1. To write about Theodore J. Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, is to sit for a moment with the ghosts of his victims peering over your shoulder. The dead and the maimed, both. Just as much as you try to communicate to your readers, you also perform for that other spectral audience. Be sure not to overpraise the man. Obscure any admiration you might have for his ideas in a miasma of qualifications. Make sure to toss out one or two petty asides about his “wooden” or “plodding” prose. Call him evil, of course. Because your readers won’t allow themselves to understand what you’re saying until you’ve appeased the phantasms floating above the computer screen.
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