Ned Ludd was a good and honorable man.
Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about our obsession with technology and speed.
I've come to a conclusion – to a great extent technology and speed suck.
As a teacher and farmer I have an idea about what it feels like when someone tries to replace you with a machine.
It doesn't feel good.
Just a generation ago the majority of the work done on farms still required a certain amount of physical fitness and critical thought. On some farms now, workers do little more than read the computer monitor in the tractor cab. As tractors get bigger the farms do too - pretty soon the family farm becomes another footnote in a textbook.
When I was in university we had an entire course to demonstrate the technologies coming into schools. Now that I'm in the school system I see these same technologies being used to eliminate teachers in the classroom. It seems that, besides being cheaper, computers have the added benefit of doing as they're told and not discussing pesky ideas like critical thought.
“But Stu,” you inquire, “Aren't you writing this very entry on a computer?”
Ah, you have me there. Yes, dear reader, I am, but let me say this – just because I am writing this on a laptop does not mean that I do not handwrite everyday, and it in no way eliminates the careful consideration used when putting thoughts into words.
But the desire for ever greater speed, greater technology makes me want to take my sabot to the nearest available silicon chip.
When I look at my students - students who have no idea how to think without a keyboard in front of them - I can't help but feel we've lost something. True, they do need to learn how to use computer skills and computers can do incredible things, but what happens when the computer isn't there?
When I look at the farmers I know - people who traditionally knew how to do most anything – you can see that the repositories of ancient knowledge are disappearing and I know that they will probably never be replaced.
But remember this: when Ned Ludd was made obsolete by a steam-powered loom, he knew just what to do – he destroyed the machine that had replaced him.
It's time to lend an ear again to Mr. Ludd. He knew that a life spent hanging on the fringes of the cogs in the system was no life at all.
Thoreau said that “men have become the tools of their tools.” If he'd been born a century or so later he would have turned his ire on the worship of speed. It would seem that the two go hand in hand.
So I pay heed now to good and honorable men. I will close this computer walk down to do some chores, probably do most of the work by hand. I think I'll take my time.
Think your life is too fast, too plagued by machines? Just ask your self this one question:
What would Captain Ludd do?
Beware the wooden shoe of Oppression! I think it was Shaw (or perhaps some other similarly cranky Irishmen) who lamented the growing usage of automobiles saying, "Life is to important to go faster than 30 mph, you lose the beauty and the time you save just isn't worth it"
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