 istorically,
Luddites flourished In Britain from about 1811 to 1816. They were bands
of men, organized, masked, anonymous, whose object was to destroy machinery
used mostly in the textile industry. They swore allegiance not to any British
king but to their own King Ludd. It Isn't clear whether they called themselves
Luddites, although they were so termed by both friends and enemies. C.P.
Snow's use of the word was clearly polemical, wishing to imply an irrational
fear and hatred of science and technology. Luddites had, in this view, come
to be imagined as the counter-revolutionaries of that "Industrial Revolution"
which their modern versions have "never tried, wanted, or been able to understand."
— Thomas Pynchon [The New York Times Book Review, October 28,
1984, pp. 1, 40-41.] |