Human personality development is so fraught

Steven Welzer
1 min readFeb 14, 2022

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The human psyche is so sensitive.

It’s like God was cruel. It’s too easy to get traumatized, pathologized, derailed, perverted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

Kaczynski’s parents said that Ted had been a happy baby until severe hives forced him into hospital isolation with limited contact with others, after which he “showed little emotions for months.” His mother recalled Ted recoiling from a picture of himself as an infant being held down by physicians examining his hives. She said he showed sympathy for animals who were in cages or otherwise helpless, which she speculated stemmed from his experience in hospital isolation. From first to fourth grade Kaczynski attended Sherman Elementary School in Chicago, where administrators described him as healthy and well-adjusted. In 1952 the family moved to suburban Evergreen Park, Illinois. Ted transferred to Evergreen Park Central Junior High School. After testing scored his IQ at 167, he skipped the sixth grade. Kaczynski later described this as a pivotal event: previously he had socialized with his peers and was even a leader, but after skipping ahead of them he felt he did not fit in with the older children, who bullied him.

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Steven Welzer
Steven Welzer

Written by Steven Welzer

A Green Party activist, Steve was an original co-editor of DSA’s “Ecosocialist Review.” He now serves on the Editorial Board of the New Green Horizons webzine.

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