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Ever since the arrest of Theodore Kaszynski as the
Unabomber suspect, we've heard plenty about Luddites
-- people who supposedly despise all industrial
technology.
The original Luddites appeared in 1811 near Nottingham,
England. They were weavers who worked in their home with
their families -- cottage industries
in modern
parlance.
Industrialists began to install power looms in centralized factories. That reduced the need for skilled labor, and further, work that had once been done at home on the weaver's own schedule had to be done in the factory on the machine's schedule.
Many weavers were thrown out of work, and England had a Contract Republican safety net for the unemployed -- they could starve. Instead of quietly fading away, the weavers organized into hooded bands that struck at night, smashing the machinery that was destroying their livelihoods.
They called themselves Ludds
or Luddites,
and claimed their leader was a General Lud
or
King Ludd,
probably after one Ned Lud, by reputation
a feeble-minded fellow, who in 1779 suffered a fit of rage,
broke into a stocking-weaver's house and smashed the loom
frame.
His name entered the English vernacular of the time --
if something was broken, people would say Lud must have
been here.
England quickly smashed the rebellion. In 1812, a Luddite band was shot down under orders from a threatened employer. A mass trial was held in 1813, resulting in many hangings; lesser troublemakers were exported to Australia.
Thus ended the original Luddites.
Do we really have Luddites today? No. I don't recall reading of bands of laid-off coal miners breaking into tunnels and smashing the long-wall machines which put them out of work.
Nor have I read of musicians attacking the sound mixers and CD players that deprive them of work -- neither of my daughters has ever attended a high-school dance with a live band, which means this machinery certainly does deprive musicians of employment.
I could go on, but the fact is that although Americans might complain about new machinery, and may request through the political system some relief in the form of unemployment compensation or retraining, there are no mobs bent on destroying machinery.
So what was the Unabomber, if not a Luddite? A terrorist. He wasn't trying to destroy any machinery. He was trying to frighten people away from careers he hated.
As for Kaczynski's allegedly Luddite lifestyle,
I
have a friend who lives pretty much the same way -- in a
cabin outside town without plumbing or electricity. It
doesn't take much to make me comfortable,
he says,
and I want to keep my monthly costs low -- no electric
or water bills -- so I have the freedom to put my time and
energy into something besides a day job.
My friend is certainly no Luddite. Nor is he a
technophobe.
He's merely selective about which
modern technology he uses, and to him, indoor plumbing
isn't worth the monthly bill which might require him to get
a day job.
Nor is author Kirkpatrick Sale really a Luddite, even though he claims to be. If he's ever smashed labor-saving machinery, I missed it. I know of him only through his articles and books -- books typeset and printed by large machines, and some articles available, of all places, on the Internet, a system of rather sophisticated technology.
Sale obviously has nothing against technology. He just
wants to be selective. The same holds for other critics,
like Edward Abbey, who was explicit: a rifle to defend
yourself was good technology, a bomb used by a government
was bad technology, and we should be smart enough to
discriminate. Ivan Illich draws similar distinctions in
Tools for Conviviality.
What most of us fear, I suspect, is not new technology, but that the new technology will be the only technology.
Historian Bruce Catton once observed that Once it
becomes possible to reach a place by automobile, it quickly
becomes impossible to reach it by any other means.
The new technology of the auto did not merely add ways
to get around the northern Michigan he was writing about;
the car meant that there would be no steamboats, livery
stables or trains. His transportation options were fewer,
not greater, on account of technological
progress.
The ATM can process routine bank transactions quickly and cheaply -- but if it deprives us of the opportunity to see a teller, then we lose options, rather than gain them.
Just because I have a microwave oven doesn't mean I want to scrap the wood-burning range. I use a computer, but that doesn't mean I want to upgrade to Windows 95 and spend a week in IRQ-conflict hell. We have a stereo system, but we still pound on the piano, too.
If Luddite
now means people who are suspicious
of new technology,
or people who don't want to be
forced to abandon trusted machines and methods,
then I
suspect most of us are Luddites. But we should come up with
a better word, just in case some real Luddites appear
someday.
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