by gg3 » Mon 28 May 2007, 05:36:33
I well remember the search for the Unabomber because I was in the East Bay when the guy was still around and mailing bombs to people.
At one point the FBI was running around the community asking for help from anyone who might have a lead. They contacted a friend of mine, they contacted me, they must have contacted hundreds of people in the area.
We wracked our brains to try to figure out if anyone we had ever met could possibly be "the guy." I found a copy of his manifesto online and downloaded it, with the intention of reading it to see if his writing style rang any bells. I got about... maybe ten pages into it, if that... and bogged down in the quagmire of what resembled nothing so much as the ramblings of so many self-absorbed leftists I knew in college.
Needless to say, none of us came up with anything useful, and in the end he was found in Montana, and if I'm not mistaken, he's presently rotting away in a cell somewhere.
But the point here is, I've seen that general style scores of times, from self-absorbed undergrad lefties, and from the "critical theory" crowd, "deconstructionists," and others who spend their days crafting prose that appears to be so darn smart but is merely thick in the manner of nearly-frozen corn syrup.
It's not brilliant. Oh, I'm sure the guy has a few good insights, but nothing you haven't read before elsewhere from people who don't have blood on their hands.
He's a f---ing nut. Even if what he says occasionally hits the mark. After all, you could probably find a quote from Hitler and another from Stalin that could be passed off as genius insights. And there are many far more capable critics of technology who have had similar ideas but don't go running around blowing up innocent people to promote them.
There's another good reason we should dismiss the likes of Ted K-dammit-I-can't-spell-it-either:
If we pay attention to stuff written by criminal nutcases and terrorists, aside from the attention needed to further the cause of bringing such people to justice, then we're rewarding them for their murders.
People should understand that if they try to publicize their causes through violent crime, everyone aside from criminologists will simply choose to ignore what they have to say.
The point being, to remove the incentive to use violent crime as a means of self-promotion.