‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski “May Well Be Dead In Less Than A Year”
Fan letter serves to explain Kaczynski’s recent transfer.
Since his incarceration in 1995, Theodore John Kaczynski — prodigious mathematician turned domestic terrorist/bestselling author — has maintained something of his former passion for mail correspondence, communicating with fans and would-be eco-warriors (including celebrity environmentalist Greta Thunberg) eager to discuss his controversial theories and seek life advice and spiritual guidance from the radical environmentalist.
However, after a recent response to a fan letter surfaced online, Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, or ‘Uncle Ted’, is rumoured to have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The letter, though unconfirmed, bears many stylistic similarities to Kaczynski’s other fan correspondences, and also serves to explain his recent transfer to the Federal Medical Centre in Butner, North Carolina
In the letter, Kaczynski purportedly writes: ‘There is work to be done, a lot of work. In fact, the work has barely started. But I won’t be able to do much of it. I’m not going to “get well soon” —or ever — because I have terminal cancer. I can’t expect to live more than two years at the outside, and I may well be dead in less than a year, so the work will have to be done by younger people.”
He instructs the anonymous recipient to concentrate on organising revolutionary activity in accordance with his 2016 publication Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, advising he maintain ‘total commitment’, ‘no matter how difficult’, ‘unpleasant’, ‘or time consuming it may be’, and signing the letter ‘Yours for Wild Nature, Ted Kaczynski’.
The news will no doubt come as a tragedy to some (as others may be surprised to discover) as the burgeoning climate crisis and rise of mainstream environmentalism, in addition to the hit 2018 Netflix documentary The Unabomber: In His Own Words, have generated increased interest in Kaczynski, with the now-79-year-old prisoner having become something of a cult-figure, acquiring a more favourable, even romantic, reputation as a well-intentioned, if morally misguided, pioneer of radical eco-activism.
Having generated this interest, Kaczynski has amassed a somewhat sizeable fanbase, whilst controversial publications like Industrial Society and Its Future (also known as The Unabomber Manifesto), formerly disregarded, have begun to attract more serious critical attention.
Here is the letter’s transcript in full:
Dear Mr. _______
Thank you for your kind letter postmarked December 23, 2021, which I received on January 27, 2022. You conclude your letter with: “Get Well Soon. There is yet work to be done.” You’re right. There is work to be done, a lot of work. In fact, the work has barely started. But I won’t be able to do much of it. I’m not going to “get well soon” — — or ever — — because I have terminal cancer. I can’t expect to live more than two years at the outside, and I may well be dead in less than a year, so the work will have to be done by younger people. What about you? What are you doing? I’m told that you’ve ordered a paperback French & English dictionary for me, for which I thank you. But, seen in relation to the problems we face, the matter of the dictionary is Trivial. Have you been following the recommendations in sections 28 & 29 of Chapter Four of Anti-Tech Revolution? Have you made any efforts at organization, in accord with Rule (iii) of Chapter Three? If you want to organize but don’t know where to begin, let me know, and I’ll give you some sugges-tions. But my suggestions will not be easy to carry out. We don’t want die dilettantes who are ready to do only what is easy, we need people who are capable of total commitment and are prepared to take [on] any task no matter how difficult or unpleasant or time-consuming it may be.
Yours for Wild Nature,
Ted Kaczynski
