Analysis of the Psychology of the American Left

[Fat Cat]

Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology.

Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do here is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

[Fat Cat]

By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self- hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities and about anything that is said concerning minorities. The terms “negro,” “oriental,” “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights activists have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion.” Leftish anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the world “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto- dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual white males from middle- to upper-middle-class families.

Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)

Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative,” “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.

The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.

[Fat Cat]

Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.

Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.

The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

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 against 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.

We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of “liberation.” In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.

We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumbnail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.

The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.

[Fat Cat]

This is from a fascinating op ed published in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/n ... o.text.htm

[terra]

...'Trigger Warning'

[Fat Cat]

Eh, nobody picked up on my little game. The passages I quoted above are from the Unabomber, but at the same time, are the most lucid analysis of leftist thinking that I've ever read. It's from his original "Unambomber Manifesto" which is actually titled Industrial Society and its Future:

http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Anarc ... esto2.html

His view was that left-wing progressivism was the most pernicious form of advancing totalitarianism, rather than the grasping corporate conservatism of the traditional Republican right wing, which he also vilified, but saw as driven by plain greed and self-interest rather than the metaphysical certainty of the progressive left. His view is sort of captured in that C.S. Lewis quote from God in the Dock:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

It made me dig deeper into his writings and they are fascinating, to say the least. The man is no maniac by any stretch. His writings are also compiled in a very good book Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore Kaczinsky.

Basically, the establishment would like to paint people like Ted as unhinged maniacs but nothing could be further from the truth. Like his ideas or hate them, they are very much worth considering. Mainstream voices will bleat about the violence and brutality of his methods while aborting millions of babies and destroying the environment.

[Fat Cat]

I wonder what Ted thinks about COVID-19 and the global response to it.

[Bennyonesix1]

I like the oversocialized concept. I think it explains a lot of seemingly irrational behavior.

I think Ted is disappointed that it isn't turning into an ELE. He's a legit sadist and misanthrope.

Linkola is probably even more sad.

[Fat Cat]

Linkola, unfortunately, just passed away.

[motherjuggs&speed]

Eh, nobody picked up on my little game.

That's one possibility. Another is that you are about the 49 millionth person to paste that text.

[nafod]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Is there a third way?

[Fat Cat]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Is there a third way?

For Ted, it's anti-tech revolution. Or if you prefer...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Position

[Shapecharge]

Mak, just last week I watched the 4 part series on TK that's running on Netflix right now. I knew most of it except a few little bits at the end and almost an entire episode is devoted to the 3 year, 200+ hour "psychological" study he was a part of at Harvard. Let's just say he and others like him were used in an attempt to develop advanced interrogation techniques for you know who but with no actual acknowledgement as such. But where I was actually going with this is after he was captured and a defense team assigned, their strategy was to pursue an insanity defense. He absolutely abhorred such a strategy and attempted suicide to avoid it because to do so would have invalidated his 18 year course of action to get someone to listen to him...finding him crazy would have ruined and made worthless all he'd worked toward. If anything the series is worth watching just to see he brother who genuinely loved Ted but once he realized that it was Ted he knew he had a higher duty beyond his promise he made to their mother to always love and care for him. Absolutely gut wrenching however, if you've lost faith in your fellow man, watching and listening to the brother David will perhaps re-balance the scales a bit.

[Fat Cat]

I watched the first episode of that show and enjoyed it, but I am not a very good TV watcher and never continued. My feeling was that they did try to convey some of Ted's thought processes in a way that people could grasp. I'll try to motivate to watch the rest of it.

I have his book Anti-Tech Revolution, which he actually formatted like a college philosophy textbook, because he wanted it to be both a theoretical basis and practical manual for reducing man to a stone age technology level. I note that because it shows you how serious he is about the idea.

[Bennyonesix1]

Mak, just last week I watched the 4 part series on TK that's running on Netflix right now. I knew most of it except a few little bits at the end and almost an entire episode is devoted to the 3 year, 200+ hour "psychological" study he was a part of at Harvard. Let's just say he and others like him were used in an attempt to develop advanced interrogation techniques for you know who but with no actual acknowledgement as such. But where I was actually going with this is after he was captured and a defense team assigned, their strategy was to pursue an insanity defense. He absolutely abhorred such a strategy and attempted suicide to avoid it because to do so would have invalidated his 18 year course of action to get someone to listen to him...finding him crazy would have ruined and made worthless all he'd worked toward. If anything the series is worth watching just to see he brother who genuinely loved Ted but once he realized that it was Ted he knew he had a higher duty beyond his promise he made to their mother to always love and care for him. Absolutely gut wrenching however, if you've lost faith in your fellow man, watching and listening to the brother David will perhaps re-balance the scales a bit.

Yep. Ted is a sadistic bastard. At least he was after that experiment he went through.

[Fat Cat]

You know, for all I've read about Ted, I haven't heard him described as sadistic. At least in the paraphiliac sense.

Obviously killing and maiming people with nailbombs isn't a nice thing to do, but I thought of him as more of an antinomian, in-service-to-a-higher-cause type true believer.

What makes you say that he's a sadist? Not disagreeing, just genuinely curious.

[motherjuggs&speed]

Did the CIA make him crazy? I have to watch the series but I found these interesting. I didn't know that the gov't was doing that much. Charles Manson may have been another subject. Tom O'Neill alleges that Manson's parole should have been revoked and it wasn't, with some hidden strings being pulled to keep him on the outside. Did the government know all along that TK was the Unabomber and wanted him out there to see what he'd do?

"In 1967, according to the CIA’s internal assessment, there were literally hundreds of college professors on more than 100 American college campuses under secret contract to the CIA. Needless to say, universities like Harvard that wanted a piece of the action decided to dispense with the ethical standard embedded in the Nuremberg Code. From 1953 to 1963, federal support for scientific research at Harvard increased from $8 million per year to $30 million.

One secret CIA research project that used unwitting American citizens as subjects was code-named MK Ultra. It lasted 10 years and ended in 1963, shortly after Ted graduated from Harvard. "

https://blog.timesunion.com/kaczynski/t ... art-1/271/

'In 1959 a comfortable old house stood on the site. Known as the Annex, it served as a laboratory in which staff members of the Department of Social Relations conducted research on human subjects. There, from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962, Harvard psychologists, led by Henry A. Murray, conducted a disturbing and what would now be seen as ethically indefensible experiment on twenty-two undergraduates. To preserve the anonymity of these student guinea pigs, experimenters referred to individuals by code name only. One of these students, whom they dubbed “Lawful,” was Theodore John Kaczynski, who would one day be known as the Unabomber,"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... er/378239/

[motherjuggs&speed]

But where I was actually going with this is after he was captured and a defense team assigned, their strategy was to pursue an insanity defense. He absolutely abhorred such a strategy and attempted suicide to avoid it because to do so would have invalidated his 18 year course of action to get someone to listen to him...finding him crazy would have ruined and made worthless all he'd worked toward.

It also doesn't usually work as a defense.

If anything the series is worth watching just to see he brother who genuinely loved Ted but once he realized that it was Ted he knew he had a higher duty beyond his promise he made to their mother to always love and care for him. Absolutely gut wrenching however, if you've lost faith in your fellow man, watching and listening to the brother David will perhaps re-balance the scales a bit.

I have to watch the series but I disagree. Ted was his brother. He didn't know those other people at all.

[Bennyonesix1]

You know, for all I've read about Ted, I haven't heard him described as sadistic. At least in the paraphiliac sense.

Obviously killing and maiming people with nailbombs isn't a nice thing to do, but I thought of him as more of an antinomian, in-service-to-a-higher-cause type true believer.

What makes you say that he's a sadist? Not disagreeing, just genuinely curious.

That's fair. I was speaking loosely. I meant sadist in the sense that he wanted to hurt people and enjoyed it. He did target people and not the power grid or other infrastructure. And his attacks weren't surgical strikes either.

[newguy]

Did the CIA make him crazy? I have to watch the series but I found these interesting. I didn't know that the gov't was doing that much. Charles Manson may have been another subject. Tom O'Neill alleges that Manson's parole should have been revoked and it wasn't, with some hidden strings being pulled to keep him on the outside. Did the government know all along that TK was the Unabomber and wanted him out there to see what he'd do?

"In 1967, according to the CIA’s internal assessment, there were literally hundreds of college professors on more than 100 American college campuses under secret contract to the CIA. Needless to say, universities like Harvard that wanted a piece of the action decided to dispense with the ethical standard embedded in the Nuremberg Code. From 1953 to 1963, federal support for scientific research at Harvard increased from $8 million per year to $30 million.

One secret CIA research project that used unwitting American citizens as subjects was code-named MK Ultra. It lasted 10 years and ended in 1963, shortly after Ted graduated from Harvard. "

https://blog.timesunion.com/kaczynski/t ... art-1/271/

'In 1959 a comfortable old house stood on the site. Known as the Annex, it served as a laboratory in which staff members of the Department of Social Relations conducted research on human subjects. There, from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962, Harvard psychologists, led by Henry A. Murray, conducted a disturbing and what would now be seen as ethically indefensible experiment on twenty-two undergraduates. To preserve the anonymity of these student guinea pigs, experimenters referred to individuals by code name only. One of these students, whom they dubbed “Lawful,” was Theodore John Kaczynski, who would one day be known as the Unabomber,"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... er/378239/

I'm reading the articles, but do you have any sources for Manson and the CIA connection? Is part of the same mk-ultra program?

[motherjuggs&speed]

I listened to a couple of podcasts with Tom O'Neill, the author of CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.

https://tom-oneill.org/audio-video-for-chaos/

O'Neill couldn't document that Manson was in the MK-Ultra experiments but Manson did go to the clinic where Jolly West worked. Manson was also released from jail a bunch of times under mysterious circumstances. O'Neill has put together a big file of documents, notes, etc., that someone could use to try to prove or disprove the CIA-Manson connection.

[newguy]

I listened to a couple of podcasts with Tom O'Neill, the author of CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.

https://tom-oneill.org/audio-video-for-chaos/

O'Neill couldn't document that Manson was in the MK-Ultra experiments but Manson did go to the clinic where Jolly West worked. Manson was also released from jail a bunch of times under mysterious circumstances. O'Neill has put together a big file of documents, notes, etc., that someone could use to try to prove or disprove the CIA-Manson connection.

Thank you very much. I'v added the book to my reading list.

[Bennyonesix1]

I listened to a couple of podcasts with Tom O'Neill, the author of CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.

https://tom-oneill.org/audio-video-for-chaos/

O'Neill couldn't document that Manson was in the MK-Ultra experiments but Manson did go to the clinic where Jolly West worked. Manson was also released from jail a bunch of times under mysterious circumstances. O'Neill has put together a big file of documents, notes, etc., that someone could use to try to prove or disprove the CIA-Manson connection.

There's all kinds of weird stuff about how the Sheriff and LAPD let them get away with crazy criminality out there at the Ranch. Paramilitary training being the least of it.

https://carwreckdebangs.wordpress.com/2 ... t-to-know/

[Turdacious]

Did the CIA make him crazy? I have to watch the series but I found these interesting. I didn't know that the gov't was doing that much. Charles Manson may have been another subject. Tom O'Neill alleges that Manson's parole should have been revoked and it wasn't, with some hidden strings being pulled to keep him on the outside. Did the government know all along that TK was the Unabomber and wanted him out there to see what he'd do?

"In 1967, according to the CIA’s internal assessment, there were literally hundreds of college professors on more than 100 American college campuses under secret contract to the CIA. Needless to say, universities like Harvard that wanted a piece of the action decided to dispense with the ethical standard embedded in the Nuremberg Code. From 1953 to 1963, federal support for scientific research at Harvard increased from $8 million per year to $30 million.

One secret CIA research project that used unwitting American citizens as subjects was code-named MK Ultra. It lasted 10 years and ended in 1963, shortly after Ted graduated from Harvard. "

https://blog.timesunion.com/kaczynski/t ... art-1/271/

'In 1959 a comfortable old house stood on the site. Known as the Annex, it served as a laboratory in which staff members of the Department of Social Relations conducted research on human subjects. There, from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962, Harvard psychologists, led by Henry A. Murray, conducted a disturbing and what would now be seen as ethically indefensible experiment on twenty-two undergraduates. To preserve the anonymity of these student guinea pigs, experimenters referred to individuals by code name only. One of these students, whom they dubbed “Lawful,” was Theodore John Kaczynski, who would one day be known as the Unabomber,"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... er/378239/

The blog post and article don't really explain much, and leave out a lot.
1. Were Murray's experiments a part of MK Ultra or not? Suggesting a correlation doesn't mean they were. Ted's brother provides no evidence they were.
2. Murray's experiments, from what I understand based on the five minutes of research I did, were primarily for screening people for suitability for dangerous government work (military and otherwise). Neither article provides any overview of what happened-- was it sleep deprivation, playing annoying music, waterboarding, drugs in the water, or some combination of them? From what I was able to briefly gather, they were pretty standard psychological experiments. This type of screening, and the importance of doing it well, is pretty important IMHO.
3. Were Murray's experiments unethical by the standards of the time or today's standards? No details are given to support an argument either way. FWIW, the Nurenburg Code wasn't accepted as a standard for medical research until 1964-- after Kaczynski graduated from Harvard. Also, neither author appears to have a background in clinical or technical research of any kind.
4. The blog post doesn't say what the increase in government research funding was for, or even what what departments the funding was given to.

[Bennyonesix1]

Thanks for the results of the five minutes of research you annoying fucking loser. Really made the thread pop. People love your act. You can tell by all the posters.