lesfleursdumal09 's review for:

Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore John Kaczynski

2.0

challenging informative medium-paced

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You truly can tell that this book wasn’t written by a Sociologist. The main issue within this book are true statements and assumptions, but many fallacies after that. The author constantly repeats „how bad the industry is - that people lost their autonomy and are captured in a system of corps and work“ The author criticised Capitalism and capitalist aspects (such as corps and industries), but his final conclusion is always „yeah it’s the fault of technology we must get rid of technology because technology is evil and it’s not the fault of capitalism“. I kind of agree on psychological and physical harm effects while using technology, but the fault of suffering in our world is not the fault of technology by itself, it’s the fault of capitalism. The author is also not able to link economy and industrialisation. He talks about technology, politics, economy and capitalism like those aspects aren’t linked to each other. Indeed, they are. The part which made me laugh the most was when the author claimed we need a revolution (agree on that) but said: „This revolution will be against technology and industry, not against economy or politics.“ First of all, industry and economy are deeply linked to each other and have created a symbiosis. It’s not able to just attack the industry without attacking the economy. Second of all, economy is politics. Also, the author is constantly raging about leftist. Back then, the understanding of leftism was different from now - still though, he declares leftists as an enemy, while he failed to focus the real enemy - facists who rule the economy, using his hatred technology and causing suffer in the world. While he mentions the leftists over and over again, he doesn’t focus conservatives in that same range. In the end, the author had some good points and is able to see problems within the world, although he totally failed to connect the real source of those issues (it’s not technology, it’s capitalism). I agree that the use of technology in our current society escalated and feels dystopian in some ways, but reading this manifesto felt like reading the homework of a child who is able to make a good analysis but totally fails to see everything on a bigger scale. Also, those constant rages about technology - ignoring other important facts - were exhausting. This whole manifesto reads itself like the brotherhood on steel wrote it while they were on crack.