Kaczynski pitches himself to the media

While Kaczynski denied most media requests, he wrote letters to publications, including The New Yorker, which were rejected. At one point, he proposed an interview under certain conditions to Rolling Stone, Penthouse and Playboy, but nothing came of it.

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1. From Ted to Great Falls Tribune

I would like people to know that a great deal of what they read about me in the newspapers is false. I can’t list all of the errors here — if I tried to do that, this letter would be far too long for you to publish. But I am learning that the media’s standard of accuracy is shockingly bad. When I was a kid, people used to say, “You can’t believe what you read in the papers.” I never realized how true that statement was until now.

On a different subject, I would like to say that I have been treated very kindly and considerately by the staff at the Lewis and Clark County Jail, and I want to thank them for it publicly.

2. From Ted to New Yorker Magazine — January 6, 2000

To New Yorker Magazine

Dear Sirs:

Please cancel my subscription ...

[Some unknown party got me this subscription to New Yorker; I tried to cancel so I could get the $ instead of the mags, but the New Yorker ignored my request.
TJK 4/23/00]

3. Letter to the Editor of The New York Review — February 10, 2000

Dear Sirs:

In the exchange of letters on psychoanalysis that appeared in the New York Review, February 24, 2000, no one addressed what is possibly the most important problem with psychoanalysis. Whether this or that psychoanalytic claim is true or false is somewhat beside the point. The Bible contains much historical truth and many astute insights into human nature, but that isn’t why people believe in the Bible. Similarly, the alchemists of the mystical school may have made many correct observations that were useful to later scientists, but that wasn’t what their enterprise was all about, nor was it why they believed in their theory.

The scientist’s aim is to formulate theories that correctly predict observable results. Devising a theory that stands up under empirical testing satisfies the scientist’s personal needs in various ways, as by giving him a sense of accomplishment, winning the approval of his colleagues, and advancing his career. What distinguishes pseudoscience from science (and I’m referring here to sincere pseudoscience, not to conscious charlatanism) is that the pseudoscientist satisfies his personal needs through belief in a theory rather than through empirical testing of theories. It is the psychological potency of the theory itself that attracts the pseudoscientist, not its capacity to predict experimental results. Thus the pseudoscientist’s commitment to a theory is determined largely by his psychological needs rather than by empirical observation. In this respect pseudoscience resembles religion and much of philosophy, and differs from them only in that it tries to clothe itself in the trappings of empirical science.

One doesn’t have to read much psychoanalysis to see that its methods are predominantly those of pseudoscience, not science. Even the language used makes this clear. For example, Marcia Cavell says in the fourth paragraph of her letter that “the mind is not the master in its own house”, and apparently she thinks that this statement has a scientific basis. But in scientific terms the statement is meaningless. It is an expression of attitude, an ideological statement, and is characteristic of psychoanalytic ideology.

Since I haven’t read anything psychoanalytic published within approximately the last two decades, I’m not in a position to assert that psychoanalysis is still pseudoscience today. But it would be surprising if the field had reformed itself in a sufficiently fundamental way to become a genuine science.

I assume that the foregoing remarks will meet with considerable resistance from believers in psychoanalysis — and here I use the word “resistance” in the psychoanalytic sense. To paraphrase Mortimer Ostow (fourth paragraph of his letter), “Does a psychoanalyst know why he believes in psychoanalysis? It is common to reply to this question with rationalizations, but rationalization isn’t reason.”

4. Letter to the Editor of The New York Review — February 28, 2005

Editor:

In “Survival of the Smallest” [NYR, March 10], István Deák writes on page 22: “In ancient Egypt, dwarfs were often venerated like gods.” Deák here is discussing pathological dwarfs. However, Paul Schebesta, Die Bambuti-Pygmäen vom Ituri (Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge, 1938, Vol. 1, pp. 5–11), argues persuasively that the “god-dancers” venerated by the ancient Egyptians were not pathological dwarfs at all, but pygmies from the African rain forest. Schebesta cites, inter alia, a letter of the pharaoh Pepi II or Phiops II (Sixth Dynasty) which seems clearly to support this view.

Theodore John Kaczynski
Florence, Colorado

5. From Ted to The Mail — September 8, 2001

“The Mail”
The New Yorker
4 Times Square
New York NY 10036–6592

Sirs:

Jon Lee Anderson represents Simon Bolivar as having said that his attempt to unify Latin America had been like “plowing the sea” ("The Revolutionary", September 10, page 62, column 3). But what Bolivar actually wrote was, "He who serves a revolution plows the sea" (letter to General Juan Jose Flores, November 9, 1830; see Simon Bolivar: Escritos politicos, edited by Graciela Soriano, Alianza Editorial, S.A., Madrid, 1975, page 169). The distinction is important, because Bolivar was making a remark about revolutions in general, not just about the effort to unify Latin America. Perhaps he had come to realize that, if the word "revolution" is understood to mean an attempt to transform an entire society and not merely to attain a specific political goal such as the independence of a colony, then revolutions never achieve the expected and desired results. Revolutions can be successful only in their destructive aspect. You can destroy an existing social order but you can't build a new one according to a preconceived plan: The outcome of any revolution is completely uncontrollable.

It is extremely important for people to understand that this is the case, and that it applies also to the technological revolution that we are currently going through. If people fully grasped the implications of this, they would shudder.

... I am not accessible by telephone.

6. From Ted to Penthouse — December 12, 2000

Dear Ms. Gustina:

What follows (except the postscript) is a duplicate of a letter dated ...

I recently received a letter from Theresa Kintz in which she told me that she had offered to sell you some material from her interviews with me, or an article based on those interviews, and that you had offered her $12,000 for her wares. She wants my permission to sell you this material. I am not going to give her this permission (though I may give it to her later if she meets certain conditions). I am writing to you now to make it clear that it will be to your advantage to deal with me directly and not with Ms. Kintz. Let me explain.

I gave Ms. Kintz four interviews in June and July of 1999. At the beginning of the first interview I stated that the interviews were not to be exploited commercially and that they were to be published only in the Earth First! Journal, and Ms. Kintz accepted those conditions. Since then ...

7. From Ted to Playboy Magazine — January 8, 2001

Dear Mr. Kretchmer:

I may decide to give an interview soon, and I would like to know whether you would be interested in interviewing me or in publishing an article based on an interview with me....

8. From Playboy to Ted

The enclosed material has been read and considered, but we do not find it suitable for Playboy.

We regret that we cannot offer individual criticism, because of the volume of submissions we receive.

Your interest in Playboy is appreciated.

9. From Simon & Schuster to Ted — June 29, 1998

Dear Mr. Kaczynski:

I’m sorry not to have replied sooner to your first letter, dated June 1, about your manuscript. I understood from that letter that in the absence of a positive response by June 16 you would be seeking another publisher.

I doubt that there exists a significatn readership for the manuscript that you describe in your letter. But I could not agree to review a manuscript under the terms you propose in your letter.

Sincerely,
[signed]

10. From Ted to Rolling Stones — February 7, 2001

Dear Mr. Wenner:

I may decide to give an interview soon ...

11. From Ted to Esquire Magazine — January 8, 2001

Dear Mr. Granger:

I may decide to give an interview soon ...