azz@h.cc.purdue.edu (Sam Blanchard) (07/29/87)
Dave Berry mentions that: >Several people use the word "Luddite" quite freely to denigrate an opposing >point of view. I think this ignores several aspects of the Luddite movement. Here is the best description of Contemporary Luddites I've seen myself. The book, listed below, goes on to examine how technology is studied and to propose a new method of study. I read Slack's work in a Communications class on Emerging Technology (Com 435?) here at Purdue University. Though J.D. Slack is no longer at Purdue, I know one of her previous grad. students who is still here (He was the instructor for Com 435). If you want his input I will ask him, but first I have to finish re-reading the book myself. I will write something up when I'm finished if there is interest. [ The group to be labeled in this section as "contemporary Luddites," with respect to communication technologies, do not engage in the physi- cal act of machine breaking. They do, however, in spirit, resemble the Luddites in some important respects. The first broad category of con- temporary Luddites is mad up of those who are motivated by hostility toward the structure of their ownership. Some proponents of this posi- tion can be labeled almost as alternative technologists, but the subtle distinction lies in the emphasis on the complete rejection of entire classes or groups of technologies, no matter who owns or controls them. Thus, for example, the Luddite response to computer technology is simply that it ought not to be employed. Andy Gates (1977), for example, takes a strongly Luddite position on computer technology when he writes that he has "doubts about using computers in any context. These are connected with my doubts about the implicatons of using 'high technology' in general"(p. 14). ... Furthermore, Gates argues, programming will always be, of necessity, a limiting activity. Programmers, by necessity, will exercise power over the people who use the system. ](p. 42-43, Slack) Speaking of the second 'broad category' {Mumford's definition of 'the machine' is included in the text} [... these Luddites condemn not only the technologies but the entire social system of which the technologies are an integral part. The social system and its technologies are nearly completely reduced to a single dynamic-be that dynamic labeled "the machine," "technique," or "domination." ](p 46, Slack) Quoted from: Communication Technologies & Society: Conceptions of Causality & the Politics of Technological Intervention By Jennifer Daryl Slack copywrite 1984 Ablex Publishing Corp. pg 42 - 43 Andy Gates(1977) "From the Luddites." Peace News for Nonviolent Revolution 2044 (May 20),14