ANALYSIS OF/EXCERPTS FROM UNABOMBER MANUSCRIPT
by Washington Post

FC's thesis is that human beings are most fulfilled when they
are able to embody what he calls "the power process."  That is
the ability to act alone, or in small cooperative groups, to satisfy
their most basic life requirements through the exertion of some
rewardingly "serious effort."  However, "in our society people do
not satisfy their biological needs autonomously
but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine." Indeed,
"only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs"
because for most jobs in contemporary America "the only require-
ments are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple
obedience."  According to the manifesto, advertising and mass marketing
create "artificial needs" that require as much effort as primitive man
expnds in fufilling "real needs."  Achieving such artificial goals is not
satisfying, so many people suffer from identity crises, "anomie" or
"middle-class vacuity."