"Words like "self-confidence", "self-reliance", "initiative", "enterprise", "optimism", etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary.… - Ted Kaczynski

"Words like "self-confidence", "self-reliance", "initiative", "enterprise", "optimism", etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's problems for them, satisfy everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself."

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About Ted Kaczynski

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber (May 22, 1942 – June 10, 2023) was an American terrorist and former mathematics professor. After leaving modern society in 1971, between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the environment. He authored Industrial Society and Its Future, a 35,000-word manifesto and social critique opposing industrialization, rejecting leftism, and advocating for a nature-centered form of anarchism. After promising to desist from terrorism in a letter sent to The New York Times if his manifesto was published by the Times or The Washington Post, it appeared in the latter in September 1995, leading to his identification and capture. Following the FBI's most expensive manhunt in its history, he pleaded guilty to all charges in 1998 and was sentenced to eight consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Birth Name: Theodore John Kaczynski
Native Name: Theodore Kaczynski
Also Known As: Unabomber
Alternative Names: Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski University and airline bomber The Unabomber T. J. Kaczynski
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Shorter versions of this quote

The leftist is anti-individualistic... He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs.

Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative,” “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs.

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Additional quotes by Ted Kaczynski

The techno-industrial system is exceptionally tough due to its so-called "democratic" structure and its resulting flexibility. Because dictatorial systems tend to be rigid, social tensions and resistance can be built up in them to the point where they damage and weaken the system and may lead to revolution. But in a "democratic" system, when social tension and resistance build up dangerously the system backs off enough, it compromises enough, to bring the tensions down to a safe level.

The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system.

many people put into their work far more effort than is necessary to earn whatever money and status they require, and this extra effort constitutes a surrogate activity. This extra effort, together with the emotional investment that accompanies it, is one of the most potent forces acting toward the continual development and perfecting of the system, with negative consequences for individual freedom (see paragraph 131).

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