(Level B2+) Text about Luddism, with vocabulary exercise.
Written and compiled by Benedicte Gravrand, at The Language House
The term “Luddite” is used to describe individuals or groups opposed to technological change. It was first used used during the Industrial Revolution and is still relevant today.
The word “Luddite” probably comes from Ned Ludd, a young English worker (see below) who attacked and destroyed two mechanical weavers in 1779 in a fit of rage.
Fast forward to the early 1800s, when the British economy was suffering greatly with high unemployment and inflation due to the cost of various wars. The Luddites were a working-class group of skilled workers organised in 1811 in Nottingham that later spread to other parts of England. They destroyed the textile machinery that was displacing and disempowering them. They wanted to put pressure on owners to improve their emplyoment; better safety measures and better work conditions. They were maskedmailed letters to local industrialists and government officials. The Luddites were not violent towards people.
Owners and governments reacted strongly. In April 1812, some of the Luddites were gunned down at a mill near Huddersfield, Yorkshire. The army sent large groups of them to either be hanged or taken to Australia to serve their punishment. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the Luddites were not the first ones to react against technology nor were they the last ones.
All words in bold are in the vocabulary exercise below.
Over time, the term has been used to refer to those opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation, or new technologies in general – or as an insult, a label you’d put on a baby boomer who hasn’t figured out how podcasts work. It is similar to being called “a dinosaur”.
You could say the Amish community in the USA ( many originally from Switzerland) , who defend a simple way of life without technology, are intransigent Luddites.
Neo-Luddism
According to a manifesto written by the Second Luddite Congress in 1996, neo (i.e. new)-Luddism is "a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the Computer Age".
This is a definition that many people would identify with, without necessarily knowing the terms “Luddite” or “neo-Luddite”.
Neo-Luddism has been combined in recent years with environmentalist, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movements.
(photo + caption)
One infamous Neo-Luddite was the Unabomber.
The Luddite fallacy
Economists use the term "Luddite fallacy" when talking about the fear that technology inevitably generates mass unemployment, which has not been proven to be true. In their new book “Power and Progress”, economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson say that while technological progress can produce general prosperity, there is no guarantee that this will happen quickly — and in some cases, no guarantee that it will happen at all. “Textile factories of the early British Industrial Revolution generated great wealth for a few but did not raise worker incomes for almost a hundred years,” they write.
In the meantime, says an IT engineer friend, artificial intelligence may replace intellectual workers. And those very workers might become the next generation of neo-Luddites.
Neo-Luddism now and in the future
Another friend who is an IT programmer has a couple of colleagues who are sick of technology and feel trapped in a vicious circle as now we cannot create new technology without existing technology. They hate our dependency on technology.
There are well-known examples of technology supporters and pioneers who detach themselves from it eventually.
And there are isolated acts of vandalism.
Do you remember the mystery attack on internet cables in Paris in April last year and the other one in Marseille in October? There have also been attacks on e-bikes-for-hire (UK), electricity infrastructure (various parts of Africa), information and communications technology infrastructure (Jamaica), a net zero technology centre (Scotland), phone masts (UK) and general cyber vandalism all around.
However, there are no signs of masses of people switching off.
Another IT engineer friend says this is all nonsense. We are all so much better off with technology. Our lives and our health have been enriched by it. Besides, a “return to nature” would surely mean a short and brutal life. He assumes, of course, that such reactionaries do want a return to nature. They generally do not.
The excesses of big tech companies - Amazon’s exploitation of workers in warehouses driven by automation and machine vision, Uber’s gig-economy lobbying and disregard for labour law, and Facebook’s unchecked extraction of unprecedented amounts of user data - are driving a public backlash that may contain the seeds of a neo-Luddite movement, says social scientist Jathan Sadowski.
A neo-Luddite movement does not advocate for a return to primitive living, he explains. Instead, it would understand no technology is sacred and should only benefit society. It would confront digital capitalism and seek to give people more power over the technological systems that structure their lives.
***
Some of us may long for the cabin in the woods with a fireplace and a break from mobile phones, but we are caught in the inevitable march toward a more omnipresent technological age, where increasingly intelligent machines and mankind will form an imperfect, interdependent partnership.
The neo-luddite movement is a cry in the night for a more humane transition toward this new world, which may seem at times brutal, invasive and greedy. Like the Luddites of 1811, today’s and future neo-Luddites will do what they have to do to reclaim power.
As John Booth, a young Luddite, said in 1812, the new machinery “might be man’s chief blessing instead of his curse if society were differently constituted”.
Related blog: The seven deadly, and very human, sins
Sources: Britannica, Wikipedia, PandoraFms, TheConversation, Financial Times.
Vocabulary
Match these 24 words or phrases (from the text above) with their definition.
- Weave
- Displace
- Put pressure on
- Raid
- Owner
- Round up
a. to force someone to leave their home (in this context)
b. a short sudden attack, usually by a small group of people
c. to make cloth by repeatedly crossing a single thread through two sets of long threads on a loom (= special frame)
d. to find and bring together a group of animals or people
e. the act of trying to make someone else do something by arguing, persuading, etc. (in this context)
f. someone who owns something (to have something that legally belongs to you)
Answer key:
1:c – 2:a – 3:e – 4:b – 5:f – 6:d
- Mill
- Figure out
- Fallacy
- Mass (adj)
- Phone mast
- Be better off
a. a tall structure with devices for sending and receiving mobile phone signals
b. having an effect on or involving a large number of people or forming a large amount
c. to have more money or to be in a better situation
d. to finally understand something or someone, or find the solution to a problem after a lot of thought
e. a building where grain is crushed into flour
f. an idea that a lot of people think is true but is in fact false
Answer key:
7:e – 8:d – 9:f – 10:b – 11:a – 12:c
- Assume
- Warehouse
- Gig economy
- Backlash
- seeds (of)
- Advocate
a. the cause of a feeling or situation, or the early stages of it
b. a large building for storing things before they are sold, used, or sent out to shops
c. a strong feeling among a group of people in reaction to a change or recent events in society or politics
d. to accept something to be true without question or proof
e. to publicly support or suggest an idea, development, or way of doing something
f. a way of working that is based on people having temporary jobs or doing separate pieces of work, each paid separately, rather than working for an employer
Answer key:
13:d – 14:b – 15:f – 16:c – 17:a – 18:e
- Long for
- Interdependent
- Greedy
- Reclaim
- Blessing
- Curse
a. something that is extremely lucky or makes you happy (in this context)
b. to take back something that was yours
c. depending on each other
d. a cause of trouble and unhappiness (in this context)
e. wanting a lot more food, money, etc. than you need
f. to want something very much
Answer key:
19:f – 20:c – 21:e – 22:b – 23:a – 24:d
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