Berry on Luddites part2

[Joseph Tracy]

The situation in the wool economy of Hawkshead at the end of the eighteenth century was the same as that which, a little later, caused the brief uprising of those workers in England who were called Luddites. These were people who dared to assert that there were needs and values that justly took precedence over industrialization; they were people who rejected the determinism
of technological innovation and economic exploitation. In them, the community attempted to speak for itself and defend itself . It happened that Lord Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords, on February 27, 1812, dealt with the uprising of the Luddites, and this, in part, is what he said:

  By the adoption of one species of [weaving] frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous laborers were thrown out of employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to exportation. . . . The rejected workmen . . . conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism . In the foolishness of their hearts they imagined that the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor were objects of greater importance than the enrichment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the laborer unworthy of his hire .

The Luddites did, in fact, revolt not only against their own economic oppression but also against the poor quality of the machine work that had replaced them. And though they destroyed machinery, they "abstained from bloodshed or violence against living beings, until in 1812 a band of them was shot down
by soldiers." Their movement was suppressed by "severe repressive legislation"and by "many hangings and transportations."
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The Luddites thus asserted the precedence of community needs over technological innovation and monetary profit, and they were dealt with in a way that seems merely inevitable in the light of subsequent history. In the years since, the only group that I know of that has successfully, so far, made the community the standard of technological innovation has been the Amish. The Amish have differed from the Luddites in that they have not destroyed but
merely declined to use the technologies that they perceive as threatening to their community. And this has been possible because the Amish are an agrarian people. The Luddites could not have refused the machinery that they destroyed; the machinery had refused them.
  The victory of industrialism over Luddism was thus overwhelming and unconditional; it was undoubtedly the most complete, significant, and lasting victory of modern times. And so one must wonder at the intensity with which any suggestion of Luddism still is feared and hated . To this day, if you say you would be willing to forbid, restrict, or reduce the use of technological devices
in order to protect the community-or to protect the good health of nature on which the community depends-you will be called a Luddite, and it will not be a compliment. To say that the community is more important than machines is certainly Christian and certainly democratic, but it is also Luddism and therefore not to be tolerated.
 

As an additional note to the last line of Berry's essay one might add that since this essay the activities of modern day monkey wrench Eco warriors have been legally classified as terrorists on a par with Bin Laden et al and may thus be hunted and killed as were the original Luddites.

Joseph Tracy
brook7 at earthlink.net
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.
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