Ted and the CIA, Part 1 by David Kaczynski

[sw]

Talked with David yesterday via email. I offered him info and support.

sw

[cptmarginal]

Anyone watch this?

http://www.othercinemadvd.com/net.html

Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck’s THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology – a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution.

For those who resist these intrusive systems of technological control, the Unabomber has come to symbolize an ultimate figure of Refusal. For those that embrace it, as did and do the early champions of media art like Marshall McLuhan, Nam June Paik, and Stewart Brand, the promises of worldwide networking and instantaneous communication outweighed the perils. Dammbeck’s conceptual quest links these multiple nodes of cultural and political thought like the Internet itself. Circling through themes of utopianism, anarchism, terrorism, CIA, LSD, Tim Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, THE NET exposes a hidden matrix of revolutionary advances, coincidences, and conspiracies.

"Dammbeck not only uncovers hidden background stories but also links the unlinked" - Der Tagespiegel

"The right film at the right time" - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Dammbeck regards systems of art as systems of power; and systems of power as systems of art" - Die Tageszeitung

Written and directed by Lutz Dammbeck
Produced by Lutz Dammbeck Filmproduktion

Special Features

• Additional commentary from Stewart Brand, John Brockman, and Paul Garrin

[JackRiddler]

Thanks! Ordered it soon as I saw it exists.

[Crow]

For those interested in this topic, I recommend "Harvard and the Unabomber" by Alston Chase. It talks a lot about the culture that Kaczynski would have encountered at Harvard, but it also goes into the details of the experiments in a depth that I haven't seen elsewhere. A few details that I remember from my reading: At the beginning of the study, the participants were required to give detailed information about themselves, including all of their sexual fantasies (much like Scientology does now), and their core values and principles.

Later, while on camera under bright lights, they were required to defend these beliefs under unexpectedly hostile questioning from a law student. The hostile questioning happened more than once, and in later sessions the victims had to defend themselves again while looking at previously-filmed images of themselves looking uncomfortable or possibly breaking down. (I wonder if the film or video from this study still exists.)

The author suggests that Ted Kaczynski was personally approached to join the study. Kaczynski didn't have a lot of money -- I think he was a scholarship student -- and the study paid well.

The book also goes into considerable detail about Henry Murray, who was kind of a freaky dude, but I guess that isn't surprising.

[Wombaticus Rex]

This has been an amazing read: http://www.primitivism.com/kaczynski.htm

"The big problem is that people don't believe a revolution is possible, and it is not possible precisely because they do not believe it is possible."

[hanshan]

For those interested in this topic, I recommend "Harvard and the Unabomber" by Alston Chase. It talks a lot about the culture that Kaczynski would have encountered at Harvard, but it also goes into the details of the experiments in a depth that I haven't seen elsewhere. A few details that I remember from my reading: At the beginning of the study, the participants were required to give detailed information about themselves, including all of their sexual fantasies (much like Scientology does now), and their core values and principles.

Later, while on camera under bright lights, they were required to defend these beliefs under unexpectedly hostile questioning from a law student. The hostile questioning happened more than once, and in later sessions the victims had to defend themselves again while looking at previously-filmed images of themselves looking uncomfortable or possibly breaking down. (I wonder if the film or video from this study still exists.)

The author suggests that Ted Kaczynski was personally approached to join the study. Kaczynski didn't have a lot of money -- I think he was a scholarship student -- and the study paid well.

The book also goes into considerable detail about Henry Murray, who was kind of a freaky dude, but I guess that isn't surprising.

Atlantic Unbound | May 20, 2003

Interviews

The Disease of the Modern Era

Alston Chase, the author of Harvard and the Unabomber, argues that we have much to fear from the forces that made Ted Kaczynski what he is

.....

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/interviews/int2003-05-20.htm

"Harvard and the Unabomber" by Alston Chase

read a variant here:http://tinyurl.com/22tsxga

Any college psych dept up to snuff had top drawer staff whose guinea pig/human test subjects were the lowly undergrads. Players beware.



...

[nathan28]

For those interested in this topic, I recommend "Harvard and the Unabomber" by Alston Chase. It talks a lot about the culture that Kaczynski would have encountered at Harvard, but it also goes into the details of the experiments in a depth that I haven't seen elsewhere. A few details that I remember from my reading: At the beginning of the study, the participants were required to give detailed information about themselves, including all of their sexual fantasies (much like Scientology does now), and their core values and principles.

Later, while on camera under bright lights, they were required to defend these beliefs under unexpectedly hostile questioning from a law student. The hostile questioning happened more than once, and in later sessions the victims had to defend themselves again while looking at previously-filmed images of themselves looking uncomfortable or possibly breaking down. (I wonder if the film or video from this study still exists.)

The author suggests that Ted Kaczynski was personally approached to join the study. Kaczynski didn't have a lot of money -- I think he was a scholarship student -- and the study paid well.

The book also goes into considerable detail about Henry Murray, who was kind of a freaky dude, but I guess that isn't surprising.

Wow, I had always assumed it was a boring-ass study along the lines of "take 1mg of acid and sit in this furnished studio efficiency for the next 24 hours while we tape you", not straight-up $cientology-style "clearing" (and blackmail) procedures. Do they know which law students were involved? Someone who was at Harvard Law in the '60s was probably working for the top tier US firms (i.e., "Dickstein, Asholt & Reatart LLP stands as one of the top law firms in the United States, with an office in Midtown and Downtown New York, and our London Office is ranked 286th among London law offices!") not much later--it'd be interesting to know what happened to them, considering, e.g., the appearance of OMM in Iran Contra, etc.

[mule]

Das Netz is well done and is definitely worth watching. It is available on YouTube but it is worth getting the DVD for the extra footage. Paul Garrin’s interview was cut entirely but might be enlightening for anyone under the illusion the internet is, or was ever, “open” or de-centralized.

Dambeck’s film is one of the rare times when you’ll actually see Kaczynski’s ideas explored instead of constantly dismissing them with ad hominem as almost every interviewee on the film tries hard to do.

David Kaczynski’s article is another example in avoiding the discussion of his brother’s ideas and clearly stated and reasoned motives for his bombing campaign at all costs.
I could see how being at the business end of state violence, if that is what Ted went through during the Harvard experiments, could motivate someone to carry their resistance a step further then someone who hasn’t, but I’d hardly call it mind control.

Ted Kaczynski has a deeply logical mind. All his actions were clearly reasoned (to him) in his writings and derived from, what were for him, certain axioms. If there is secret state mind control lurking in such a well documented mind for such a long period of time, I think we are in real trouble and the motives of everyone are suspect.
In his own words:

“The news media may have something to say about me when I am killed or caught. And they are bound to try to analyze my psychology and depict me as "sick." This powerful bias should be borne [in mind] in reading any attempts to analyze my psychology.”

Besides, if we want to know his motives we can just ask him as he is still alive and answering mail. Well, everyone except his brother since they haven’t been on speaking terms since the whole turning your brother in to the FBI thing.

Anyway, to slightly change the topic to what was one of Kaczynski’s favorite topic - techno-industrial society and its future; I recently watched an interesting old docu-drama about Douglas Hofstadter and his ideas about the mind and AI research called Victim of the Brain.

Towards the end it touches on some of the topics of the dangers of this field to human freedom etc... and Hofstadter dismisses them in a way that made me think of Kaczynski (getting pissed off).

Also, check out this old article by RA Wilson that I think really gets into the spirit:
The Cybernetic Revolution

[mule]

Actually you can find the Paul Garrin interview on YouTube here.

[Crow]

The Disease of the Modern Era

Alston Chase, the author of Harvard and the Unabomber, argues that we have much to fear from the forces that made Ted Kaczynski what he is

.....

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/interviews/int2003-05-20.htm

"Harvard and the Unabomber" by Alston Chase

read a variant here:http://tinyurl.com/22tsxga

Any college psych dept up to snuff had top drawer staff whose guinea pig/human test subjects were the lowly undergrads. Players beware.



...

Yes, thank you for finding that. The book seems to be an expansion of that article.

[Crow]

Wow, I had always assumed it was a boring-ass study along the lines of "take 1mg of acid and sit in this furnished studio efficiency for the next 24 hours while we tape you", not straight-up $cientology-style "clearing" (and blackmail) procedures. Do they know which law students were involved? Someone who was at Harvard Law in the '60s was probably working for the top tier US firms (i.e., "Dickstein, Asholt & Reatart LLP stands as one of the top law firms in the United States, with an office in Midtown and Downtown New York, and our London Office is ranked 286th among London law offices!") not much later--it'd be interesting to know what happened to them, considering, e.g., the appearance of OMM in Iran Contra, etc.

I had not thought of that, but your speculation sounds reasonable to me. Of course, such a person would probably be so embedded in the system that it might be hard to get them to come forward. IIRC, the author of the book found out the details of the study by tracking down some of the other undergraduate participants.

If the book is where I think it is in my house, I will look through it and see if I can find a relevant excerpt or two to post.

[Crow]

Here is part three of the original Atlantic Monthly article by Alston Chase, which describes the experiment in considerable detail. Links to the rest of the article are at the bottom of the page.

Interestingly, Chase emphasizes that "Kaczynski must certainly have been among the most vulnerable of Murray's experimental subjects -- a point that the researchers seem to have missed. He was among the youngest and the poorest of the group. He may have come from a dysfunctional home."

[JackRiddler]

.

Thanks for the article on the Murray experiement, crow!

The brother raises but does not seem to support the idea that Theodore acted as an MC. He is saying that TK might not have gone off the edge or picked the same targets if not for the trauma from the experience. (More than this, the brother is saying it was very, very wrong and the people who did these evil things should be exposed and punished, just like his brother.) The Atlantic article (read it!) gives support:

As Sally Johnson, the forensic psychiatrist, reported, Kaczynski clearly began to experience emotional distress then, and began to develop his anti-technology views. And there is one thing that comes through clearly in the essays, test answers, and interviews of Murray's subjects at the outset of the experiment: many of these young men already exhibited attitudes of anger, nihilism, and alienation -- reflecting, perhaps, just how persuasively a culture of despair had infused student attitudes and suggesting that some might have been especially vulnerable to stress.

SNIP

We don't know what effect this experiment may have had on Kaczynski. As noted, I did not have access to his records, and therefore cannot attest to his degree of alienation then. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, observes that deceitful experimentation can be harmful if the subjects "have been emotionally unstable prior to the experiment." Kaczynski must certainly have been among the most vulnerable of Murray's experimental subjects -- a point that the researchers seem to have missed. He was among the youngest and the poorest of the group. He may have come from a dysfunctional home.

Lois Skillen, Kaczynski's high school counselor, is among those who believe that the Murray experiment could have been a turning point in Kaczynski's life. Ralph Meister, one of Turk Kaczynski's oldest friends and a retired psychologist who has known Ted Kaczynski since he was a small boy, also raises this possibility. So does one of Murray's own research associates. The TAT results certainly suggest that at the outset of the experiment Kaczynski was mentally healthy, but by the experiment's end, judging from Sally Johnson's comments, he was showing the first signs of emotional distress. As Kaczynski's college life continued, outwardly he seemed to be adjusting to Harvard. But inwardly he increasingly seethed. According to Sally Johnson, he began worrying about his health. He began having terrible nightmares. He started having fantasies about taking revenge against a society that he increasingly viewed as an evil force obsessed with imposing conformism through psychological controls.

These thoughts upset Kaczynski all the more because they exposed his ineffectuality. Johnson reported that he would become horribly angry with himself because he could not express this fury openly. "I never attempted to put any such fantasies into effect," she quoted from his writings, "because I was too strongly conditioned ... against any defiance of authority.... I could not have committed a crime of revenge even a relatively minor crime because ... my fear of being caught and punished was all out of proportion to the actual danger of being caught."

Kaczynski felt that justice demanded that he take revenge on society. But he lacked the personal resources at that time to do so. He was -- had always been -- a good boy. Instead he would seek escape. He began to dream about breaking away from society and living a primitive life...

The prison interview suggests the time of the Harvard MK-type experiment was an important one in shaping Theodore, but then has him providing a different rationale for his acts as the Unabomber:

Theodore Kaczynski developed a negative attitude toward the techno-industrial system very early in his life. It was in 1962, during his last year at Harvard, he explained, when he began feeling a sense of disillusionment with the svstem. And he says he felt quite alone. "Back in the sixties there had been some critiques of technology, but as far as 1 knew there weren't people who were against the technological system as-such... It wasn't until 1971 or 72, shortly after I moved to Montana, that I read Jaques Ellul's book, The Technological Societv." The book is a masterpiece. I was very enthusiastic when I read it. I thought, 'look, this guy is saying things I have been wanting to say all along.'"

Why, I asked, did he personally come to be against technology? His immediate response was, "Why do you think? It reduces people to gears in a machine, it takes away our autonomy and our freedom." But there was obviously more to it than that. Along with the rage he felt against the machine, his words revealed an obvious love for a very special place in the wilds of Montana. He became most animated, spoke most passionately, while relating stories about the mountain life he created there and then sought to defend against the encroachment of the system. "The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I'm not really inclined in that direction."

Kaczynski moved in a cabin that he built himself near Lincoln, Montana in 1971. His first decade there he concentrated on acquiring the primitive...

So it seems the MK-related experience drove him to want to leave humanity and technology behind, and he decided to start killing people to get his manifesto published after his refuge in Montana was invaded. Although the Atlantic article says he had already made the determination soon after Harvard:

Gradually, while he was immersed in his Harvard readings and in the Murray experiment, Kaczynski began to put together a theory to explain his unhappiness and anger. Technology and science were destroying liberty and nature. The system, of which Harvard was a part, served technology, which in turn required conformism. By advertising, propaganda, and other techniques of behavior modification, this system sought to transform men into automatons, to serve the machine.

Thus did Kaczynski's Harvard experiences shape his anger and legitimize his wrath. By the time he graduated, all the elements that would ultimately transform him into the Unabomber were in place -- the ideas out of which he would construct a philosophy, the unhappiness, the feelings of complete isolation. Soon after, so, too, would be his commitment to killing. Embracing the value-neutral message of Harvard's positivism -- morality was nonrational -- made him feel free to murder. Within four years of graduating from Harvard he would be firmly fixed in his life's plan. According to an autobiography he wrote that chronicled his life until the age of twenty-seven, "I thought 'I will kill, but I will make at least some effort to avoid detection, so that I can kill again.'" Both Kaczynski's philosophy and his decision to go into the wilderness were set by the summer of 1966, after his fourth year as a graduate student at the University of Michigan (where, incidentally, students had rated him an above-average instructor). It was then, Sally Johnson wrote, that "he decided that he would do what he always wanted to do, to go to Canada to take off in the woods with a rifle and try to live off the country. 'If it doesn't work and if I can get back to civilization before I starve then I will come back here and kill someone I hate.'" This was also when he decided to accept the teaching position at Berkeley -- not in order to launch an academic career but to earn a grubstake sufficient to support him in the wilderness.

In 1971 Kaczynski wrote an essay containing most of the ideas that later appeared in the manifesto. "In these pages," it began, "it is argued that continued scientific and technical progress will inevitably result in the extinction of individual liberty." It was imperative that this juggernaut be stopped, Kaczynski went on. This could not be done by simply "popularizing a certain libertarian philosophy" unless "that philosophy is accompanied by a program of concrete action."

At that time Kaczynski still had some hope of achieving his goals by peaceful means -- by establishing "an organization dedicated to stopping federal aid to scientific research." It would not be long before he decided this was fruitless. The same year, Johnson wrote, he was "thinking seriously about and planning to murder a scientist." Meanwhile, he began to practice what radical environmentalists call "monkeywrenching" -- sabotaging or stealing equipment and setting traps and stringing wires to harm intruders into his wilderness domain. Later in the 1970s he began experimenting with explosives. In 1978 he launched his campaign of terrorism with the bomb that injured Terry Marker.

However it worked, the highly cogent manifesto very much says he made his own plan and decisions. As a man damaged by the Murray experiment, but not a man under control.

.

[Crow]

double post.

[Crow]

.However it worked, the highly cogent manifesto very much says he made his own plan and decisions. As a man damaged by the Murray experiment, but not a man under control.

Oh, Kaczynski was certainly not being mind-controlled when he carried out the bombings. That seems to have been all him.

Though I do wonder what might have happened if he'd worked in the library for extra money instead of participating in the Murray study. What if he'd met a future life partner there or been introduced to a circle of friends with similar backgrounds and interests? His life might have gone off on a different, happier tangent.

Really, what Kaczynski seems to have experienced at hands of Murray et al. was more psychological abuse than mind control in the strictest sense of the term. But it is notable that the Murray experiment was most likely part of a mind control program, even if the aim was not to make homicidal puppets out of these particular students. Plenty of the canonical MK-Ultra experiments had no obvious purpose to them, either.

(Though I do think the code name "Lawful" is a strangely suggestive one.)