Luddism

[Dave Monroe]

But have been thinking about that "Luddite" essay.  First-wave Luddism a
reaction to the "Age of Resaon," looking back nostalgically on the "Age
of Miracles" (e.g., the Gothic--and, by the way, note Pynchon's use of
"assembly" in re: Frankenstein and The Castle of Otranto .. Is Paris
Burning? also reminded me that Hitler, at least, saw the V-2 as a
possible "redeemer," "deliverer," "savior" of teh Reich from immanet
defeat);  second-wave Luddism a reaction to Hiroshima (literally,
metonymically), the factory system (as system), looking back
nostalgically on the Age of Reason and that distinction (troubled from
the outset, by Descartes, La Mettrie, et al) betwixt man and machine
(and note Pynchon's interest in postwar SF, I've raised this context
before, esp. that "new wave" SF); Pynchon, maybe "postmodern" (maybe
even "cyberpunk") fellow-travellers, as a third wave, then?  Nostalgic,
even if seemingly cryptically, problematically for, that man/machine
distinction which has been cybernetically blurred ...