Literary Luddites

The other book I bought in Texas was "Against the Machine" by Nicols Fox.  I was reading this on the plane and many people commented on how interesting the book looked.

Sort of like Darwin's view of world interaction and the interplay between culture and economy as expressed in After Tamerlane, Fox overlays the anti-industrialization movement on to English romantic literature.  As an English major, a couple of lectures on the "times" might have given some periodic base to the settings and stories.

Fox points out that the essence of Luddism is not violence, but a philosophy that respects tradition, intuition, spirituality, the senses, human relationships, the work of hands, and the disorderly and unpredictable nature of reality.  It questions the domination of science and the elevation of efficiency to a superior value.

Fox advocates that, at the very least, the consequences of introducing a technology should be thoroughly understood so that trade-offs can be consciously considered.

The book progresses to align Blake, Paine, Pitt, and the romantic poets with the Industrial Revolution in England, concluding that they chafed against the confines of eighteenth century ways of thinking -- especially the preoccupation with order and form that was characteristic of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, where the world was being sorted, ordered, prioritized and planned in a way that began to define progress but was really about control

Fox concludes that man finds himself enticed by progress, automation, industrialization within a perpetual pull of opposites.  Caution tugs at curiosity as impulse teases aversion.  Fear taunts courage; willpower struggles with appetite.  But for all the stimulation of the new, there remains the powerful comfort and security of the known; finally stating "one impulse in particular seems to have weak competition or none at all:  the appeal of ease or the less-taxing option is unquestioned.  He parallels this nostalgia with the lure of profit,

It was a good time for me to reopen this book before I pass it on to the used book barrel.  COV-19 has in a sense pulled the plug on convenience.  While we still get more news from the television rather than a newspaper editorial or a book, time has slowed ... surroundings have more appeal now that our exploration is curtailed by the distance we can walk or bike,  Conveniences are lost as store shelves stock out; leisure options are not pre-presented by theaters, concert halls, even spas.  Somewhat more alone with our surroundings now, we are vesting simple pleasures with their historic place.  Raking leaves, planting bulbs, walking dogs, writing to friends have reemerged as worthwhile time fillers.

I used to refer to myself as a Luddite whenever I had to rely on a younger person to show me how to work a computer spreadsheet or process a paperless transaction across organizations.  I still have no desire to learn all the functionalities of my new phone or even my old computer.  Maybe I'm just old.  Hope there are younger Luddites out there.

Finally, this book is fun to contrast against Darwin's After Tamerlane.  Globalizationalists are Luddites.