THE CRAZIES: HYPOCRITICAL LUDDITES

By: B

I was once in a debate regarding the pros and cons of Internet voting. To me, there is no debate about the idea of voting from your home. “You know that thing that you have to do, where you have to go somewhere and wait in line and use up a bunch of your free time? Well, now you can just do that exact same thing at home.” Sounds good to me; meeting adjourned.

However, others in my discussion group were inexplicably opposed to the idea. “It will just make society lazy,” they whined. “People won't take voting seriously.”

I take voting as serious as the next person, but that is neither here nor there. If I can do something from home instead of leaving, sign me up. That's all there is to it.

Being against technology based on principles is a noble thought, but will never hold up. The problem with giving a thumbs down to Internet voting is that it also gives a thumbs down to logic. Internet voting may have its problems, but it will be around someday, and here's why: it's more logical than the alternative. While arguing against logic has been done (See: Religion), it hasn't worked out as well as the illogical would have liked. At least the religious have principles.

The anti-technology folk have their own quirky religion, called Luddism. Members refer to themselves as “luddites.” Luddites are a type of people who distrust or fear changes brought on by technology. It is a movement against technology and the societal changes that stem from it. To give an example, a luddite is your friend who refuses to get a cell phone, or your other friend that refuses to buy anything on the Internet. They want things back the way they were. To them, change is evil.

The term “luddite” comes from Ned Ludd, an Englishman from the 19th century. Supposedly the first person to strike out against new technologies (his being stocking frames and the power loom), Ludd is the inspiration for the modern group of illogical a-holes dubbed New Luddites. They're like Ludd, but newer!

Perhaps the most famous and admired luddite in recent past is Neil Postman, a former professor of NYU. Postman (1931-2003) wrote many books and focused much of his work on the idea of enlightenment. Postman continually argued that inventions that didn't add to the idea of enlightenment were useless. Basically, if inventions don't make us smarter as people, we don't need them. Postman was surely a spectacular luddite, but also illogical.

It's nice to say that e-mail and cell phones and Broadband are unnecessary, but it just doesn't hold up. No matter how silly it is, e-mail makes more sense to most people. I would agree that using e-mail instead of snail mail doesn't exactly contribute to the improvement over society, but it obviously saves time. Convenience is the name of the game here, not enlightenment. Maybe with all my saved up time I will invent a cure to AIDS. I also my spend that time seeing how many Cheetos I can fit in my mouth at once, but that's none of your business. The point is, time-saving technologies give us more opportunities to make fundamental, important contributions to society.

The worst and most illogical trait of luddites is their hypocritical nature. They are against new technologies, but surely use the older ones. Luddites seem to agree that cell phones are useless, but they surely use home telephones. However, if they used that same telephone back when phones were new, the old-timey luddites would have had a conniption.

I'm sure luddites drive a car, but probably bitch about heated seats. Luddites from yesteryear no doubt claimed that remote controls were going to be the demise of a once-great society, but I'll bet they use them now. Principally, cells and remotes were invented for the same thing: convenience.

So, unless you see a luddite walking with shoes made from tree bark and wearing the loins of animals they killed, don't listen to a word they say. Soon they too will have a cell phone and an Amazon wish list. But only when even newer technologies come out. That way, they'll always have something to complain about.

If they were actually against technology, they'd be Amish. But they're not; they just can't figure out how to use their PDA or computer and are trying to save face by going to the standard, “I didn't want to use that thing anyway. It's pointless.”

Send me a text message when you find the point, bud. I'll be lying on a couch, discovering enlightenment in a big screen.

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