Suppression of Sex and Violence in Industrial Society

Written on 6 September 2025.

Suppression of Sex and Violence in Industrial Society

Overview

In Industrial Society and Its Future (1995), Ted Kaczynski (often referred to as FC in the manifesto) argued that different eras of modern society have chosen to suppress different human drives, depending on what most threatened the smooth functioning of the system. He draws a contrast between the Victorian era, when sex was the primary target of repression, and the contemporary industrial-technological era, when violence and aggression have become the main targets of suppression.

Victorian Suppression of Sex

Kaczynski points out that in the 19th century, especially in the Victorian period, sexual impulses were heavily repressed. This was reinforced through cultural morality, religious pressure, and social expectations. He notes that many of Freud’s patients suffered psychological problems that stemmed from trying to repress their sexual feelings.

During the Victorian period many oversocialized people suffered from serious psychological problems as a result of repressing or trying to repress their sexual feelings. Freud apparently based his theories on people of this type.

Modern Suppression of Violence

By contrast, in the late 20th century, the focus of socialization shifted away from sex and toward aggression and violence. According to Kaczynski, the reason is not primarily moral, but functional: violence and unchecked aggression are disruptive to the highly organized and fragile industrial-technological system.

Today the focus of socialization has shifted from sex to aggression.

He explains:

Violence is discouraged because it disrupts the functioning of the system. Racism is discouraged because ethnic conflicts also disrupt the system, and discrimination wastes the talents of minority-group members who could be useful to the system.

Commodification vs Suppression

Kaczynski emphasizes that while sexual expression has been commodified and normalized (advertising, entertainment, popular culture), violence has become taboo. The system tolerates or even promotes sex because it does not destabilize industrial society, while violence and aggression must be suppressed because they can fracture social order, threaten institutions, and weaken the obedience that the system depends upon.

Cultural Reflection

This framework helps explain shifts in media and entertainment. For example:

- Victorian-era culture hid sexuality but was not overly concerned with depictions of violence.

- Modern culture normalizes sexual imagery but sanitizes or pathologizes violence, often limiting it to highly controlled forms (e.g., bloodless superhero battles, PG-13 action).

The “raw violence” found in earlier films such as Terminator 2 (1991) illustrates the transition point, before mainstream entertainment fully adjusted to the new suppression focus. Today, blockbuster films usually avoid the visceral brutality that characterized many R-rated action films of the late 20th century.

Conclusion

Kaczynski’s analysis suggests that industrial society suppresses whatever instinct poses the greatest risk to its stability. In the Victorian age, that was sex; in the technological-industrial age, it is violence. Sex has been absorbed into the system as a commodity, while violence is systematically discouraged because it threatens the system’s need for order and predictability.

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