An Inclusive Litany

4/6/98

Harvard salutes one of its own. Last term in Lit 129, "Reading the 18th Century Through 20th Century Eyes," the reading list featured such distinguished thinkers as Beaumarchais, Diderot, Kant, Rousseau, Foucault, Kundera, and "Unabomber." Ted Kaczynski's goal in initiating his murderous terror-bombing campaign was, of course, to draw attention to his ideas about technology. Thank you, Harvard.

Prior to the publication of his later book, ambivalently titled Truth Versus Lies, an interviewer for Time magazine said that the Unabomber was marked "by a satisfaction that the world, at long last, is treating him like a valuable human being." Kaczynski also penned a short story for a literary magazine in upstate New York, and accepted a request from a major university library that he donate his personal papers to its archive on anarchist literature.