Place the Blame Where It Belongs
The GA Collective Response to
"Hit Where it Hurts" by Ted Kaczynski
(From Green Anarchy #8, Spring 2002)Although the Green Anarchy editorial collective whole-heartedly supports Ted Kaczynski as an anarchist political prisoner, we had serious reservations about running this article due to Ted's hostility towards feminism and his casual, off-hand dismissal of other liberation struggles which he chooses not to prioritize in his own life. Racism, sexism, homophobia and poverty are not "non-essential issues" to us, as they appear to be to Ted; compulsary heterosexuality, socially-enforced sexual conformity, racism, mysogyny, and class division are all products of a hierarchical, patriarchal power structure, and none of these problems can ever be fully solved within the context of civilization. It's not "technology, above all else, which is responsible for the current condition of the world", as Ted claims -- it's civilization/patriarchy -- and if we want to dismantle the technological megamachine that is now devouring the biosphere, then we need to understand how the megamachine came to be, what led to its creation, and how it serves the interests of civilization's rulers.
We ultimately decided to print this article because Ted is a sharp strategic thinker, and because we feel strongly that more discussions like this need to be occuring in the pages of the anarchist press. At the same time, we feel compelled to say that Ted's analysis of patriarchy and civilization is severely lacking, and we take offence to his disparaging use of the queer-identified term "pink," which is reminiscent of the fairly overt homophobia we have seen in previous pieces by Ted, like Ship Of Fools. Simply and solely removing technology as the total liberatory answer is a limited and mechanistic approach. We face a totality of domination which oppresses all life and we need to try to see the whole picture. For anti-authoritarian transformation, many struggles are necessary and need to be respected along with an awareness of the underlying connectedness.
Of course, there can be no doubt that technology is a major link on the chain of our oppression and it's important that anarchists / anti-authoritarians purge themselves of the liberal belief that technology is "neutral." There are five books that we can reccomend to our readers that will help get them started on the process of deconstructing their faith in and allegiance to technology. They are: The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul (out-of-print, but readilly available in any good used bookstore), Technics and Human Development: The Myth Of The Machine Volume 1 by Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford, Hi, My Name Is Chellis & I'm In Recovery From Western Civilization by Chellis Glendinning, and Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television by Jerry Mander, which focuses on the destructive impact of a very specific technology but which also offers an incredibly strong critique of technological mediation -- which has a much wider applicability.