1. The issue with the cultural assimilation of African Americans
29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion aginst it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black “underclass” they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects most leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers “responsible,” they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial- technological system. The system couldn’t care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a “responsible” parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.
It seemed to me that the leftists' attempts to introduce black people to society was more of moral duty. Given the history of blacks in America, they were unfairly put into a significantly worse place. This includes fewer resources, a toxic culture that arose (such as gangs and stealing) and the existing, lingering prejudices. It is impossible to have them being labelled the n-word and kicked out of society a few decades ago to suddenly having them being seen on par with white people. Furthermore, we will always be flawed human beings who think largely in stereotypes as well as look to out-groups with suspicion. It is in our genes to act like this. As a result, if we are either given a stereotype for what blacks should be OR infer our own (sometimes based on significant differences between their group, such as being more violent), then we'll unfairly treat every black person we come across. Furthermore, if we are not black ourselves and thus see them as an "out-group", we will naturally act with distrust, hostility, and look at them as something "inferior".
As we learn about these things we have the power to change them and act against them. That justifies universities putting black people on a pedestal. Not only did we slash their (black people's) tyres at the beginning of the race, we are likely to judge them as worse than they are. We shall then correct for both these setbacks and our judgements so things are truly fair. The uneducated conservative will argue that THIS is racism; we are making it "harder" for some people to enter university solely based on their racial or ethnic groups (e.g. Caucasians). However, if one understands the context and reasons behind this, it's clearly not racism.
Now, does that mean we are actively TRYING to pull people out of their culture and introduce them to ours? Kaczynski attributes this as a will OF the industrial-societal-machine. But I don't know. Don't some cultures see THEMselves as superior, and try to convert others to their ways? And if people believe they're in a better place, won't they see it as good to the other person if they also gravitate to their culture?
2. Modifying individuals to tolerate artificial environmental and social conditions
145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression has been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59-76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today’s society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.)
Firstly, what are these conditions that make people unhappy? Let's assume it's increased job demands. How can the capitalist system function without this? It's a consequence of how it works. So I think it's important to control where the bulk of the wealth goes, and right now it's into the hands of very few psychopaths who get far more than what they put in compared to your average person. It's simply not fair and only a result of our capitalist system.
But it's true; our ideology of capitalism drives itself blindly without regard to the individual. Just as wheat crops enslaved people, in a sense, regardless of individual people's happiness. Whatever has the most power will propagate itself more and take over. It's a logical conclusion, a consequence that'll continue to run its course unless interfered with.