Nietzsche and the Unabomber

Nietzsche was a philosopher that I (really) discovered not long after shifting to atheism. Nietzsche's willingness to toss aside anything that didn't stand up to honest examination was refreshing and his critique of society at large was frequently chuckle inducing. Nietzsche's commentary on nihilism and the notion that it was a stepping-stone to a greater-than-human philosophy appealed to me as well. Many mistake Nietzsche for a nihilist when he in fact was not, and frequently critiqued it. The idea that he was a nihilist may have risen from his willingness to deconstruct virtually any social norm or popular ethical concept.

The important part of what he had to say about nihilism was with regards to how it was acceptable as an 'intermediary' truth until something that superceded and was somehow untainted by the human experience could be uncovered. Existentialism and post-existentialism are seen by some as follow-ups to Nietzsche's quest, but I've never really considered them to be acceptable except as potentially useful tools for handling life.

There are two primary interests in my philosophical life that I give time and thought to. One is to the post-human philosophy that Nietzsche's ubermensch could potentially unveil. The other is the consequences of industrial society on human life and the repercussions of the coming post-scarcity society.

Post-scarcity, to the unitiated, is a point an industrial society reaches were all resources are plentiful to the degree where price and money with respect to resources mean little. That is to say, supply has outstripped demand in all meaningful practical aspects of life and thusly all needs are provided for. Matter of social capital would still, of course, be relevant.

While this sounds like a virtual heaven-on-earth to anyone just now encountering the concept, that is at best a rather callow estimation. On further examination, it seems clear that there are a great deal of uncertainties surrounding how this would affect humanity as a species.

Theodore Kaczynski is someone who is known (at least amongst those familiar with his work) for having concerns about the industrial revolution as well as the consequences of post-scarcity. While he is more commonly known for being the unabomber (a reaction to personal objections to industrial society that I do not endorse nor ever will), his manifesto is actually worth reading if post-scarcity is of interest to you. Keeping in mind that his work is relatively standard reading material for anarcho-primitivists, it's worth reading due to the quality and breadth of what he talks about.

While I myself am not an anarcho-primitivist, I've had the feeling that we're in an uncanny valley of sort with respect to human happiness for some time. We're getting sicker and feebler, we're developing new mental illnesses by the decade, and we're finding new ways to become alienated from ourselves all the time. Even if post-scarcity were to say, fix all of our material/physical ailments, I don't see the immaturity of our present society being cured by a lack of material need. If anything, it would completely destabilize the social fabric of our society and virtually destroy everything that makes us distinctly human.

In fact, this process has already begun. The declining rate of fatherhood around the world, but especially in modern western society is a contributing factor to many societal ills. Not only that, but fatherhood has recently been proposed as a defining characteristic of what make us human as it's rather uncommon amongst mammals in addition to other reasons.

The kind of problems we have today with the diaspora of families would pale next to the kind of hollow people that could be found in a post-scarcity society that was ill-suited or unprepared for the changes that are entailed.

I just don't see any good alternatives. Returning to the wild doesn't really satisfy me pragmatically, so I can't take it seriously. For me personally, there might be a way to satisfy various human needs that date from our paleolithic origins, but how much of it is feasible or would be meaningful, I do not know. I've involuntarily gotten in touch with my inner craving of meat and the hunt over the past few years, and it's getting to be an intolerable itch.

Faced with the desire to produce a step beyond nihilism philosophically, and a way of life that copes with the realities of being human in industrial society, I remain puzzled. I remain doubtful that there is any chance of meaningful synthesis of the two questions as well.