Who are the Luddites?

According to the Second Luddite Congress in 1996, Neo-Luddism is a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the computer age. Neo-Luddism describes an opposition to many forms of technology and in particular information technology.

Luddism was a social movement in England that emerged in the 18th century and was characterised by an opposition to industrialisation. The Luddites de-stroyed machines as symbols of the threat of unemployment to skilled craftsmen at the dawn of the industrial age. The movement used violence and intimidation as forms of resistance against industrial production by unskilled workers who were paid low wages, suffered unbearable work and living conditions and took the jobs of skilled craftsmen who were traditionally organised in guilds (The Luddites at 200).

It is not surprising that the British government outlawed violence against machines at the beginning of the 18th century. The penalties for this form of re-sistance were very severe, in many cases penal transportation to colonies such as Australia. Despite the threat of these penalties, there were Luddite riots in England between 1811 and 1813, at which point the movement was already organised and capable of exercising considerable pressure on government and factory owners. Waves of violence followed by waves of repression including the use of the military to suppress riots. The British economy after the Napoleonic Wars was in dire shape and the last peak of violence by Luddites occurred around 1830.

It has frequently been argued that the Luddite rebellion was against a transformation of work conditions and procedures; it was not directed against machine as such. Violence against humans attracted the most severe penalties and since machines for industrial production were seen not only as a cause but also as sym-bols of change, the violence was mostly directed against machines that assist production. While in the public's mind Luddite are associated with violence, this is clearly not the case for Neo-Luddites in the 21st century.

Neo-Luddites refrain from using certain forms of technology for very personal, religious or philosophical reasons. In many cases, a person may not even consciously reflect on why a certain technology is not being used. It may be nothing more than a decision not to get a new smartphone every year. In any case, this new development of Neo-Luddites is most certainly non-violent. As a matter of fact, non-violence is the hallmark of this leaderless movement. A good example are the Amish people in North America. Motivated by anabaptist religious convictions, Amish communities are found in many American states as well as provinces in Canada. This community is known for its pacifist attitudes and almost seamless integration into the fabric of American society.

What is Neo-Luddism?

Neo-Luddism covers the entire political spectrum. It includes environmental groups who reject certain technologies in order to reduce humanity's carbon foot-print along with back-to-nature communities that are motivated by a form of 19th century romanticism. It includes anarchist artists who reject civilization, or at least Western civilization, and religious communities who are part of a new wave of monasticism. Nevertheless, these groups share a number of relevant features. They are non-violent, they tend to live on the land and the numbers are increasing rapidly. The North American Amish population grew by an estimated 172,780 since 2000, increasing from approximately 177,885 in 2000 to 350,665 in 2020 - an increase of 97 percent (Amish Studies, The Young Center). Young people as a driving force is another characteristic; these are most certainly not retirement communities.

Kryszczuk & Wenzel (2017, p.45) developed a taxonomy of Neo-Luddist movements: Economic Neo-Luddites (1) act on anti-libertarian instincts and ad-vocate re-agrarisation or deindustrialisation to prevent unemployment and social decline. Romantic-pastoral Neo-Luddism (2) is associated with environmental movements, questioning modern mass production and the promotion of vegetari-anism and escapism. Furthermore, Kryszczuk & Wenzel (2017, p.45) identify (3) spiritual-ideological Neo-Luddism. This movement is characterized by scepticism toward mainstream science and technology. A separate strand is Anarchic Neo-Luddism (4) which draws inspiration from the violence used by original Luddites (Kryszczuk & Wenzel, 2017, p.45).

Why would anybody choose to live without the benefits of modern technology? Barber (2008, in Kryszczuk & Wenzel, 2017, p.52-53) offers one view:

"Consumerism urges us to … step into the new world of electronic toys, games and gadgets that make up the modern digital adult playground; the market apparently recog-nized that people do not have to grow up anymore. Instead of getting schools to help children grow out of toys, we bring toys to schools - video games and computers as learning aids, as well as commercially sponsored television in classrooms. … Traditional teaching methods cannot compete with the charm of the world of commercial games …"

Mark Boyle would be an example of the second category of the Kryszczuk & Wenzel (2017) taxonomy related to environmental concerns, a critique of mass production and escapism (Boyle 2019). Mark Boyle is an author and columnist of the Guardian newspaper. Mark experimented with several forms of off-the-grid living over the last years, including living without money for a period of three years. His publishing activities allowed Mark to purchase a cabin and some acre-age in Ireland in order to experiment with living without technology. Mark is not just avoiding information technology, he avoids all form of modern aids including washing machines and other devices. In his autoethnographic book (The Way Home, Boyle 2019), he reports on the benefits and challenges of his new life. This includes writing articles and books by use of pen and paper as well as the long process of heating water to have a bath. He emphasises that is not just living without technology that is the key to “coming home”, it is also the avoidance of clocks. Without a “time giver” such as a clock, life returns to the rhythm of daylight and the seasons. However, the benefits of natural living come at a cost: everything takes much longer.

References

Amish Studies. https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/statistics/amish-population-profile-2020 20 November 2020.

Bolye M, The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology. London: One-world, 2019.

Diederich J, The Psychology of Artificial Superintelligence. Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021, ISBN 978-3-030-71841-1, DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71842-8

Kryszczuk M, Wenzel M, Neo-Luddism: Contemporary work and beyond. Przeglad Socjologiczny 66, 4 (2017), 45–65. https://doi.org/10.26485/ps/2017/66.4/3

The Luddites at 200. https://www.luddites200.org.uk/theLuddites.html 20 November 2020.