The Luddites were
the first brave souls of the Western world to identify technology’s role in
building mass society. According to
their analysis empire, capitalism, and technological development are
intertwined. The textile mills that
disrupted the weavers’ villages could never have been funded by using the
limited resources on the isle of England proper; more capital than could be
locally mustered was required.
Industrial development was rather bankrolled by the riches grabbed from
the far reaches of the empire, specifically from India and China. The means to control such faraway locales was
fueled by the hubris of “free trade,” whereby the “rights” of companies to
pursue global transactions were legitimized by complexly-written legalistic
proclamations, and protected by technologies of military might. The situation today is mightily similar.
And so,
we ask, might the Luddites be guides for us today?
The view
originally formulated by British reformist historians is that the Luddites were
irrational crazies who stood in the way of all that was useful. And inevitable. A less biased look into historical fact
informs us that the Luddites were savvy thinkers about the incursion of capital
and technology into their communities.
When they first saw the scale and meaning of what was being perpetrated,
they employed normal means to object.
Meetings. Discussions. Letters.
Public posts. But, as we saw in
2003 when President George W. Bush flipped off more than 12 million anti-war
protestors in more than 60 countries, “emperors” have a propensity to ignore
that which unveils their lack of “clothes.”
It was within such a context of desperation that the Luddites took to
their acts of protest against the physical means of perpetrating the new
order. It was within such a context that
they stealthily attired themselves in darkened masks and slipped into the night
to destroy what was destroying them.
They did their work deftly and in numbers; so successfully that, at the
height of the rebellion, Britain “invaded middle England” -- an area the size
of Delaware -- with as many as 14,400 soldiers.[i]
To the
enclosure of the common more than to any other cause may be traced all the
changes which have subsequently passed over the village. It was like knocking the keystone out of an
arch. The keystone is not the arch; but,
once it is gone, all sorts of forces, previously resisted, begin to operate
towards ruin, and gradually the whole
structure crumbles down ... The enclosure … left the people helpless against
influences which have sapped away their interests, robbed them of security and
peace, rendered their knowledge and
skill of small value, and seriously affected their personal pride and their character
… When the cottager was cut off from his resources ... there was little else
that he could do in the old ways.
--George Sturt, Change in the Village, 1912[ii]
I have
been led into reasonings which make me hate more and more the existing
establishment …. Have beheld scenes of misery …. (The workers) are reduced to
starvation. My friend, the military are
gone to Nott’m – Curses light on them for their motives if they destroy one of
its famine wasted inhabitants …. The groans of the wretched may pass unheeded
till the latest moment of this infamous revelry (of the rich), till the storm
burst upon them and the oppressed take furious vengeance on oppressors.
--Percy Shelley[iii]
And
night by night when all is still
And the
moon is hid behind the hill,
We
forward march to do our will
With hatchet, pike, and gun!
Oh, the
cropper lads for me,
The
gallant lads for me,
Who with
lusty stroke
The
shear frames broke,
The
cropper lads for me!
When I was reciting
my spiel as the modern-day technology critic in Interview with a Luddite, I
had an on-stage awakening. I was faced
with the task of explaining to a 19th-century weaver what kinds of
technologies had befallen humanity in the ensuing centuries –- in language he could understand. Not “telephone,” mind you -- but “box that
echoes into your ear the voice of a person who is somewhere else.” Not “nuclear weapon” -- but “gunshot that is
catapulted from a flying wagon and can blow up all of Lancashire, yes,
including the surrounding farmlands and forests.” Since we had not prepared for this glitch in
language, I will tell you that I hemmed and hawed, grappled, even choked. I suppose my flailing appeared to the
audience like “acting.” It was real.
We are up against a
similar impossibility of translation but one that flies, across time, in the
opposite direction.
At that
second-to-last gathering of the Jacques Ellul Society at Dartington Hall, a
committee met to expand upon the ideas for technology assessment that Hazel
Henderson and Wendell Berry had previously etched out. Henderson had asked questions about the
motives behind the origins of specific technologies and whether they promote
dependency or self-reliance.[v] Berry’s questions sprang from his concern for
a technology’s relevance to community, culture, and bioregion.[vi] The questions we invented went the next step
-- providing what we hoped would be useful linguistic-conceptual chinks in the
knee-jerk armor so many don for whatever new systems corporations and
government thrust upon them.
Ecological Questions
What
are (the technology-in-question’s) effects on the planet?
Does
it preserve or destroy biodiversity?
Does
it preserve or reduce ecosystem integrity?
How
much and what kind of waste does it generate?
Does
it break the bond of renewal between humans and nature?
Social Questions
Does
(the technology-in-question) serve community?
How
does it affect our perception of our needs?
Is
it consistent with the creation of communal human economy? What are its effects on relationships?
Does
it undermine traditional forms of community?
Does
it erase a sense of time and history?
What
is its potential to become addictive?
Practical Questions
What
does it make?
Whom
does it benefit?
Where
was it produced?
Where
is it used?
Where
must it go when it's broken or obsolete?
Can it be repaired by
an ordinary person?
Military Questions
Does it undermine
traditional moral authority?
Does it require
military defense?
Does
it enhance military purposes?
Does
it foster mass behavior?
Aesthetic Questions
Is
(the technology) ugly?
Does
it cause ugliness?
What
noise does it make?
What pace does it
set?
Moral Questions
What
values does its use foster?
What
is gained by its use?
What
are its effects on the least powerful person in the society?
Ethical Questions
What
does it allow us to ignore?
To
what extent does it distance agent from effect?
What
behavior might it make possible in the future?
What
other technologies might it make possible?
Is
it conducive to nihilism?
Vocational Questions
What
is its impact on craft?
Does
it reduce, deaden, or enhance human creativity?
Does
it depress or enhance the quality of goods?
Does
it depress or enhance the meaning of work?
Metaphysical Questions
What
aspect of the inner self does (this technology) reflect? Love? Fear? Rage? Cyclical
or linear thinking?
Political Questions
Does
it require a knowledge-elite?
Does
it require bureaucracy for its perpetuation?
What
legal empowerments does it need?
Does
it concentrate or equalize power?
(1997)
[vii]
This blog is a book. Please feel free to read the next chapter now. Go to the Table of Contents under the introduction on the right side of the page and click on the next chapter.
This blog is a book. Please feel free to read the next chapter now. Go to the Table of Contents under the introduction on the right side of the page and click on the next chapter.
[i] Cited in
Kirkpatrick Sale, Rebels Against the
Future. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995, p. 148; from letters to the
British Home Office, whose job was to document unrest, by magistrates, elected
officials, and military officers. 42/123; F.O. Darvall, Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England Oxford :
Oxford University New York Minneapolis : University of Minneapolis New
York
[ii] George
Sturt, Change in the Village. New York
[iii] Quoted in
Richard Holmes, Shelley: The Pursuit. London
[iv] Quoted in
Frank Peel, The Risings of the Luddites,
Chartists and Plug-drawers. 1888. Reprint: London
[v] Hazel
Henderson in Technological Forecasting
and Social Change, Vol. 12, 1978, pp.317-324.
[vi] Wendell
Berry, Another Turn of the Crank. Washington DC
[vii] Adapted
from “78 Questions” in Stephanie Mills, ed., Turning Away from Technology. San Francisco :
Sierra Club Books, 1997, pp.235-37; and Gabriola Island
