative to our model. This process has become more frequent since the fall of Soviet Union which used to be the main alternative model the leftists were looking up to.

"19. (fr) The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

20. (fr) Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.


21. (fr) Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral
principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at
least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred."

Not much needs to be said here. I've familiarized myself well enough with a leftist movement to say the hostility trait tends to be very true. The one about masochistic tactics not quite as much, but I can still see what the unabomber was pointing out.

"22. (fr) If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss."

Or rather to provide themselves with ways to blame society for failures/problems that belong to the individuals.


"23. (fr) We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism."

ISAIF Commentary - Feelings of inferiority (part 1)

"10. (fr) By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. (fr) When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities and about anything that is said concerning minorities. The terms “negro”, “oriental”, “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy”, “dude” or “fellow”. The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights activists have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion”. Leftish anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word “primitive” by “nonliterate”. They may seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to ours. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hyper sensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)"

I'll be damned if the Unabomber didn't hit the nail on the head. The whole political correctness thing has definitely got out of hand. I bet everyone will have examples of this from everyday's life, I myself am a student of anthropology and can confirm that 1) anthropology is the sector of society with the highest concentration of leftists and 2) those people are hyper sensitives, expecially the teachers. Some of them will go as far as not to make you pass during exams unless you refrain from using words such as primitive, indians, etc.

"12. (fr) Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghettodweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual white males from middle- to upper-middle-class families."

While this part is mostly right, I believe there's also a lot of people oversensitive about the "politically incorrect" topic who belong to oppressed groups but aren't being oppressed themselves as individuals. Some gay rights activists who are gay themselves but aren't being bullied, for example.

"13. (fr) Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)

14. (fr) Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

15. (fr) Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hateWestern civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful."

The interaction between points 15 (leftist hatred towards what is successful) and 14 (feminist activity and fear of women not being as strong and capable as men) resulted in a full scale war against male role models in the name of political correctness which ended with women ultimately and silently taking over education in our society. This is exactly what this famous fight club quote is pointing at:
 
"We are a generation of men raised by women, I wonder if another woman is what we need" -Tyler Durden

ISAIF Commentary - The psychology of modern leftism

"6. (fr) 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."

Such a direct attack on the left political wing could look like a wrong move from a revolutionary wanna be, considering the political opposition (hence opposition to the modern system as well) usually draws from this sector of politics. The fact is (as Unabomber himself will later specify) that many leftists consider themselves revolutionaries but in the end turn out to be more under control of the system than it looks like. I liked a lot the "Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society" part: while nobody seems to be able to explain the reasons, it seems like that "something went wrong with the world" feeling has eventually gotten into everyone.

7. (fr) 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.)

8. (fr) 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.

9. (fr) 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.

The concept of leftist is strongly ambiguous and thereby shouldn't have been brought into this in first place (in my opinion, at least). The author seemed to have no choice: while what he's trying to describe is mostly a mere psychological type, choosing any word other than "leftist" to identify the subject carrying it wouldn't have conveyed the same connection to such a specific political sector. This connection is crucial as what the author will do from now on is showing how this specific psychological type affected the leftist movements through out modern history. Still, Unabomber was smart enough to leave out the historical leftist movements of 19th and early 20th centuries thus preventing even further confusion and ambiguity (his points might still apply to those movements as well, but since they belong to a different context from the computer age taking them into consideration would result in straying off the main topic).

ISAIF Commentary - Introduction

The first chapter is very linear, clear and relatively short so it doesn't need to be broken down in parts.

"1. (fr) The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the Iife-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. It will certainly subject human being to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries."

"2. (fr) The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological sutfering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy."

"3. (fr) If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later."

"4. (fr) 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. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. 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."
 

The author speculates a lot in points 2, 3 and 4 but I find his outcome prediction to be roughly correct. Even without taking possible revolutions into account, there isn't really any other option for mankind's future after all: whatever the case, our society will either go on and keep growing or collapse at some point for some reason. What's left unclear is the nature of the pathologic relationship between individuals and society based on which human suffering will keep increasing as society keeps growing. This is just the introduction though, therefore more light will be shed on this points later on. As by now, what the author cares to outline is that if society were to collapse, the sooner this happens the less individuals would suffer. A remarkable point is the one stating a revolution against the system would not imply overthrowing a government but rather a lifestyle, in a much similar way to what happens in the movie fight club (in fact I mentioned something about it in my recent review).

"5. (fr) In this article we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important."

Needless to say, the areas in which the author has something new to say are of course the parts where the manifesto's originality resides. Without those it wouldn't be as interesting to read and wouldn't differ that much from other radical environmentalist manifestos.

Controversial Turn: Industrial Society and its future commentary project begins!

The reflections I've been stuck into during the last few days, mostly revolving around human society and its future (they also led me to make the earlier post about overpopulation) brought me back to the time when I stumbled upon a very controversial essay which ended up changing most of my ideas and views about humanity. For a long time I've been unsure wheter to speak about it or not but after giving it some thought I figured out I definitely should on this blog as many of my ideas are actually inspired by it as well as a lot of my posts' content. This consists however in a very controversial turn for this blog because the essay I'm speaking of is Industrial Society and its future by Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber's manifesto. Yes, we're dealing with one of the most famous American terrorists and one of FBI's most wanted in the 80s who will moreover find on this blog a place to have his ideas published.

The fact is, no matter how controversial the author's nature and no matter how much I can despise terrorism and murder, I was surprised since the very beginning. Without justifying the author's actions I thereby set my prejudices aside and kept reading on. In the end the manifesto struck me with some very unique observations, concepts and conclusions as well as the general sociopolitical ideal behind it. Many initially unexplainable/unclear factors of human behavior became clearer to me after reading Industrial Society and its future which brought me to the need of sharing it, along with my personal thoughts/comments, with the others. Willing or not.

Since the manifesto is pretty long, I'll break it down into parts and comment on each one separately. This should also make it easier to read for the viewers. Unfortunately, this also comes with 2 consequences: the first one is that while busy on the manifesto it is likely I won't have much time for posts about other topics anymore, hence the blog's attention will remain almost completely focused on the manifesto for some time. The second one is that comments will be disabled for the whole duration of the project. Sorry guys, I know it's a low blow. It's just that I've seen way too many discussions turn into useless flame wars just because of the author's radical nature. You may or may not agree with this, but I've made my decision.

It is a good day to die..

..however I guess I'll just die (pretty much like Pierce Brosnan) another day: my flu is finally almost over. My days of illness gave me the time to reflect on another topic related to mankind, directly connected to the title: Death. More specifically, fear of death and value of life. First of all don't be alarmed: my condition has never ever been even close to become life threatening. I was however forced to use antibiotics to give it the final blow. And that's the moment I started thinking: what if those weren't available? After all it's not like they've always been around and for some people they unfortunately still are impossible to obtain. I tried to imagine myself in the position of a person unable to treat his illness properly, thereby possibly forced to eventually face death. While the first feeling that came to my mind was of course fear of death itself, the next thing occurring to me was that should I die, I wouldn't be able to do any of the things I regularly do anymore. The interesting thing is that this came to me before the more common concerns about the undone things of the future (dreams yet to be fullfilled and such). Apparently insignificant things such as eating, taking a nap, going for a walk, listening to a song got the priority instead. Things we'd usually just ignore and consider trivial routine, expecially compared to our life-long dreams. Now, this brings in 2 intriguing elements: first, the things we tend to disregard as trivial outnumber the others and second, the distance of death tends to increase our disregardance of the little things we have. I can't help but see a connection with some tendences of modern generations: more specifically, taking everything always for granted and never being satisfied with what we are/have. Is the little effort required for us to obtain those things and our relatively safe condition compared to our ancestors a coincidence? Maybe not.

Movie review - Fight Club

"The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club."
"The second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club."


-Tyler Durden

Breaking the first two rules will be damn worth it this time, because what I will talk about today is personally my favourite movie, let alone a really good one in general. So what makes it so awesome? Well.. here are my 2 cents, or perhaps I should say my 3 points.

1) ACTING: The first thing I'm going to have to mention is the actors' performances. I'm not usually impressed by actors that much in general and when I am it's often because of really bad performances that end up ruining movies that had a lot of potential. In this case however, I can't imagine anyone but Edward Norton and Brad Pitt playing their respective roles. Edward Norton has its strongest moments during the movie's beginning while Brad Pitt progressively steals the show since the first moment he appears, effectively resembling the main character's evolution. Helena Bonham Carter does a fine job too, but gets overshadowed pretty badly due to most of the attention being focused on Tyler Durden. Edward Norton also deserves a special note for being a solid narrator too and for being really badass when he finally gets to play the Tyler Durden side of the protagonist near the end of the movie.

2) PLOT DEVELOPMENT: What I mostly like in movie plots is action, depth and twists. For obvious reasons it's often hard to combine all of these into one single project and the only one I recall who's been doing this on a regular basis is director Christopher Nolan. Fight Club finds through its unique plot the perfect balance of these factors: calm at the very beginning, it slowly begins to build up tension and action up to the final confrontation between the narrator and Tyler. Meanwhile, several subtle hints are scattered around, all eventually pointing to one big plot twist that takes place at about 3/4 of the movie. Once the truth is unraveled, the movie gains even more depth than before. It literally kept my eyes on the screen from the beginning till the end. I remember no other movie having this effect on me.

3) OVERALL MESSAGE: In the end this movie turns out to be all about anarchy and the struggle between individuals and modern society. Many many movies share these very themes yet develop them in very different (and somewhat less refined) ways. Fight Club isn't just the classic rise-against-the-government movie. This is where lies its originality, unicity and beauty. The enemy isn't an oppressive political movement, it's a lifestyle. Our very own modern lifestyle, an enemy everyone can easily relate to. While characters such as Neo from the Matrix or Evey Hammond from V for Vendetta feel somewhat displaced from the viewer, Fight Club's main character and narrator couldn't be more stereotypical. He's just a random guy. Hell, as the movie starts he isn't even given a name. This, combined to the fact he also happens to be the narrator brings the viewer to quickly identify himself with him. Which leads to the final conclusion: Tyler Durden hides into each and every one of us.

Overpopulation and concerns about mankind's future

Since I'm stuck with flu I'm devoting more time in reading other people's blogs. One I happened to stumble upon some time ago is about the ethics of genetic modification. A very interesting post about food security caught my attention and brought me to reflect on the concept of food security itself. I thought I might as well share my reflections with you.

The original food security post ended with a question for the readers: what is, according to you, the biggest threat to food security? My personal feeling is that the biggest threat to food security is actually overpopulation. Modern concerns about food shortages tend to ignore the dramatic and uncontrolled increase of human population which has been going on since the industrial revolution. Even if we found a way to provide enough food for everyone, at that point human society would simply increase its reproduction rate because the abundance of resources allowed it to, eventually causing food shortages again and triggering a vicious circle. Moreover, overpopulation poses a serious threat to the future of mankind: while prior to the industrial revolution high mortality rates effectively prevented population overgrowth, now that they've dropped there's 3 possible scenarios our future could evolve into, all of which are strongly unpleasant:

1) Population keeps growing untill it exceeds earth's capacity, at which point not only many people will probably die of starvation but mankind in general might risk extinction because of pollution.

2) Population overgrowth is stopped, but the only way I can see this happening is through birth control policies, which will strongly limit the individuals' freedom to procreate and also involve a strict control from governments over people's private sphere (this has already been tried in China, and strongly criticized by western democracies)

3) High mortality rates are somehow restored, preventing population from growing beyond earth's capacity. Should this scenario occurr, its price will be the death of many in any case. Moreover, the most likely way for it to do so is probably a full scale war for first necessity goods (water in particular) which, due to mass destruction weapons, will undoubtedly cause serious damage to the environment (let alone risking the extinction of mankind itself).

I don't like to be a pessimist, but I really can't figure out a solution to this problem. What do you think?

Coincidences.

I usually don't believe in coincidences. These however must definitely be. Probably some of you are already aware of these facts thanks to the internet. Also, I hate flu. Many more posts to come!

"Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost a son while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both were shot behind the head.

Here is an interesting one…
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners.

Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are made of fifteen letters.

Mr. Booth shot Lincoln in a Theatre called “Ford”.
Lee Harvey Oswald, shot Kennedy in a car called “Ford” Lincoln.

Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And last but not least,
A month before Lincoln was shot he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A month before Kennedy was shot he was with Marilyn Monroe."

Here I am again

Easter holidays went well, although they ended one day earlier than expected due to me catching a flu. April weather can be somewhat tricky I guess. Well, this means more time for blogging! I missed you guys :). How did your holidays go?

I'll be back.

The famous Terminator quote is there to inform you I'll be leaving during Easter holidays and therefore not update my blog untill April 11. Hopefully you'll manage even without the feathered serpent watching over you. Have a nice Easter! :)

The line between dreams and reality

The dreams I wanna talk about today aren't people's wishes. What I'm referring to in the title are the dreams that occur while we're asleep. There's still a lot unknown about them, and to me they're one of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomena linked with the human mind. Throughout my life I've had some really weird experiences linked with them. Most of them occurred when I was younger, so nowadays I don't remember much anymore. I did however experience one of those weird moments just some hours ago, so I thought I would share the experience with you. It was basically a short term premonition. Since I do not live alone, it is not uncommon for my flatmates to wake me up in the morning because they talk too loud. After being woken I decided I'd try to go back to sleep as I was still tired. I couldn't manage to enter the deep sleep state I was into earlier though, because they kept making noises. Eventually, I got into a dreaming state in which the setting was identical to my flat. In this dream both my flatmates and I were in the kitchen. I am 100% sure I was dreaming in that moment because rather than walking I was floating in the air. One of my flatmates was studying on the kitchen's table and the other one passed right next to her. In doing so, he accidentally hit a glass with water in it, spilling some on the book she was reading. At that point, I woke up. Some minutes later I walked to the kitchen in order to have breakfast when the very same scene I had witnessed took place: the guy hit a glass of water spilling some on the book the girl was reading. Some of the details were slightly different, but I was still left speechless. What do you think?

ISTP

Probably you've already heard about it, but the Myers-Briggs type indicator test still remains one of the very few psychological tests I actually like. I also seem to be a somewhat changing type: the first time I took the test I scored INFP, then some months later I scored as INTP/INTJ when I took the test again. Taking the test one more time today resulted in me being an ISTP, but with very low %: 44, 1, 1, 11 respectively. I guess being moderately introverted is the only real trait that represents me and I have to admit I kind of like the idea of being an all-around type :). Here's a link to the test I just took, in case you want to give it a try:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Movie Review - The Devil Inside

Communication bewteen people is all about helping each other out. Let me give all of you a big piece of help by advicing you to STAY AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE. The Devil Inside is nothing more than just another horror movie with the stupid camera view thing (the one Rec and Cloverfield introduced and everyone has been trying to emulate since then), except this time there weren't even that many scary scenes. The movie lenght was even less than usual, and it's not like horror movies are that long anyway (which can be a somewhat good thing if the movie sucks, like in this case). The only parts that didn't make me regret having spent money on this were the scenes involving possessed evan helmuth. However I found them funny rather than scary. I don't usually enjoy horror movies very much so it might just be my humble nitpicking opinion, but I still found this to be an almost complete rip off, so I advice you not to watch it.

Oh, and the ending sucks too.

Value of laughing

Some time ago I read an article claiming laughter is the only innate and not acquired reaction humans possess. It means wherever you're from, the ability to laugh was encoded in your genes from the very beginning. Since I don't remember where I read this I can't guarantee it's 100% true, but I don't think I'm making an exaggeration when saying laughter is a worldwide spoken language (let alone being the best medicine). Remember this the next time you interact with people. Smiling and laughing brings people close to each other like nothing else.

A time for change

Lack of communication is rapidly increasing the distance between people. This isn't just a matter of socially akward individuals who cannot fit into social relationships. It's about forgetting you are surrounded by people no different from you just because your mind is too focused on other things. Your work, your daily worries, your specific role in society. Wheter you are a medic, a soldier, an outlaw, a priest, a student or a blogger there's one thing you have in common with just everyone else (me too!): we were all born human. As technology progresses and the world requires more and more specialization, we shouldn't let our role in society take over our very own human nature. Which once used to bring people much closer to each other and share a lot more. Can you remember the last time you talked about trivial things to your neighbour? or to your greengrocer? or to your mailman? If the answer is no (if this is the case don't worry, it's pretty much no for me as well) then you probably know what I'm talking about.

Internet is a new, undiscovered dimension. With a lot of potential, I might add. After giving it some thought, I believe this is the right place to start from scratch and begin talking to each other again. It also helps that much of our differences are left in the outside world, along with the physical distance that separates people. So folks, let's start talking again to each other, shall we? The topic doesn't really matter: pretty much everyone will have something to say about pretty much everything. This blog will therefore have no real purpose and no real topic other than talking. I'll simply update it with whatever goes by my mind at the moment (hence the title chop suey). Have fun!