Luddite Links

Luddites were factory workers in England during the late 19th century, who followed the example of their legendary hero, Nedd Ludd, in resisting the mechanization imposed upon them by the Industrial Revolution. Learn more about both the historical Luddites and the modern-day Neo-Luddites at the sites below.

My Luddite Evolution

The whole concept of a Luddite Home Page began mainly as a gimmick. I despaired of ever thinking of something original to add to the World Wide Web, and exuberantly stole this idea from a newspaper contest when I saw it. The irony inherent in the phrase Luddite Home Page appeals to me. It gave me a basis or framework to construct this electronic analog of the stuff floating around in my head. Starting from a gimmick, however, it expanded.

I now think of this site as the "Electronic Home of the Cognitive Minority". I've always been a member of the revolution, as it were, or in other words, the Cognitive Minority. Simply speaking, a cognitive minority is a group of people who hold a belief or beliefs that are not generally accepted in the culture at large.

Luddites definitely qualify as a cognitive minority, with their repudiation of the domination of technology in our culture. I would agree with them to a large degree concerning the soteriological myth of technicism, i.e. technology will cure us of all our woes. This is a lie and a false hope founded on the outdated principles of Enlightenment Humanism. We (human beings) are not everyday in every way getting better and better. Anyone who would believe this is blind to the obvious. I am no longer so convinced that technology will necessarily fail to remove the least pleasant aspects of the human condition. I can't help wondering if that would necessarily be a good thing, though. Regardless, the misuse or misapplication of technology does not demand a dismissal in whole or in part of technology. There is a place for more organic pursuits, which serve to restore a sense of connexion with the world around us, but the benefits of some technologies, such as e-mail or the World Wide Web are great, and it's foolish to not even consider their utility.

Peruse the following links and for more content on a wide range of topics visit Papers, you'll even find the first reply to my page that wasn't from The Grangerizer.

• Lessons from the Luddites -- an essay by Kirkpatrick Sale that provides some historical information about the Luddites.
• An Interview With the Luddite -- a Wired interview with Kirkpatrick Sale.
• Luddites and Other Technophobes -- Another collection of Luddite info.
• Wired's Rants & Raves -- a special edition of Wired devoted to the topic of Luddites.
• The Neo-Luddite Reaction has numerous interesting articles, including Word Perfect: Literacy in the Computer Age -- This site is down, but keep trying it's got a lot of good stuff.
• Terry the Luddite doesn't want you to visit his page. Do so anyway; he offers some Neo-Luddite alternatives to "playing with your computer."