"What's a Luddite?"

[Orwellian_Ghost]

All too often we have seen the particularly wrong and oppressive categorization of "Luddite" much as it is purposefully (mis)used by the Techno-Utopians, Globalizers and Corporate Savages to marginalize anyone who would dare question the status quo.

So then, "What's a Luddite?"

Luddite:

The knitting machines which provoked the first Luddite disturbances had been putting people out of work for well over two centuries. Everybody saw this happening -- it became part of daily life. They also saw the machines coming more and more to be the property of men who did not work, only owned and hired. It took no German philosopher, then or later, to point out what this did, had been doing, to wages and jobs. Public feeling about the machines could never have been simple unreasoning horror, but likely something more complex: the love/hate that grows up between humans and machinery -- especially when it's been around for a while -- not to mention serious resentment toward at least two multiplications of effect that were seen as unfair and threatening. One was the concentration of capital that each machine represented, and the other was the ability of each machine to put a certain number of humans out of work -- to be "worth" that many human souls.

It was open-eyed class war.

The Luddites, they did not call themselves that, were a movement against The Corporation. A social movement that recognized root causes of corporatism and took action to preserve their communities. They saw quite clearly what was staring them in the face.

Of course the folks involved and the term itself has been purposefully distorted and misrepresented to the point that it has become the most powerful swear word of capital (now that 'commie' has, for the moment, lost it's charge)) and the oppressor class has determined for you that a Luddite is a "mindless, destructive, resister of progress." All of this is of course patently false.

Both the left and the right told the same lie about the historical luddites, that they were primitivist and backward looking, as if those skilled weavers at the dawn of industrial modernity were against the future rather than its foreclosure by immiseration, factory discipline and the gallows.

[question everything]

1. Why the cowardly U after it is barely posted? (nt)

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. Probably didn't

want to be challenged or even have the discussion when it's easier to maintain the stereotype.

[Autumn]

4. It's not the content,

it's the name. #4

[SammyWinstonJack]

37. I rec for the name.

[Autumn]

41. Same here

[Blue-Jay]

8. I just gave an unrec because you're complaining about unrecs.

[elocs]

15. Yeah, within a couple of minutes after a thread is posted, somebody has to complain about UnRecs.

I've seen this done with threads that went on to have over 100 Recs. The great DU obsession with Recs and UnRecs when it is simply responding to a thread which kicks it in its forum and after 24 hours nobody can Rec or UnRec it anyways.

Many who UnRec are looking for the attention so:

Don't Feed the Trolls!

[sui generis]

53. can we unrec a post? damn.

Seriously? Trolls? There are more than just trolls in the sea. There are really stupid people too, even here on DU.

Mostly there are bunches of people who love their pet name, and "luddites" is the new black-with-an-n. Always gonna be people who don't want to have to learn a new illuminati word so they can appear to be unludditish.

We should just talk about them in yiddish.

[Greyhound]

16. Well, that'll show 'em...

[elocs]

13. Attention, and you gave it to them. They thank you. n/t

[TexasObserver]

20. You're fair and balanced. You will counter with a Recommend, right?

Haven't you posted many times that you automatically vote Recommend on any thread you see with a negative vote?

BTW, I like this thread and will likely Recommend it. Certainly, I won't Unrecommend it.

[question everything]

34. Oh, thank you, thank you, oh great master

we, your humble servants are forever indebted to you.

How gracious you are to actually read a post and form an opinion on the merit. What a courageous achievement what a great humanitarian.

Why, I actually found a post of someone who U after seeing others do this. What a wonderful herd mentality we have here on DU. And we look down on Limpdick "dittoheads?"

[bertman]

44. Question, TexasObserver, where does one SEE a negative vote? I don't have any visible

tally of recs and unrecs showing on my webpage for any given thread. The only way I have been able to discern if a thread is being UNrecced is when I see "rec" written in a post, but there are no recs recorded (or fewer recs than posters have stated in their replies).

Thanks in advance for the help.

[TexasObserver]

52. I'll try to explain.

According to the poster to whom I was speaking, she or he always votes to RECOMMEND a thread that is showing a negative number of Recommends. So, if that poster sees the <0 symbol by the thread, he/she claims to vote Recommend on that sole basis.

I know it sounds weird, but it is the way he/she deals with Unrecommends. They're all undeserved, is assumedly their reasoning.

[noamnety]

3. +1 for a good history lesson here

I did not that's what the term came from.

[SpiralHawk]

5. They were the folks who said the family & family values would be destroyed

when the Republicons of yesteryear forced them out of their independent cottage industries and put them in factories to work 12-hour days as wage-slave Proles in hoc to to company store (Ye Olde name for Credit Card companies).

The Luddites were absolutely right, of course, but since they 'lost' and since the march of technology has been inexorable, they have been a convenient whipping boy for industrial materialists ever since.

Now stop asking questions, shut up, and get back to work in your cubicle farm like a good little Prole.

[PretzelWarrior]

6. sure. but they destroyed new technology. assigning that as the cause

of their problems rather than the mindset behind British industrial revolution.

The term Luddite clearly has reference to someone like a GM auto worker who would rather fear a robot than understand the company is looking for ways to stay in business and be competitive in the world marketplace.

[RaleighNCDUer]

45. I believe the point of the OP was that what YOU are saying is the

same argument the corporatists have been using from the beginning - the corporatists always made the claim that the workers were opposed to the technology, when actually they were opposed to the coporate control over the technology. Just as today, the owners claim that the unions only support the institution of the union while preying on the workers who belong to it.

The very term 'Luddite' is corporatist spin.

[blindpig]

47. It is not the technology, per se

it is the way it is applied. The weavers would have been quite happy if they owned the machines and could increase their productiveness and thus income by their use. However, these machines, owned by capitalists, were used drive the weavers out of business, forcing them to become wage slaves and subject to the whims of the owner.

It is not about technology, it is about the social organization production.

Why should the worker give a fig about GM if it is eliminating his(her) job? That is one of the problems with capitalism, the worker has no control over his(her) livlihood, and survives at the sufferance of the capitalist.

[pansypoo53219]

50. from ludlow.

i already called myself a luddite, but now i think i am more so politically. remember when they said mechanization was gonna give us 'leisure' time? no, maids. we have to do it. with the machine. the machines mean less union jobs. and the rich have more excuses not to pay. the lower classes always pay.

[GodlessBiker]

7. Techno-utopians? I think the Pet Shop Boys fall into that group.

To me, a Luddite, is just someone unwilling (and sometimes unable) to use the latest technology. It's not a terribly mean-spirited thing to say, it is usually used in jest, and often a person will define him or herself as a Luddite to explain the lack of a Twitter or Facebook account or something like that.

[Puzzler]

11. What have the Pet Shop Boys got to do with this?

Seriously, I'm missing your point.

[FatDave]

36. It was a joke.

As if "techno-utopian" was a style of music. Pretty damn funny if you ask me.

[hfojvt]

9. knr but shouldn't there be a link?

Or did you write this?

[sl8]

59. From a Thomas Pynchon essay, I think. Link:

http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_essays_lud...

[EOTE]

10. K&R from a proud Luddite with 16 years IT experience.

I come from a proud tradition of Luddites. Only my folks still haven't figured out how to stop their VCR from flashing 12:00.

[Odin2005]

12. So What? The Sophists weren't the charletans they were bashed for being, either...

...but that doesn't mean I won't ever use the term "sophistry".

The term "luddite" now means "person who hates technology". What the actual Luddites believed is irrelevant to modern usage.

[Posteritatis]

19. +1 (nt)

[redqueen]

23. OMGWTFLOGIC!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

24. Here's what

As it is used today, the term has little to do with its original meaning, which had to do with the fear of losing one's livelihood to a machine and not being able to support one's family and way of life.

By its use, the accuser changes the argument to a personal character attack that has little to do with the actual technological issue at hand. It doesn't matter whether the issue is nuclear power, plastics or microwaves, the person who attacks the other using the term Luddite is doing so because they have no meaningful response to the claims of the one being called a Luddite.

Being called a Luddite generally indicates an ignorance and/or an uncomfortableness on the part of the accusing party. The argument has been made into a personal issue and no longer deals with the original thought. If possible, one needs to return the conversation to the technological issue at hand rather than having it remain as a personal attack.

Your contorted logic aside terms do have meanings and even if misused over time the abused use of the meaning now in general use is still no less ignorant. Get it?

[Odin2005]

27. Lingustic change has no memory.

The usage now is the usage now, historical origins have no influence on current word usage.

Another example that popped into my mind: "Philistine"

[JoeyT]

29. There's a ton of words that have absolutely nothing to do with their origin.

You can't get much further from the root of a word than cynic has come. (Or stoicism, for that matter)

If you're griping about the use of luddite with a computer on the internet, you aren't one.

[DonCoquixote]

30. Two sided coin

Technology is often misused, in part because the people who get control of it are often stupid or greedy. Technology can kill or save lives, depending on who gets control of it and who develops it.

However, when I use the term "Luddite", I usually deal with someone who is thinking in absolutes, which winds up showing certain characteristics. I try to save the use of that term until the point where these characteristics show up.

A) Hypocrisy. An example is saying "technology is evil" while on the internet.

B) A failure to think things out, speaking of one evil, without considering the other evil a course of action may bring about. Some examples?

I have seen people say "we would all be better off if all food was Organic Food." Frankly, I would love to see Monsanto destroyed, but I would also not like to see Millions starve because we try to roll back to some idealized age of agriculture. People look at me odd when I talk of shopping at the local Farmer's markets, yet scoff at a lot of Organic food. I explain to them that I fear farmers tell me how a lot of "organic food" is imported, and actually helps put them out of business. But that does not fit into the popular myths, so I must be some troll, right?

Closer to me, are the people that say "Vaccines cause autism!" As some with Autism (albeit Asberger's) I do get sensitive when people try to find an easy answer, if nothing else because we may miss the REAL answer which we do need.

Now the point is not about whether Organic Food or vaccines, I realize there is a debate, and a healthy debate, a needed debate, but sorry to say, there are many whose mind is made up, and who clutch their myths the way the right clutches their theories about Obama being a Kenyan. Myself, I do not think any solution will be found if we look for a favorite method before we find the results.

To give an example, like I said, I would love to see Monsanto put in it's place, as they are trying to drive farmers out of business. I would, on the other hand, would consider the UN trying to research GM food, as they can be held to account better than a mega corp. The UN would also protect the native strains of grain, so that farmers would not worry about their corn going away. This has a lot of gray area in it, as opposed to black and white.

To sum it up, while I can appreciate the History lesson on Luddite, I also understand the modern meaning of the term, and while I can see it is abused, I also think that are some feet that fit the shoe. Yes, some weavers got put out of work, but that in and of itself is not enough of a reason to shield old ways. To give an example that will offend some people here, when Japan was making smaller, gas sipping cars, many in Detroit, including some in the Unions, said that trying to make more fuel efficient cars would impact their way of life. We know how that worked: not only did the whole world get dirtier air, but many of those same workers wound up losing their jobs anyway.

[Odin2005]

31. Hello, fellow Aspie!

Great post!

[JackintheGreen]

46. I know I'm late to the party

but if homosexuals can take back the words "queer" and "fag," and Tina Fey can reappropriate the word "bitch," and so on and so forth with myriad examples, why can't Luddites (try to) reclaim definition of the word?

[Ozymanithrax]

14. Weaving was a highly skilled profession and the weavers owned their looms.

The machines they destroyed were used by unskilled low wage labor, and the machine was owned by an unskilled wealthy owner.

Of course, the kind of demand that the machines filled could never have been filled by by women sitting at their looms. The machines worked faster and the owner could, literally, hire a child to do the work.

This conflict at the beginning of the Industrial revolution was inevitable as was its conclusion. The weavers and their way of life are long dead. Their way of life could have only been maintained by strictly controlling population and retaining an ancient economic system that could not meet the needs of larger populations.

[RoyGBiv]

17. You're familiar with Edward Thompson ...

I assume?

[TexasObserver]

18. See, if someone has a really stupid idea, and you don't like it, you're a Luddite!

Truthfully, it's just the latest fucking IT word for people who always repeat IT words.

[PretzelWarrior]

21. no. I don't look for "IT" words. when I read the self-checkout thread I thought

LUDDITES! and used it. I am fairly well versed in precise vocabulary that does the best job of concisely conveying a point.

[TexasObserver]

22. CALVINIST!

Luddite is a word that should not be used to describe someone who didn't agree with you about the displacement of workers by heartless global corporations.

Here's a good term for you: CALVINIST. Don't be one.

[maryf]

25. Thanks!! K&R nt

[badgerpup]

26. Proud Luddite here...sorta.

yeah, I'm leery of techonology. You know why? Because so much of it IS so damn easy to use and so handy...and so easy to become dependent upon without even realizing it.

I don't want to be utterly helpless if something should happen and none of the cool techno-toys are available.

Long story cut short...was forced to upgrade my cel phone. Lovely new model, clamshell (it flips open and closed so I don't have to carry it in a hard glasses case to keep it from getting accidently turned on and running down the battery) and has a CAMERA!
I'm sort of afraid of it...

Nice Man at Verizon who helped me with this sort of understood what I was on about...said he didn't even know his wife's phone number. He didn't have to- his cel phone memory remembered it for him...

I don't have a microwave or a TV (or attendent VCR, DVD, or whatever the latest watch-stuff-on-a-screen technogy is).
It bothers me how antsy and irritable I get when my computer goes down and I'm without Internet access for a few days...so I know I'm addicted to the Internet...plus I realized I've got waaay too much stuff (recipes, text, stories, records) on disc.
What happens if/when I can't access these discs?
Had a disc full of nifty recipes get corrupted the other day, so this is a real issue.
Fortunately... I'd already backed it all up with hard copy, but I haven't done that with all my stuff.
Maybe I should...just in case.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

40. My wife & I saw a perfect example of what you're talking about.

Our friend (who works with my wife) was late for work the other day.

The reason was that she couldn't find her car keys that have the remote. She could only find the spare key and she didn't know how to open the lock and start the car with a plain old key.

I would mention teenagers who can't tell time unless it's a digital image that they're looking at, but that's too obvious.

[Liberation Angel]

28. Pro-Nukers call me a Luddite for opposing nuclear power, BUT...

knowing the background i kind of consider it a compliment.

I don't oppose technology at all. I oppose oppressive and sickening technologies.

[westerebus]

32. I'm a proud believer of Ned Ludd's reasoning.

I don't oppose technology just because it's new or modern. I oppose technology that would cause me harm. I oppose policies that diminish my ability to maintain a decent standard of living.

The two are linked. Technology and policy. Show the benefit and the cost, of the technology and the policy, so all can have their say. Or are we simple peasants, indentured and defeated?

Without some form of universal health care, we as a nation are at a disadvantage to our trading partners. We don't have to reinvent the wheel to get there either.

A trillion dollars horded in failed banks while thousand are made jobless because the of the crimes committed by the bankers. And they refuse to control the banks? Or prosecute those involved. How does that help?

No energy policy. Why the hell not?

Two wars. Eight years. How many dead?

It was jobs in Ned's day, it's jobs today.

It was empire and war back then. It's empire and war today. So what's changed?

[eppur_se_muova]

33. Was discussing this with someone just the other day --

and, of course, much of what I had to say I learned due to a DU post.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. I'm a proud luddite.

That's why I hire a team of thousands of college interns to perform calculations on abacuses when I post on DU, instead of using a computer.

[leftstreet]

38. K&R

[eridani]

39. The Marxist distinction between a tool and a machine is relevant here

The level of technological sophistication is totally irrelevant to the sociological distinction. A tool is used by humans for their own purposes. Machines use people for the profit of their owners.

[soarsboard2]

42. Basic Meaning

is anyone opposed to modernization.

But the Luddites saw their hay day in the Napoleonic Wars when times were oppressive in England.

[Soylent Brice]

43. Ned Ludd did it.

[Gedankenaustausch]

48. neoluddism

I thought that the neo-luddite movement lacked the originality of the first luddite movement. I mean, you gotta be hardcore to protest weaving machines.

[Grinchie]

49. Good post, but it fails to mention that Luddites recognize the damage machinery can do.

As I have slowly extracted myself from the high tech world, I have taken a deep look at how things were done in the so called "Bad Old Days" when kids walked 10 miles to school uphill in the snow, both ways, men had to go out in the forest and cut down trees, them process them on the spot for timber..First of all, the major thing that I've learned that it is not harder work, but it is different, more organic work.

When one first picks up a broadaxe, it's almost like learning to walk or ride a bicycle. Once you get the hang of it, you can square a timber very quickly. But then, after you have that beautiful work of art, you realize that the tree is in the most efficient shape in the first place, so you end up only hewing sparingly, and use raw logs in many cases.

Once people can see how simple things can be, while being very effective at the same time, they tend to see "New and Improved" label plastered on modern products and see that it just changes the way things are done, along with your environment, attitude, and skill.

A good example are square taper drills. They are not made any more that I can tell, yet, I uses them almost daily for boring holes in wood. I use only the energy that was used to manufacture them 100 years ago, and the energy I gained ffrom my breakfast of fresh, homegrown Chicken eggs.

I used to have modern drills, utilize electricity, etc, but the old method is by far more efficient _FOR_ME_. I no longer own any electrical tools other than a vacuum cleaner. Everything else is hand powered, and I'll be damned if it isn't more pleasant, easier on the ears, easier on the lungs, and grants a bit more exercise which is good for me.

The most amazing thing is that one needs to relearn the lost secrets and technique that our grandfathers knew. You have to be more involved in your work if you want quality. You have enough time to back out of an accident, whereas the power tool has already destroyed the piece.

This is just one example, the world of Electronics is full of amazing methods that are basically lost to us as Consumers of High Tech, that we no longer understand, or care to understand. We can repair the microchip, so it is just discarded

I think Luddites see the value of being self sufficient, and are very wary of the way the process of labor is changed when new machinery arrives and changes things. There are pleasant ways of doing things, and there are hellish ways of doing things. It's always a tradeoff.

[IrateCitizen]

51. +1

Great post!

[winyanstaz]

54. K & R hmmm I like the name...luddite can be a good thing...

sort of like...putting light on the subject

[Lerkfish]

55. to be devil's advocate, the unabomber was a luddite

[LanternWaste]

56. The unabomber was also...

The unabomber was also a true Scotsman.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

58. Not really

He was pegged as such by those, the media machine, who would use the term in it's wrongful and oppressive sense.

Luddites were a part of a social movement against the destruction of their livelihoods whereas the Unabomber was an isolated a-social, if not anti-social, individual. The acts of the Luddites were not isolated, arbitrary acts of violence they were targeted attacks against the machinery, property of what we might call the corporations of their day.

[chimpyisstillsatan]

57. can you redefine plagiarism, too?

Is wholesale theft of ideas and words noble as well?

Immiseration? Big word, but can you explain how things like coal mining and ditch digging machinery makes workers MORE miserable? Are Pakistani children MORE miserable now that there are quality stitching machines that alleviate the use off child labor in the manufacture of soccer balls?

The essence of the term Luddite is that it embodies knee-jerk reactions (cue South Park: "they're taking our JOBS!) to any technology they can't comprehend, or the manipulation of fears of the unknnown/misunderstood when ignorant/uneducated workers are confronted by technological threats to the status quo. The Luddites were protesting the elimination of SWEATSHOPS, ferchrissake.

[johnaries]

60. I would like to point out that the definition of terms change over time.

Even if a term is misused, if that misusage becomes "common usage" then the term's meaning changes, as well. That's one of the reasons so many terms have multiple definitions.

[Odin2005]

61. I already said that, and got an angry lecture.