The Unabomber said some very interesting things in his manifesto, even if some are difficult for me to agree with. However, one thing that I’ve noticed before that is articulated well in his writing is the phenomenon of oversocialization. In attempting to research oversocialization and an excessive amount of moral codes and social rules are harmful to people, all I could find was alt-right propaganda that quickly devolved into eugenics and rightist talking points about western liberal leftism and bourgeois feminism that cannot even apply to different ideologies or groups of people. I think it is a major mistake to project oversocialization as being a problem exclusive to certain political groups, because this seems universal or to even happen in different religions, cultures, moral attitudes, philosophies, etc… Oversocialization is basically an over-commitment towards social expectations, rules, laws, regulations, or even religious beliefs.

When people think of oppressive societies, they think of a dystopian future based on that stupid 1984 book, but they don’t think of the socialization side of oppression. In South Korea you are a social outcast if you do not conform to so many societal ideas about how you should behave. Their suicide rate is extremely high and many people from that society cite extreme conformism as a contributing factor of this. Sharia law or any theocratic legal system is another extreme example of socialization of humans being taken to an extreme. Most people will scream at the top of their lungs that they are mentally free but then still feel guilty for having attractions to certain people or thinking things that contradict the dominant belief systems of their society. People are mentally conditioned so much that they do not even notice it anymore.

Another point that must be made about oversocialization is that it usually comes from some form of idealism. As opposed to socialization which are basic things we should learn like not murdering people or not committing rape to function in society, oversocialization takes socialization to the extreme of what some group in society believes humanity should be like. It also tends to create societies with feudal mindsets where people accept everything their authorities say uncritically or are even afraid to be struck by lightning if they do. Oversocialization is not a friend to anyone who suffers from it, and only an enemy would try and put you in such a mental position.