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Title: Hit where it hurts Author: Ted Kaczynski Date: 2002 Language: en Topics: activism, anti-civ, Green Anarchy #8, leftism, primitivism, primitivist Source: Retrieved on June 2, 2011 from http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/hti.htm][www.insurgentdesire.org.uk]] (at [[http://web.archive.org) Notes: Green Anarchy #8, Spring 2002
The purpose of this article is to point out a very simple principle of
human conflict, a principle that opponents of the techno-industrial
system seem to be overlooking. The principle is that in any form of
conflict, if you want to win, you must hit your adversary where it
hurts.
I have to explain that when I talk about “hitting where it hurts” I am
not necessarily referring to physical blows or to any other form of
physical violence. For example, in oral debate, “hitting where it hurts”
would mean making the arguments to which your opponents position is most
vulnerable. In a presidential election, “hitting where it hurts” would
mean winning from your opponent the states that have the most electoral
votes. Still, in discussing this principle I will use the analogy of
physical combat, because it is vivid and clear.
If a man punches you, you can’t defend yourself by hitting back at his
fist, because you can’t hurt the man that way. In order to win the
fight, you have to hit him where it hurts. That means you have to go
behind the fist and hit the sensitive and vulnerable parts of the man’s
body.
Suppose a bulldozer belonging to a logging company has been tearing up
the woods near your home and you want to stop it. It is the blade of the
bulldozer that rips the earth and knocks trees over, but it would be a
waste of time to take a sledgehammer to the blade. if you spent a long,
hard day working on the blade with the sledge, you might succeed in
damaging it enough so that it became useless. But, in comparison with
the rest of the bulldozer, the blade is relatively inexpensive and easy
to replace. The blade is only the “fist” with which the bulldozer hits
the earth. To defeat the machine you must go behind the “fist” and
attack the bulldozers vital parts. The engine, for example, can be
ruined with very little expenditure of time and effort by means well
known to many radicals.
At this point I must make clear that I am not recommending that anyone
should damage a bulldozer (unless it is his own property). Nor should
anything in this article be interpreted as recommending illegal activity
of any kind. I am a prisoner, and if I were to encourage illegal
activity this article would not even be allowed to leave the prison. I
use the bulldozer analogy only because it it clear and vivid and will be
appreciated by radicals.
It is widely recognized that “the basic variable which determines the
contemporary historic process is provided by technological development”
(Celso Furtado*). Technology, above all else, is responsible for the
current condition of the world and will control its future development.
Thus, the “bulldozer” that we have to destroy is modern technology
itself. Many radicals are aware of this, and therefore realize that
there task is to eliminate the entire techno-industrial system. But
unfortunately they have paid little attention to the need to hit the
system where it hurts.
Smashing up McDonald’s or Starbuck’s is pointless. Not that I give a
damn about McDonald’s or Starbuck’s. I don’t care whether anyone smashes
them up or not. But that is not a revolutionary activity. Even if every
fast-food chain in the world were wiped out the techno-industrial system
would suffer only minimal harm as a result, since it could easily
survive without fast-food chains. When you attack McDonald’s or
Starbuck’s, you are not hitting where it hurts.
Some months ago I received a letter from a young man in Denmark who
believed that the techno-industrial system had to be eliminated because,
as he put it, “What will happen if we go on this way?” Apparently,
however, his form of “revolutionary” activity was raiding fur farms. As
a means of weakening the techno-industrial system this activity is
utterly useless. Even if animal liberationists succeed in eliminating
the fur industry completely they would do no harm at all to the system,
because the system can get along perfectly well without furs.
I agree that keeping wild animals in cages is intolerable, and that
putting an end to such practices is a noble cause. But there are many
other noble causes, such as preventing traffic accidents, providing
shelter for the homeless, recycling, or helping old people cross the
street. Yet no one is foolish enough to mistake these for revolutionary
activities, or to imagine that they do anything to weaken the system.
To take another example, no one in his right mind believes that anything
like real wilderness can survive very long if the techno-industrial
system continues to exist. Many environmental radicals agree that this
is the case and hope for the collapse of the system. But in practice all
they do is attack the timber industry.
I certainly have no objection to their attack on the timber industry. In
fact, it’s an issue that is close to my heart and I’m delighted by any
successes that radicals may have against the timber industry. In
addition, for reasons that I need to explain here, I think that
opposition to the timber industry should be one component of the efforts
to overthrow the system.
But, by itself, attacking the timber industry is not an effective way of
working against the system, for even in the unlikely event that radicals
succeeded in stopping all logging everywhere in the world, that would
not bring down the system. And it would not permanently save wilderness.
Sooner or later the political climate would change and logging would
resume. Even if logging never resumed, there would be other venues
through which wilderness would be destroyed, or if not destroyed then
tamed and domesticated. Mining and mineral exploration, acid rain,
climate changes, and species extinction destroy wilderness; wilderness
is tamed and domesticated through recreation, scientific study, and
resource management, including among other things electronic tracking of
animals, stocking of streams with hatchery-bred fish, and planting of
genetically-engineered trees.
Wilderness can be saved permanently only by eliminating the
techno-industrial system, and you cannot eliminate the system by
attacking the timber industry. The system would easily survive the death
of the timber industry because wood products, though very useful to the
system, can if necessary be replaced with other materials.
Consequently, when you attack the timber industry, you are not hitting
the system where it hurts. The timber industry is only the “fist” (or
one of the fists) with which the system destroys wilderness, and, just
as in a fist-fight, you can’t win by hitting at the fist. You have to go
behind the fist and strike at the most sensitive and vital organs of the
system. By legal means, of course, such as peaceful protests.
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.
During the 1960s people first became aware that environmental pollution
was a serious problem, the more so because the visible and smellable
filth in the air over our major cities was beginning to make people
physically uncomfortable. Enough protest arose so that an Environmental
Protection Agency was established and other measures were taken to
alleviate the problem. Of course, we all know that our pollution
problems are a long, long way from being solved. But enough was done so
that public complaints subsided and the pressure on the system was
reduced for a number of years.
Thus, attacking the system is like hitting a piece of rubber. A blow
with a hammer can shatter cast iron, because caste iron is rigid and
brittle. But you can pound a piece of rubber without hurting it because
it is flexible: It gives way before protest, just enough so that the
protest loses its force and momentum. Then the system bounces back.
So, in order to hit the system where it hurts, you need to select issues
on which the system will not back off, in which it will fight to the
finish. For what you need is not compromise with the system but a
life-and-death struggle.
It is absolutely essential to attack the system not in terms of its own
technologically-oriented values, but in terms of values that are
inconsistent with the values of the system. As long as you attack the
system in terms of its own values, you do not hit the system where it
hurts, and you allow the system to deflate protest by giving way, by
backing off.
For example, if you attack the timber industry primarily on the basis
that forests are needed to preserve water resources and recreational
opportunities, then the system can give ground to defuse protest without
compromising its own values: Water resources and recreation are fully
consistent with the values of the system, and if the system backs off,
if it restricts logging in the name of water resources and recreation,
then it only makes a tactical retreat and does not suffer a strategic
defeat for its code of values.
If you push victimization issues (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, or
poverty) you are not challenging the system’s values and you are not
even forcing the system to back off or compromise. You are directly
helping the system. All of the wisest proponents of the system recognize
that racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty are harmful to the system,
and this is why the system itself works to combat these and similar
forms of victimization.
“Sweatshops,” with their low pay and wretched working conditions, may
bring profit to certain corporations, but wise proponents of the system
know very well that the system as a whole functions better when workers
are treated decently. In making an issue of sweatshops, you are helping
the system, not weakening it.
Many radicals fall into the temptation of focusing on non-essential
issues like racism, sexism and sweatshops because it is easy. They pick
an issue on which the system can afford a compromise and on which they
will get support from people like Ralph Nader, Winona La Duke, the labor
unions, and all the other pink reformers. Perhaps the system, under
pressure, will back off a bit, the activists will see some visible
result from their efforts, and they will have the satisfying illusion
that they have accomplished something. But in reality they have
accomplished nothing at all toward eliminating the techno-industrial
system.
The globalization issue is not completely irrelevant to the technology
problem. The package of economic and political measures termed
“globalization” does promote economic growth and, consequently,
technological progress. Still, globalization is an issue of marginal
importance and not a well-chosen target of revolutionaries. The system
can afford to give ground on the globalization issue. Without giving up
globalization as such, the system can take steps to mitigate the
negative environmental and economic consequences of globalization so as
to defuse protest. At a pinch, the system could even afford to give up
globalization altogether. Growth and progress would still continue, only
at a slightly lower rate. And when you fight globalization you are not
attacking the systems fundamental values. Opposition to globalization is
motivated in terms of securing decent wages for workers and protecting
the environment, both of which are completely consistent with the values
of the system. (The system, for its own survival, can’t afford to let
environmental degradation go too far.) Consequently, in fighting
globalization you do not hit the system where it really hurts. Your
efforts may promote reform, but they are useless for the purpose of
overthrowing the techno-industrial system.
To work effectively toward the elimination of the techno-industrial
system, revolutionaries must attack the system at points at which it
cannot afford to give ground. They must attack the vital organs of the
system. Of course, when I use the word “attack,” I am not referring to
physical attack but only to legal forms of protest and resistance.
Some examples of vital organs of the system are:
electric-power grid.
telephone, radio, television, e-mail, and so forth, the system could not
survive.
would promptly collapse.
entertainment industry, the educational system, journalism, advertising,
public relations, and much of politics and of the mental-health
industry. The system can’t function unless people are sufficiently
docile and conforming and have the attitudes that the system needs them
to have. It is the function of the propaganda industry to teach people
that kind of thought and behavior.
physically dependent on advanced biotechnology. Nevertheless, the system
cannot afford to give way on the biotechnology issue, which is a
critically important issue for the system, as I will argue in a moment.
Again: When you attack these vital organs of the system, it is essential
not to attack them in terms of the system’s own values but in terms of
values inconsistent with those of the system. For example, if you attack
the electric-power industry on the basis that it pollutes the
environment, the system can defuse protest by developing cleaner methods
of generating electricity. If worse came to worse, the system could even
switch entirely to wind and solar power. This might do a great deal to
reduce environmental damage, but it would not put an end to the
techno-industrial system. Nor would it represent a defeat for the
system’s fundamental values. To accomplish anything against the system
you have to attack all electric-power generation as a matter of
principle, on the ground that dependence on electricity makes people
dependent on the system. This is a ground incompatible with the system’s
values.
Probably the most promising target for political attack is the
biotechnology industry. Though revolutions are generally carried out by
minorities, it is very useful to have some degree of support, sympathy,
or at least acquiescence from the general population. To get that kind
of support or acquiescence is one of the goals of political action. If
you concentrated your political attack on, for example, the
electric-power industry, it would be extremely difficult to get any
support outside of a radical minority, because most people resist change
to their way of living, especially any change that inconveniences them.
For this reason, few would be willing to give up electricity.
But people do not yet feel themselves dependent on advanced
biotechnology as they do on electricity. Eliminating biotechnology will
not radically change their lives. On the contrary, it would be possible
to show people that the continued development of biotechnology will
transform their way of life and wipe out age-old human values. Thus, in
challenging biotechnology, radicals should be able to mobilize in their
own favor the natural human resistance to change.
And biotechnology is an issue on which the system cannot afford to lose.
It is an issue on which the system will have to fight to the finish,
which is exactly what we need. But — to repeat once more — it is
essential to attack biotechnology not in terms of the system’s own
values but in terms of values inconsistent with those of the system. For
example, if you attack biotechnology, primarily on the basis that it may
damage the environment, or that genetically-modified foods may be
harmful to health, then the system can and will cushion your attack by
giving ground or compromising — for instance, by introducing increased
supervision of genetic research and more rigorous testing and regulation
of genetically-modified crops. People’s anxiety will then subside and
protest with wither.
So, instead of protesting one or another negative consequence of
biotechnology, you have to attack all modern biotechnology on principle,
on grounds such as (a) that it is an insult to all living things; (b)
that it puts too much power in the hands of the system; (c) that it will
radically transform fundamental human values that have existed for
thousands of years; and similar grounds that are inconsistent with the
values of the system.
In response to this kind of attack the system will have to stand and
fight. It cannot afford to cushion your attack by backing off to any
great extent, because biotechnology is too central to the whole
enterprise of technological progress, and because in backing off the
system would not be making only a tactical retreat, but would be taking
a major strategic defeat to its code of values. Those values would be
undermined and the door would be opened to further political attacks
that would hack away at the foundations of the system.
Now it’s true that the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to
ban cloning of human beings, and at least some congressmen even gave the
right kinds of reasons for doing so. The reasons I read about were
framed in religious terms, but whatever you may think of the religious
terms involved, these reasons were not technologically acceptable
reasons. And that is what counts.
Thus, the congressmen’s vote on human cloning was a genuine defeat for
the system. But it was only a very, very small defeat, because of the
narrow scope of the ban — only one tiny part of biotechnology was
affected — and because for the near future cloning of human beings would
be of little practical use to the system anyway. But the House of
Representatives’ action does suggest that this may be a point at which
the system is vulnerable, and that a broader attack on all of
biotechnology might inflict severe damage on the system and its values.
Some radicals do attack the biotechnology, whether politically or
physically, but as far as I know they explain their opposition to
biotech in terms of the system’s own values. That is, their main
complaints are the risks of environmental damage and of harm to health.
And they are not hitting the biotech industry where it hurts. To use an
analogy of physical combat once again, suppose you had to defend
yourself against a giant octopus. You would not be able to fight back
effectively by hacking at the tips of its tentacles. You have to strike
at its head. From what I’ve read of their activities, radicals who work
against biotechnology still do no more than hack at the tips of the
octopus’s tentacles. They try to persuade ordinary farmers,
individually, to refrain from planting genetically-engineered seed. But
there are many thousands of farms in America, so that persuading farmers
individually is an extremely inefficient way to combat genetic
engineering. It would be much more effective to persuade research
scientists engaged in biotechnological work, or executives of companies
like Monsanto, to leave the biotech industry. Good research scientists
are people who have special talents and extensive training, so they are
difficult to replace. The same is true of top corporate executives.
Persuading just a few of these people to get out of biotech would do
more damage to the biotechnology industry than persuading a thousand
farmers not to plant genetically-engineered seed.
It is open to argument whether I am right in thinking that biotechnology
is the best issue on which to attack the system politically. But it is
beyond argument that radicals today are wasting much of their energy on
issues that have little or no relevance to the survival of the
technological system. And even when they do address the right issues,
radicals do not hit where it hurts. So instead of trotting off to the
next world trade summit to have temper tantrums over globalization,
radicals ought to put in some time thinking how to hit the system where
it really hurts. By legal means, of course.