Industrial Sociey And Its Future Commentary - Disruption of power process in modern society (part 4)

"73. (fr) Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules and not only by the government. Control is often exercised through indirect coercion or through psychological pressure or manipulation, and by organizations other than the government, or by the system as a whole. Most large organizations use some form of propaganda to manipulate public attitudes or behavior. Propaganda is not limited to “commercials” and advertisements, and sometimes it is not even consciously intended as propaganda by the people who make it. For instance, the content of entertainment programming is a powerful form of propaganda. An example of indirect coercion: There is no law that says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer’s orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as someone else’s employee."

Indirect coercion is also the subtle way used by technology to insert itself inside our society. Unabomber itself makes an example of how initially a new technology isn't mandatory and one can choose wheter to use it or not. But it will soon change the system in a way that leaves people no choice but to use it as well (cars were initially not necessary but now not possessing one could mean problems getting to work, etc.). Indirect propaganda also comes from oversocialized individuals. I believe human individuals are born with an instinctive feeling that most of the time makes them feel bad if they're not behaving like their similars (in nature this feeling would be useful in making newborns learn/follow the culture and progress of their parents/society). Oversocialized individuals have the habit of using their excessive morality to make other people oppressed/ashamed of themselves (which is only natural considering oversocialized individuals had this weapon used against them in the very first place).

"74. (fr) We suggest that modern man’s obsession with longevity, and with maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to the power process. The “mid-lffe crisis” also is such a symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children that is fairly common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies.

75. (fr) In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. A young man goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary for food. (In young women the process is more complex, with greater emphasis on social power; we won’t discuss that here.) This phase having been successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance about settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family. (In contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having children because they are too busy seeking some kind of “fulfillment.” We suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power process — with real goals instead of the artificial goals of surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children, going through the power process by providing them with the physical necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. any modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of physical deterioration and death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any practical use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life."

As a cultural anthropology student I can pretty much confirm what the Unabomber is saying: senility is regarded in a completely different way in primitive societies and it's not generally considered a bad thing. In some cases the definition/ethimology of "old man" or "old age group" in such societies is directly linked with the concept of "being close to death", meaning  that death itself is felt more as the natural conclusion of life rather than something to run at all costs from. Also, fear of death and mid-life crisis have been dramatically increasing in the 20th century and one proof of this lies in the literature of that period (think of the typical characters of the Italian psychological novel, for example).

"76. (fr) In response to the arguments of this section someone will say, “Society must find a way to give people the opportunity to go through the power process.” For such people the value of the opportunity is destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them. What they need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off that leash."