I’ll start with a bit of exposition. The Power Process as described by Ted Kaczynski is not a novel idea in psychology. It aligns with many concepts encountered in a psych 101 course: Maslow’s Hierarchy, internal/external motivation, locus on control, learned helplessness, etc. Though, I think Power Process calls out the arbiter of these human behaviors: our biology. It is unavoidable. We are manipulated by our biology to engage in the Power Process lest we face boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem, feelings of inferiority, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, rampant hedonism, sleep disorders, other biological disorders… Surrogate activities are ways we gain superficial fulfillment: climbing the corporate ladder, body-building, esports rank, academics, etc. Ted Kaczynski argues activities of this nature are surrogate: would we feel a deep dark emptiness without these activities in a world where our survival were not trivial, and instead demanded our physical and mental faculties? The way I see it is, a preindustrial human would not feel lacking in life were he not diamond rank in league of legends. Or they would not be trying to lift their next increment of weight to PB. Or they would not be trying to publish another paper. These are surrogate activities and superficial goals were set to engage in the power process in industrialized society.

Kaczynski mentions a bit about religion as a vehicle to maintain societal conformity, and I agree that ones like the Abrahamic religions and other do that. This is especially true when Kaczynski writes about identification with small-groups that in turn carry out the power process works for individuals that require less autonomy to satisfy their power process. I think small church communities perform evangelical activities, communal activities, etc. as their power process. The community and group aspect is a key differentiator between the religion I imagine Kaczynski imagined in his manifesto and ones that come from a much deeper depth of the human condition. Of course, early churches were incredibly more blatant in their goals for societal uniformity and for the wealthy clergy to exercise their own power process as sustenance was a trivial matter for them. What I want to bring to attention are individualistic introspective “religions”, which I think are more philosophies to incorporate into one’s life rather than doctrines to follow. This’ll be the original and pure forms of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and some others I may be missing. (I write about these religions’ pure forms in other entries. Their current/most popular forms have been perverted… details in those entries.) I think these break away from the power process and biological underpinnings of our actions. Imagine Lao Tzu, who upon leaving his civilization was asked to leave something, and swiftly, even in a chore-like way, spat out the Tao te Ching and went on his way. Sure, Siddharta Gautama may have left his opulent life behind to exercise autonomy and engage in the power process, but during that, self-sustenance was no longer trivial… he ignored it out of something greater. We pursue surrogate activities to gain sense of fulfillment, which would have otherwise been gained through activities conducive to increasing gene market share. We continually set new goals, never satisfied, because after all, these are only surrogate activities. I think the majority of Christianity practice is merely marketed in a spiritual way when it reeks of the power process. Though, I’ll acknowledge some may practice Christianity and the like in unique ways where similar mental states to the introspective philosophies are achieved; however I chiefly speak of the introspective philosophies here: What are they satisfying? I struggle to make a case that it is for the power process (which I think is at the case of all other human action). It then must be another dimension of the human condition that I’ll call spirituality. I must admit, I find it hard to shake autonomy as a motivator, so I’ll say spirituality is intimately related with autonomy. Hinduism originated among the Brahmin elite, Taoism from a disillusioned scholar, and Buddhism from a disillusioned prince; they mean to break away and exercise autonomy in their own right. These characters requiring more sense of individuality than the typic of their respective classes. I can only speculate here, but I imagine that in even in a preindustrial society, among the lower classes there were those detached from their communities, unwittingly desiring autonomy. This is the particular case I want to highlight (which again is only speculation) where autonomy precedes well-being (in the health sense). We already saw a case similar to this one with Siddharta, however, his desire for autonomy was brought about by societal disillusionment, and a lack of a power process (being a prince and all), what was special about Siddharta was during his monkhood. In the speculative case we’re discussing, there is nothing but what I think is spirituality in tandem with autonomy. In essence, our biology, for some reason, has a demand for autonomy, that may even, contradictorily, preclude well-being. This “some reason” is spirituality.

I want to note that the power process is only a model to explain human behavior, but it is one widely accepted and taught in life-science, evolution, ecology courses (though “power process” is not the widely used term, it doesn’t exactly fit modern society’s PC conditions and Kaczynski puts things pretty callously).