Winamop.com Thinking on the internet

Kaczynski had resided in the same shack in Montana for the past twenty-four years. He had largely lived alone, secluded from the whole world. Kaczynski, from an early age, enjoyed his own company. Whilst people with similar tendencies might form friendships, families and careers, Kaczynski was different. He had completely shut himself off from the rest of the world.

Indeed, he valued solitude and nature. He thought that technology had debased human freedom and that man should return to a primitive lifestyle, in the woods, in nature. He had developed an anarcho-primitivist philosophy, in which man would jettison modern technology, which had corrupted human freedom. He hated modern society and modern technology, so he wanted to return to a sort of primordial freedom.

Yet he once showed so much promise. He had started university at an early age and acquired a doctorate in mathematics. He had become a professor of mathematics at the age of twenty-five. He could have pursued a comfortable career, giving lectures, writing papers, instructing undergraduates. Not only that, within his field, he was exceptional. Only ten people across the country could decipher his doctoral thesis.

But he abandoned that and moved to the woods. It would have been all too easy to live in human society when he could retreat to primordial freedom in nature. When he could be alone all the time, every second of the week. When he could wander across the desolate plains and not encounter another human being. When he could forage for himself and not rely on human society to feed him. When he could sit quietly in his shack, which he had built himself. When he could rely on himself and no-one else. Occasionally he would think about advanced mathematical equations, but above all else he valued his solitude and freedom.

He had grown paranoid over the years. He started to develop a visceral hatred towards those purveyors of technology. He railed against the whole of modern society because he thought that he, alone in his shed, was virtuous. He had started to build bombs and he started to send them to universities and airports. He sent one to an esteemed professor of computer science called David Gelernter, disfiguring his right hand. He sent several bombs to university lecturers.

Freedom is a wondrous thing but, as John Stuart Mill emphasised, my freedom ends when my fist hits your face. Freedom is a wondrous, inventive, transcendent value, as long as it does not harm anyone. Freedom is a great thing when you are responsible, contribute to society and thus earn it. Kaczynski had decided to repudiate society completely by living remotely in the woods. He had infringed upon the freedom of others and, as such, broken Mill’s maxims. Not only had he infringed on the freedom of one or two people, he had become a menace to society as a whole. He was now a terrorist. The FBI had started to investigate him for several years. These bombs containing explosives had created a panic across all sections of society. So much so that they christened this individual the ‘Unabomber,’ an acronym for ‘Universities and Airports,’ since he targeted these places.

Yet he had remained aloof for so long, as the newspapers speculated as to where this mysterious individual might inhabit. He had become a notorious, infamous national celebrity. At the same time, he was writing hateful screeds in which he detailed his political philosophy. He detailed his desire for man to jettison modern technology and to return to a primordial freedom in nature. He sent his manifesto to The New York Times in which he made the threat that, if they did not publish it, he would bomb and kill more people.

His brother David read the manifesto and recognised several stylistic similarities with other writings by Ted. There was an unmistakable quality which he recognised in the writing. He knew that he would contact the security agencies but, first of all, he wanted to have a talk with Ted before proceeding.

He knew where he lived, so he drove down to his remote shack in Montana. Indeed, although, David was a normal, integrated member of society, he had once experimented with this solitary existence in nature. His brother Ted, however, took it to an extreme degree. Indeed, Ted had been an extremely gifted individual, excelling at several subjects from a young age. However, he was socially maladjusted, to an extreme degree. He did not seem to belong to the human species. He was a human brain, brimming with ideas and excitement, caught in a human body. Other people bored him and he never had friends. David had always admired his gifted brother, but it became apparent early on that he was troubled. Years later, this present moment, it became tragically apparent that he had become a menace to society at large. Only he could turn him in and stop it.

David walked over to the shack and knocked on the disfigured door. Ted appeared, dishevelled, ragged and dirty. ‘What do you want, David?’ he snapped.

‘Ted… I…’ He paused for a few moments. ‘I read the manifesto in The New York Times. I recognised your voice in it. I know that you wrote it. I now realise what you have been doing all these years. You have been manufacturing bombs in here and sending them to people. I now realise that it is solely within my power to put a stop to this. I am going to the authorities, Ted. I am turning you in.’

As he finished saying this, Ted stared at him before he erupted with venomous vitriol. ‘You think that you can do that! Well, you can’t! I won’t let that happen! I will continue to launch my crusade, but you won’t stop me! How dare you come here and make these threats! Well, I should… I should kill you too.’

The two brothers made eye contact for ten seconds. ‘You know you can’t do that, Ted,’ David retorted. Ted swerved around, slammed the door and retreated back into his shack.

David went back into his car and drove towards the FBI. Yes, he pitied his brother, who had clearly lost touch with reality a long time ago, but he had claimed the lives of innocent civilians. The only sensible thing to do now would be to turn him in.