Educating a Terrorist

     I’ve been reading a book called Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist by Alston Chase.  Chase contends that a contributing factor in Ted Kaczynski’s deadly rage was a psychological experiment he volunteered for while a student at Harvard.  The study, directed by renowned psychologist Henry Murray, was designed to test how young, gifted men would respond to heightened stress.

      Included in the study was an experience known as “The Dyad”.  First, students would submit numerous papers and engage in a variety of tests designed to establish a personality profile and life perspective.  Students would be escorted into a room where they were directed to sit in a chair facing a blinding light.  Then, a law school student would fire questions and insults at them attempting to humiliate them, break them down and reduce them to tears or furious anger.

      Kacynski was only 16 years old when he went through this.  Chase suggests that this experience, added to a general positivist, “value-neutral” philosophy propounded at Harvard at the time, pushed an already-disturbed young man over the edge.  Though Kacynski would remain in academia several more years after graduation, the seeds of destruction had already been sown.

      Chase’s theory is compelling, though it seems at times a bit paranoid.  It is clear, however, that attempts to manipulate the psyches of young men and women can have very damaging consequences.  And, the need to foster sustainable values in education is as great as ever.