I am referring to the description of what happens to the human psyche, or “soul” if you will, described in the brilliant essay “Industrial Society and Its Future”. Â Do you think that you are suffering the effects of what is described in the “Unibomber Manifesto”? Â (I hate to use that label, but that is the only name most have heard of regarding this very insightful writing, better than the majority of garbage I have read in psychology texts.) *crickets* Â LOL…the important parts about how modern society harms the human psyche is mostly wrapped up in the first ten pages or so… 😀
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yes, I truly believe 100% it’s caused by the way modern society nowadays is, and how we’re pressured to fit into that same ONE hole.
believe it or not though, this stuff goes WAY beyond what you probably could’ve imagined in your sane, “rational” mind.
all the conspiracies (government, New World Order, etc), and even if you dig deeper down the rabbit hole, you’ll find that it goes way BEYOND our “Reality”/real-world.
there’s so many free info floating around on the net about this.
for starter, you can google Zeitgeist Moving Forward (youtube), Illuminati, Hidden Hands, etc.
you’ll be surprised of how much this goes waaaay down the rabbit hole (far from your “daily-life” reality)!
“Wake up, Neo” – The Matrix.
I don’t believe I am depressed because of modern society. But I do believe that the stigma modern society has about mental illness makes my depression worse. Because people are afraid of it, and uneducated about it, they don’t understand what it means to be suicidal/depressed. They think it’s for attention, or that I am just being lazy or weak. These opinions of people MAKE me feel lazy, weak, and pathetic, thus making my depression worse. Just a thought.
Yes partly,it’s all too fast paced nowdays and unless you’re a sucess you’re a no-one
Upbringing also plays a part so does your personality(outlook) life experiences,genetics and environmental factors.It’s can get complicated if you don’t know the cause
Agree with bea here. Also reluctant to blame “society” for my problems since that absolved me from taking responsibility for them. Ps doubt many people have read the specific texts yr referencing so I am using the term modern society literally
Well in my 51 yrs, the most contetented ( appearing ) peoples which live with in there means of income, stay away from debt like the plague, live many times in a rural settings, farms, coastal villages, aggrerian societies.
Yes the stress of todays world is causing a lot of hopelessness.
7 Billion and counting, wanna make the world happier stop producing so many babbies.
The earth should only have 2 billion for it all to work well.
Anyone for a limited thermo nuclear war ?????
People which have a spiritual connection with god or power outside of themselves are the happiest in my opion, even when money is low, they seem to have this faith that helps some of the.
Caucajun I had exactly this discussion with a friend recently. We agreed nuclear war would b too destructive for other plant/ animal life. What we need is a good plague to knock out a good chunk of humanity
I’ve downloaded the Unabomber Manifesto and will read it over the coming days. I believe that the modern world is in many ways bad for people because of technological advances; people have changed the world, but they haven’t/can’t adapt to it. I agree that the population-reducing possibilities would be helpful (and let’s face it, horrible) but from the big picture POV, I think a takeover of the planet by post-human artificial life would be best.
one day, ……………. A plague is inevitable
if we didnt’ have modern meds Darwinism would be the rule of the land. Survival of the fittest.
And in the end when a world plague finally hits there wont be too many of us left.
During WWI there was what became to known as The Swine Flu 12 to 15 million died, world leadersDr’s thought the fku was spread by the soilders. There were flu out breaks in Alaska during the WWI. No roads connecting the villiages, it would be another20 years before the first airplne flew in Alaska. In 1990s samples of Eskimos that dies during WWI had been frozen the entire time so the CDC went for samples.
They discovered that the Swine Flu that killled millions across the world was the exact same flu that killed Eskimos’s that had never seen another human outside of their villiages in their entire lives.
Yes Earth will have another plague, that would make it really easy to do suicide, instead of dying from horribly painful plague.
Okay, for those who cannot be bothered with reading the essay to which I am referring. It describes how the human cannot be happy in the modern or industrialized society because of the loss of, or elimination of, the things which serve our innate needs as beings. Loss of autonomy, loss of individual achievement. loss of individuality, loss of individual quests, etc. We are nothing but tiny insignificant cogs within a giant industrial machine. Our entire lives are directed not by our individual needs or desires, but rather the needs and desires of the industrial machine. “We”, for all intents and purposes, are not the humans which we should be, but rather little cogs spinning in a machine that is overly complex, out of control, and completely irrelevant to the existence which we were designed to experience. That is the fast and loose interpretation. 😀
@niki,
Being a big believer in Austrian economics, I do believe that what the Rothschild’s run on this planet is nothing short of a concentration camp or plantation for the entire human race.
Oh, by the way, the Zeitgeist movement has been around for a while. Basically it is an authoritarian system, not any different than world-wide Communism would be. “Communism” has never really existed, as it is impossible anyway, there will always need to be a dictator or megalomaniac at the top of these schemes to “enforce” it upon anyone who does “not go along”. The Zeitgeist believers simply replace Stalin with a computer. 😀
@irspow, I haven’t read the article but on first glance its sounds like a self defeating theory. Because how constructive is it to talk about how we can never be happy within a Machine that was, let’s not forget, our own creation? And yeah it’s not perfect but it’s not all bad either. We are not entirely stripped of individuality or autonomy (in western democratic world anyway), we have choices and it’s up to us to utilize them. Have u read Ishmael? Describes a very interesting theory that the reason we are never content is because we have an origin myth that it’s us in odds and in conflict with our surroundings and environment: we are therefore destined to enact our origin story and continue to be at odds and in conflict with our surroundings. It is for this reason that I posted a new origin story a few months ago on this site if yr interested in reading.
@caucajun those who don’t remember their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Let’s hope that when that plague comes, there will be some record and memory of where we went wrong and what direction we should continue in
It is not a self-defeating theory. It simply talks about the innate needs of the human psyche which cannot be fulfilled in the industrial society as we know it. If you were to accept the larger concept of the entire essay, humans would not be in conflict with their surroundings at all. It is pointed out that the industrial society itself is what is in conflict with our own nature, and the nature of our environment as well.
I am always open to theories though…can you link to the “new origin story” that you posted. No one can ever see enough different viewpoints to know the unreachable reality. But we can try to get closer. 😀
I am on the road and on my phone and still haven’t worked out how to copy paste links but I get home tonight so I will do it then, might also have a crack at that article u mentioned.
Should explain though that what I wrote was an origin story, NOT a theory of origin stories. Theory goes something like this: in modern western world our origin story is basically Adam and eve getting thrown out of the garden or Eden – a fairly negative origin story which basically tells us we had perfection, but we fucked it up, and we are doomed to constantly try to restore paradise and the garden of Eden by seeking oneness, wholeness, through a heterosexual mate.
Compare this guilt-ridden origin story with that of older cultures… Particularly African tribes and aboriginal Australians ‘dreamtime’ , stories which put man at one with their environment and not at odds with it… So it kinda males sense why modern western man is so misreble
Well if u think about it it is society that defines what a problem with ur psyche is (i.e whats the right way to be nd not) so in theory society is to blame for our psychological problems… just a thought…
@Procel:
True if you are talking about “labels”. Not true if you are talking about yourself. What makes you unhappy, is what you have decided makes you unhappy. Kind of like no one can convince you that you like chocolate ice cream when you know that you do not. The “needs” that are not met in our society are basic needs of the human being’s soul, psyche, or whatever you want to call it. They are just intrinsic to us, because of what we are as entities, not because anyone tells us that we need them. When these needs are not met, we suffer as beings, no matter what environment, society, or culture that we find ourselves in.
The loss of sufficient autonomy, or freedom, of meaningful purpose, quest, achievement, that would be readily available outside of the industrial society, simply do not exist within it. Our predominant “goals”, “desires”, “options”, and “freedoms” in the industrial society are defined by and limited to serving the industrial society and not ourselves. Anyway…it doesn’t matter…this whole thing was just to see if anyone here felt that their problems, of mind, soul, psyche, or whatever were the result of the inevitable effects and control that industrial society has over our entire existence.
“I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way…But lo! men have become the tools of their tools…We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb.”
I have the thoughts [but not the will] of Thoreau.
Great quote!
Lotta good stuff here.
@heart is a lonely hunter: Yes. Man sure is a tool.
I have never honestly believed that man is the problem. That notion that man is doomed to be unhappy because that is the nature of humanity… well that theory smacks of catholic guilt to me, and I just don’t buy it. I honestly believe that man is unhappy because he has convinced himself of the lie, that unhappiness is his destiny. central to that lie is a very outdated origin story. I attempted to write a more positive origin story to subvert the lie but honestly I think as a species and a culture, we have a long way to go.
http://suicideproject.org/2011/10/a-origin-myth-of-the-world-after-god-and-before-columbus/
I have now read the manifesto. The key concept (imo) is “the power process” and the three different types of goal. In this – and in most of the manifesto – I think the author is right, and makes a good contribution to “the great debate”. BUT, I think he overestimates how many people suffer via the power process, and he underestimates the satisfaction that can come from “surrogate” activities. He also grossly underplays the effects of losing ALL our advanced technology.
In conclusion, he’s a clever man who’s written a good essay, but he’s complaning more on behalf of “spiritualists” like himself than humanity as a whole. And the bombing campaign he embarked on was stupid, evil, and futile.
So thanks for the philosophical ideas, Mr Bomber, but I won’t be smashing the system anytime soon.
one_day,
I read the link, and to be honest, I did not get it. So man went through his dark days seeking help and answers without, but found enlightenment when searching within? That would make sense if that is the theme. Everything external to us is illusory and everything internal is real (at least to us). Sorry, it was just a little too…poetic or metaphorical…for me to see the clear message concretely.
trappedlost,
Do you think that people are truly satisfied with the trivial “surrogates” that this society presents us with? If they are, that is a sadder and more disgusting verdict than even I would assign to the human species.
Smashing the system…LOL
The system WILL smash itself…it is inevitable. This “society” is unsustainable, illogical, self-destructive, and ill-suited in every way to the human being. “Industrial Society” is not even two hundred years old and is already in tatters and gasping for its last breaths.
I, for one, cannot think of a better scene than that of a wagon train of humans striking out for a fresh start and freedom while passing the dead corpses of the industrial society. (Picture the closing “scene” of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged 😀 ) I know that the irony of Rand’s praise for industrial achievement and her love of freedom enshrined in objectivism cannot both exist simultaneously. But I feel that the freedom she loved is only possible when industrial society is dead. 😀
@irspow. I think that SOME people are satisfied with “surrogates”, and that others don’t even particularly need much “power process”, and that a few lucky people do have adequate power processes. It’s just the minority of whom the Unabomber is a representative that have a problem (and you know, maybe I’m one of them…)
Regarding the future of the industrial-technological system, I honestly can’t predict the future. We’re basically in the realms of sci fi (cf. Ray Kurzweil).
I was never seduced by Rand 🙂
Yes, I certainly do. Some psychiatrists also seem to share that view.
Just listen to this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JbImYfRaZ8
I know this was written ages ago, but it really intrigued me and so I’m gonna leave a comment. Personally I wouldn’t say all psychological issues are related to or the cause of modern society, but I do believe around 90% of it is and that as society changes, psychological issues and how we deal with them will also change.