"Collectivism" — he spoke the word, as if a wedding vow.

Mamdani said it, he highlighted it: "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism." He promised it. He attributed warmth to it.

The link goes to my post yesterday with that quote as the title. In the comments, I wrote: "He's saying the words that have been left unsaid in the past. In that way, he's like Trump."

Who are the other American politicians who might have said "collectivism" — in a positive way, not as a way of criticizing somebody else? Bernie Sanders, who swore in Mamdani, doesn't use that word.

This blog has a 22-year archive, so I did a search to see how "collectivism" has figured into our discourse. I found 14 items, and I don't think any of them count as a positive use of the word in the style of Zoran Mamdami. 

Here are all the past occurrences of "collectivism" on this blog, in chronological order:

"But what is lost in this lionization of one of the most notorious terrorists in American history is that for Mr. Kaczynski..."

"... the desire to kill came first, and the ideological justifications followed. Lonely rage defined him, and he spent far more time tormenting his neighbors than he did on his grandiose plans to bring down industrial society. He killed dogs for their barking, strung razor wire across dirt bike paths and fantasized about murdering a neighboring toddler. The manifesto and its carefully constructed veneer of Luddite and anarchist philosophies were a con to lure others into his world of despair and hatred.... He callously identified the environmental movement as being the most socially acceptable justification for his crimes, even though he privately denigrated environmentalists in his journals, and proudly littered, poached and illegally logged on national forest land around his cabin."

From "What Do You Say to a Young Person Who Admires the Unabomber?" by Maxim Loskutoff, who wrote a novel about Ted Kaczynski, "Old King."

In the future, evildoers will be able to use A.I. to produce a carefully-constructed-looking manifesto that organizes their chaotic facts into what seems to be a coherent philosophy.

The answer to the question in the column title is tell these students...

"[Luigi Mangione] followed a variety of accounts befitting a typically online young man — self-help gurus like Andrew Huberman, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and 'heterodox' thinkers..."

"... such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, as well as Joe Rogan. His strongest interest by far is in the work of Tim Urban, a writer and illustrator popular with tech types who publishes science explainers and anti-woke political writing about how polarization is bad and rationalism can save the world. There was one prominent exception to his innocuous online trail, though. Early this year, he favorably reviewed the book-length manifesto of Theodore Kaczynski, a fellow math whiz better known as the Unabomber, who killed and maimed people he believed had ruined the world with technology. 'It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies,' he wrote. 'But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.' Mangione then quoted a 'take I found online that I think is interesting,' which ended by saying '"violence never solved anything" is a statement uttered by cowards and predators.' The manifesto found on Mangione is said to have stated 'these parasites had it coming.'"

From "What We Know About the UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder Suspect/An elite son is charged in the killing that also struck at corporate America" (NY Magazine).

"He had scored 167 on an I.Q. test as a boy and entered Harvard at 16. In graduate school, at the University of Michigan, he worked in a field of mathematics..."

"... so esoteric that a member of his dissertation committee estimated that only 10 or 12 people in the country understood it. By 25, he was an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Then he dropped out — not just from Berkeley, but from civilization. Starting in 1971 and continuing until his arrest, he lived in a shack he built himself in rural Montana. He forsook running water, read by the light of homemade candles, stopped filing federal tax returns and subsisted on rabbits."

From "Ted Kaczynski, ‘Unabomber’ Who Attacked Modern Life, Dies at 81/Alone in a shack in the Montana wilderness, he fashioned homemade bombs and launched a violent one-man campaign to destroy industrial society" (NYT).

ADDED: The story at the link has been updated. It now gives a cause of death — suicide — based on "three people familiar with the situation." It also reflects on the soundness of ideas in the manifesto — as seen today:

His manifesto accorded centrality to a healthy environment without mentioning global warming; it warned about the dangers of people becoming “dependent” on technology while making scant reference to the internet. To young people afflicted by social media anomie and fearful of climate doom, Mr. Kaczynski seemed to wield a predictive power that outstripped the evidence available to him.

In 2017 and 2020, Netflix released documentaries about him. He maintained postal correspondence with thousands of people — journalists, students and die-hard supporters. In 2018, Wired magazine announced “the Unabomber’s odd and furious online revival,” and New York magazine called him “an unlikely prophet to a new generation of acolytes.”
Becoming ‘the Unabomber’

If you click on my "Kaczynski" tag, you'll see that in 2015, I posted about the manifesto and said:

Ted had a lot to say about leftists in his manifesto. Let's look. It's worth reading if only to see how surprisingly similar it is to things you may be seeing every day on the internet....

I have some long quotes from the manifesto, including: "The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call 'feelings of inferiority' and 'oversocialization.'"

"John Hinkley's Music, Whitey Bulger, and MKUltra."

What is MKUltra? "Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was the code name of an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The experiments were intended to develop procedures and identify drugs such as LSD that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of torture." (Much more at the link.)

A letter from The Unabomber ridiculing Lawrence Wright — a writer at The New Yorker — for believing he'd received a letter from The Unabomber.

The letter, below, was sent to Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski, who just happens to have the same last name as The Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski).

20 years ago today: The Washington Post published the 35,000-word "Unabomber Manifesto."

The Washington Post has the story, with a photograph, at the top center of the home page: "How publishing a 35,000-word manifesto led to the Unabomber."

In more than 35,000 words spread over eight pages of a special section, an anonymous author laid out his complaint against the “industrial-technological system” and his desire to destroy it by sparking a revolution. The essay bumped and blundered through a forest of dark themes and discontent, from a lengthy lament about environmental destruction to a brief critique of golf and bowling.

The publication led to the identification and arrest of Kaczynski (because his sister-in-law and brother recognized his distinctive style of expression), but the reason for publishing the whole damned thing was to comply with Kaczynski's ultimatum: If it's published, he'll stop bombing, and if not, he'll "start building our [sic] next bomb."

WaPo puts the old story in the context of present-day concerns about terrorism:

[T]he episode also stands out as an early milestone in the current age of anxiety. The Unabomber’s manifesto appeared just as Washington was beginning its long preoccupation with terrorism and national security. As the news media and the public fixated on the Unabomber drama, a much bigger story was quietly dawning. That same year, in a classified National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA warned that Islamic extremists were intent on striking targets inside the United States.

The NYT — which coordinated with WaPo in responding to the ultimatum — ignores the anniversary. There's a mention on the day's "Today in History" feature, which comes from The Associated Press. It's in there along with other historical anniversaries like: "In 1970, the situation comedy 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' debuted on CBS-TV." And: "In 1915, vaudeville performer W.C. Fields made his movie debut as 'Pool Sharks,' a one-reel silent comedy, was released." And in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev got mad when he found out they weren't going to let him into Disneyland. In 1960, Fidel Castro came to New York City, didn't like his hotel, and "angrily checked out" and went to a different hotel.  Communists and comedians. Communists and comedians and Ted Kaczynski.

Ted had a lot to say about leftists in his manifesto. Let's look. It's worth reading if only to see how surprisingly similar it is to things you may be seeing every day on the internet:

"By definition, killers like Tsarnaev are sociopathic and essentially dead inside."

"Consciously or subconsciously, they long for death. The State then rewards them by giving them the death penalty. I say, make him suffer; he deserves it. Make him live out his natural life in a cell, with no chance of freedom."

That's the top-rated comment at the NYT article "Boston Is Eager to Begin Marathon Bombing Trial, and to End It." The evidence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's guilt is overwhelming. The only point of going to trial is to determine whether he'll get life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

[Tsarnaev's lawyer Judy] Clarke is famous for cutting deals that keep her clients off death row. At some point in the process, her clients — including Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber; and Jared L. Loughner, who killed six people in an assassination attempt on former Representative Gabrielle Giffords — pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, with no chance of parole.

So far, Clarke has failed to get that deal for Tsarnaev.

Should the government give Tsarnaev the deal he seeks?

No. He deserves death.

No. We should see the full scale trial, with a jury deciding whether he deserves death.

Yes. He was very young and manipulated by his brother. Death is too harsh.

Yes. He deserves death, but the death penalty is morally wrong.

Yes. He deserves death, but deny him the drama and the sympathy that come with trial and execution.

pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: If you can't see buttons for voting in the poll, go here.

"The unfiltered misogyny of Elliot Rodger is extreme, but it’s an indicator of the hatred that remains a stubborn part of our society’s fabric."

"No, #NotAllMen are like Elliot Rodger. But #YesAllWomen reveal the little pieces of him we encounter every single day."

Petula Dvorak weaves an awful lot of themes together. You can tell she knows they don't really fit neatly, but she can't resist doing it anyway. Rodger was a crazy murderer, but somehow his words are an indicator of what we are.

A madman murdered, but — look! — it spawned hashtag activity on Twitter. I can't believe this dead murderer is the lens through which we ought to look at ourselves.

You know, people are reading his 137-page manifesto, taking it seriously as an object of study. We didn't do that with the Unabomber's 35,000-word manifesto...

One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general....

When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types....

The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential....

Oh, hell. If that came out today, we would be taking it seriously.

A much-criticized WaPo headline: "What motivates a lawyer to defend a Tsarnaev, a Castro or a Zimmerman?"

That still runs atop an article by lawprof Abbe Smith which explains the role of the defense lawyer within the criminal justice system. The explanation is familiar to anyone who's considered the topic beyond the shallowest level, but the article appears in the Washington Post because of all the attention to the Zimmerman trial, which explains the presence of the acquitted neighborhood watchman alongside the names of the evil Castro and the accused terrorist Tsarnaev.

The headline drew fire. At Breitbart.com: "the Washington Post outlandishly sought to equate the acquitted Robert [sic] Zimmerman to accused serial rapist Ariel Castro and Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev." At Instapundit: "Which one of these things is not like the others?... 'Tsarnaez = Castro = Zimmerman? Why not just throw in a Hitler? That’s usually how the question is posed at cocktail parties.'"

So look at how this article is teased on the front page at WaPo right now:



Quick! Roll out the Kaczynski!

"The Boston Bombing Witch Hunt Bags Another Innocent Kid."

"Yesterday he caught wind that his name and social media profiles were being circulated online, and he did what any teenager would do: He panicked. He made his Facebook timeline private, and in one message now no longer visible, he announced he was going to clear his name. Going to the court rightnow!! Shit is real. But u will see guys I'm did not do anything."

Reminiscent of Richard Jewell and Atlanta Olympics bombing:

Early news reports lauded Jewell as a hero for helping to evacuate the area after he spotted the suspicious package. Three days later, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that the FBI was treating him as a possible suspect, based largely on a "lone bomber" criminal profile. For the next several weeks, the news media focused aggressively on him as the presumed culprit, labeling him with the ambiguous term "person of interest," sifting through his life to match a leaked "lone bomber" profile that the FBI had used. The media, to varying degrees, portrayed Jewell as a failed law enforcement officer who may have planted the bomb so he could find it and be a hero.

Two of the bombing victims filed lawsuits against Jewell on the basis of this reporting. In a reference to the Unabomber, Jay Leno called him the "Una-doofus." Other references include "Una-Bubba," and (of his mother) "Una-Mama." Jewell was never officially charged, but the FBI searched his home, questioned his associates, investigated his background, and maintained twenty-four hour surveillance of him. The pressure only began to ease after Jewell's attorneys hired an ex-FBI agent to administer a polygraph which Jewell reportedly passed....

Horrible.

"A Crimson-faced Harvard Alumni Assn. says it regrets allowing [Ted] Kaczynski to use its so-called Red Book to update his profile."

"There, Kaczynski lists his occupation as 'prisoner' and includes the following as among his awards: 'Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.' He blithely gave his address as the federal prison in Florence, Colo."

ADDED: I don't see what's blithe or even inappropriate about this. It's grimly factual. Harvard should not censor the flow of information about its alumni. Take responsibility for it all. 

"So what, for instance, might something like a Yodaville National Park, or Urban Target Complex National Monument, look like?"

"How would it be managed, touristed, explored, mapped, and understood? What sorts of trails and interpretive centers might it host? Alternatively, in much the same way that the Unabomber's cabin is currently on display at the Newseum in Washington D.C., could Yodaville somehow, someday, become part of a distributed collection of sites owned and operated by the Smithsonian, the National Building Museum, or, for that matter, UNESCO, in the latter case with Arizona's simulated battlegrounds joining Greek temples as world heritage sites?"

BLDGBLOG.

"The FBI wants DNA samples from 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski in its probe of the 1982 Tylenol killings."

Breaking news, we're told.

ADDED: The CNN breaking news link died... presumably because there's a whole article now. It doesn't look as thought there's any special focus on Kaczynski in the old Tylenol case. Kaczynski is trying to stop an auction of his property, most notably the handwritten copy of his manifesto, and the papers he filed in court about that revealed that the FBI wanted his DNA. An FBI spokeswoman says the FBI wants DNA from "numerous individuals" in its efforts to solve the old murder case.

In case you'd like to read the manifesto, you can. And here's some more info on the big auction:

The GSA is used to auctioning off diamonds and Lamborghinis, beach-front condos and well-appointed mansions seized from Wall Street fraudsters and drug traffickers. It sometimes hires private auctioneers to conduct the sale. Bernard L. Madoff’s wine cellar went on sale yesterday, also online, with proceeds to be distributed to his Ponzi scheme victims.

When the bad guy is a recluse who lived in a 10-by-12-foot cabin in the Montana woods, picked berries and hunted woodland creatures for food, no Bentleys turn up. The government does the best it can.

Hence Kaczynski’s handwritten instructions on how “to make reindeer moss edible” is available for purchase.

Not available are instructions or materials for making bombs, nor his guns. His cabin’s out, too, as it’s on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C....

At the end of the first day, the highest bid for the hand- written Manifesto stood at $10,050, making it the most valuable item. The hoodie and sunglasses were next at $3,125.

AND: Here's the auction.

Was that Austin IRS suicide plane-crasher a lefty or a righty?

And should we even be talking about that? Are we talking about that? And who started it? He started it!

I'm trying to sort out the bickering between Allahpundit and WaPo's Michael Berston True/Slant's Michael Roston.

And then there's the old it's terrorism and they won't call it terrorism rant.

I think some people want to bounce political arguments off the incident, but they don't want to look unseemly doing that, so they need to say that somebody on the other side said something first. It's quite farcical.

ADDED: To the extent that what Stack did is terrorism, it's completely ineffective terrorism. When a single act of violence kills a terrorist who is acting alone, what are we supposed to feel terror about? There's no threat of something else happening. Al Qaeda is effective because there's a whole organization, with more individuals ready to go on suicide missions. The Unabomber was an effective solo terrorist because he mailed his bombs and, uncaught, represented a continuing threat. Solo + suicide ≠ terrorism.

Would you like to live in a "tiny house"?

We're not talking about a house that's very small -- under 700 or even under 500 square feet -- because that's all you can afford and times are hard, but a tiny house that you like precisely because of what that compact space does to you. You want that aesthetic. You embrace that relationship between the space that encloses you and that wider landscape onto which you've plunked it.

Be clear. This is not like living in a small apartment. Many people live in apartments that are far less than 500 square feet. That's not new and it's no kind of statement. What we're talking about here are very chic but austere house-cubicles perched on scenic landscapes. This is not going to work if you line these things up close together, of course, because then it's basically a trailer park, and that couldn't be a chic new lifestyle with a write-up in the New York Times. You've got to have that thing up on a mountaintop or out in the forest.

Once there, you will suffer from occasional bouts of angst. The thought this is how the Unabomber lived will inevitably rattle that brain you had meant to calm. Conquer these doubts. Remember: This was written up in the New York Times.

ADDED: I'm imagining a screenplay about a guy who goes for this idea. Of course, he's idealistic and comically naive. And bad things will have to happen to him. He's from the city and there are un-chic local people who don't really like his attitude. I think I'll have a group of them sneak up the mountain at night and tip the house over.

"A hall full of yowling Ron Paul loons and questions from Unabomber look-a-likes in murky basements."

Richelieu at Weekly Standard deplores CNN's YouTube debate:

America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Well put.

ADDED: By contrast, look at how positive Captain Ed is about CNN's handling of the debate:

For the most part -- with a few glaring exceptions -- the network eliminated the silliness and stuck to substance. The questions hit hot topics and sparked some fierce debate. With a couple of exceptions, Republican fears of crypto-Democratic hit questions failed to materialize, and the candidates responded substantively to the rest.

I expected the debate to descend into silliness and gotcha moments. The only gotchas came from the candidates. Truthfully, this may have been one of the least "gotcha" and most substantive debates we've had this year.

Auctioning off the Unabomber's possessions.

A court has ordered that Ted Kaczynski's possessions be sold to pay for restitution to his victims. What did the Unabomber even have, living in that off-the-grid shack, without water or electricity? What things do you retain when you're freaked out by all the things other people have? I want to see the complete list! Smoking Gun? Ah, yes! They've got the whole list. Unlike Ted, I love the internet. Let's read the list....

48 items -- some plural -- on the "Tools" list. "Red colored vice" is one. No virtues are listed, so we don't know what color they would have been had they existed.

24 items on the "Clothing" list. Expect to pay a premium for glasses and anything with a hood.

19 items on the "Personal Belongings" list. He did have three watches, including a "Le Watch." And three typewriters.

And the books: here's the whole list. "Autopsy of a Revolution." Things about ancient Rome and world politics. "Count Your Calories" (that will bring out the anger!). "The Defense Never Rests." Guides to edible plants. The ways of the Indians. "The Organization Man." "Razor's Edge." "Psychology of Women" (evidence of pain?). Volumes of "Skeptical Inquirer." "Secret Agent." Several Dickens novels. "Your Right to Privacy." "The Elements of Style." A beginner's typing manual. Many more. You try to solve the puzzle of a brilliant mind gone wrong.

Prisoner 51427-054.

Moussaoui goes to the Supermax federal prison in Colorado, where "the soundproofed cells were designed so inmates cannot make eye contact with each other." Among the nearly 400 prisonmates he can't see are Ramzi Yousef, Eric Rudolph, Ted Kaczynski, Terry Nichols, and Richard Reid.

Harriet Miers as the new entry on the list of nonmathematician math majors.

Here's a good list for reference. How does the interest in and aptitude for math affect how one behaves in non-mathematical aspects of life? Think of what math may have had to do with the accomplishments of these folks (and go to the link for the full list, compiled by Steven G. Buyske):

Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader and Martin Luther King's closest aide.

Harry Blackmun, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, AB summa cum laude in mathematics at Harvard.

David Dinkins, Mayor of New York, BA in mathematics from Howard.

Florence Nightingale, pioneer in professional nursing. She was the first person in the English-speaking world to apply statistics to public health. She was also a pioneer in the graphic representation of statistics; the pie-chart was her invention, for example. Not really a math major, she was privately educated, but pursued mathematics far beyond contemporary standards for women.

Laurence H. Tribe, Professor at Harvard Law School, often regarded as one of the great contemporary authorities on Constitutional Law. An AB summa cum laude in mathematics from Harvard.

Leon Trotsky, revolutionary. He began to study Pure mathematics at Odessa in 1897, but imprisonment and exile in Siberia seem to have ended his mathematical efforts.

Art Garfunkel, folk-rock singer. MA in mathematics from Columbia in 1967. Worked on a PhD at Columbia, but chose to pursue his musical career instead.

Phillip Glass , composer, a Bachelor's from the University of Chicago.

Carole King , Sixties songwriter, and later a singer-songwriter. She dropped out after one year of college to pursue her music career.

Tom Lehrer , songwriter-parodist. PhD student in mathematics at Harvard.

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass , and other works. A ringer: he was a logician under his real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Heloise (Ponce Cruse Evans), of Hints from Heloise . She minored in math.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn , Nobel prize-winning novelist, a degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Rostov.

Bram Stoker , author of Dracula, took honors at Trinity University, Dublin.

Ted Kaczinski, PhD in mathematics from University of Michigan. Kaczinski worked at UC Berkeley for some time and published papers in complex variables before retreating to the woods and becoming the infamous "unabomber."

Can we get an op-ed from Larry Tribe on the subject? Or maybe you readers can speculate in the comments.

I'll just say that I expect the Senate Democrats to use the math background as they grill Miers about whether she's got a heart -- a subject they pestered John Roberts about. I expect them to heart-grill Harriet even more. She's supposed to represent women -- O'Connor did! -- so where are her feelings? She never married! She has no children! She majored in math! Will they dare take the tack that she's not a proper member of the group she's supposed to represent? You know they are thinking about it.

I just want to say that I'm standing here waiting for every misstep in that direction, and I intend to slam them for it -- from over here in my little outpost in the blogosphere.