No technophobe

[Jhildt at aol.com]

To go from the ridiculous to the sublime, it was discussed here a few days
ago whether or not Pynchon might use a manual typewriter (a Smith-Corona in
fact).

I recently read a reprint of TP's piece, "Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?" [The
New York Times Book Review, 28 October 1984], from which comes the following:


But we now live, we are told, in the Computer Age. What is the outlook for
Luddite sensibility? Will mainframes attract the same hostile attention as
knitting frames once did? I really doubt it. Writers of all descriptions are
stampeding to buy word processors. Machines have already become so
user-friendly that even the most unreconstructed of Luddites can be charmed
into laying down the old sledgehammer and stroking a few keys instead. Beyond
this seems to be a growing consensus that knowledge really is power, that
there is a pretty straightforward conversion between money and information,
and that somehow, if the logistics can be worked out, miracles may yet be
possible. If this is so, Luddites may at last have come to stand on common
ground with their [C.P.] Snovian adversaries, the cheerful army of
technocrats who were supposed to have the "future in their bones." It may be
only a new form of the perennial Luddite ambivalence about machines, or it
may be that the deepest Luddite hope of miracle has now come to reside in the
computer's ability to get the right data to those whom the data will do the
most good. With the proper deployment of budget and computer time, we will
cure cancer, save ourselves from nuclear extinction, grow food for everybody,
detoxify the results of industrial greed gone berserk -- realize all the
wistful pipe dreams of our days.

The word "Luddite" continues to be applied with contempt to anyone with
doubts about technology, especially the nuclear kind. Luddites today are no
longer faced with human factory owners and vulnerable machines. As well-known
President and unintentional Luddite D.D. Eisenhower prophesied when he left
office, there is now a permanent power establishment of admirals, generals
and corporate CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are completely
outclassed, although Ike didn't put it quite that way. We are all supposed to
keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because of the data
revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any of the people any
of the time.

If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for will come --
you heard it here first -- when the curves of research and development in
artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all converge. Oboy.
It will be amazing and unpredictable, and even the biggest of brass, let us
devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It is certainly something
for all good Luddites to look forward to if, God willing, we should live so
long.


Oboy, indeed.  I think our Tom has the future in HIS bones.
No technophobe he, but we knew that all along.  He seems to have seen, even
in 1984, the anarchist aspect of the computer revolution. And today I'll bet
he's rollicking on the internet just as we are.   Who among us, communicating
as we do, types anything much beyond a mailing label these days?  I'll lay
odds that twelve years ago TP wrote the above quoted piece on a word
processor.  His message reveals his medium.

I only wonder what else he's using his computer for today.