Luddite

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Luddite

A term for workers in the early 19th century in Britain who opposed the Industrial Revolution because increased mechanization was changing the economy and leaving them without jobs. The term has come to mean any person who opposes technological changes, especially those that impact the economy.

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But CBI North director Steve Rankin said: "This almost smacks of the Luddism of the 19th Century.

Wealth plan `could ruin our treasures'

Shutting down P2Ps amounts to Luddism, (185) and allowing them to go unchecked is anarchic.

Harmonizing fair use and self-help copyright protection of digital music

Even if their own experiences with technology in the classroom have been frustrating, disappointing, or disastrous, teachers tend to employ a Pogo-esque analysis: Their own inadequacy, lack of proficiency, or even incipient Luddism is the problem (Goodson & Mangan, 1996).

Toward a theory of negativity teacher education and information and communications technology

And I know science fiction." In searching for past or existing examples of the ethic he wishes to promote, McKibben unfortunately invites further accusations of Luddism. Fifteenth-century Chinese rejection of large sailing ships, sixteenth-century Japanese rejection of guns in favor of samurai swords and the contemporary Amish rejection of phones in their homes are instances he offers.

Germline warfare

The latest work on Luddism, as both broadly and narrowly defined, reveals a similarly complex story.

Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England, 1780-1840

Luddism gradually spread to Nottingham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire.

Archive: On This Day

Asserting that the author refuses to "'plot' history" (106) in the classic realist manner, she is forced to try to find a rather tortured coherence for it in the representation of female domestic servants' "hidden work" and Luddism's "invisible power" (109)--while yet admitting the novel's middle-class bias and glossing over its patronizing treatment of those servants.

Johnson, Patricia E. 2001. Hidden Hands: Working-Class Women and Victorian Social-Problem Fiction

Although Luddism in its early days was about jobs, today it is largely about other things.

Listening to the Luddites: "the overwhelming impact of technology on our lives--and the certainty of its increase--require that we have a systemic approach to technology assessment." (American Thought)

It is easy to dismiss the "re-localization" movement, as it sometimes calls itself, as one part Luddism, one part economic isolationism, with a dash of survivalism thrown in for good measure.

Time to take the road less traveled? Global business becomes more complicated for Oregon companies as the movement to "go local" gets a boost

The low esteem in which many of my colleagues hold electronic publication derives in part from these failed ventures, not just the Luddism usually blamed.

Surf City: A Guide to the Web for Urban Historians

Yet while it has not yet attracted the attention of the media (inured to good news and preferring to celebrate globalization uncritically and treat resistance to it as Luddism or worse), the new millennium has in fact brought new efforts at overcoming the global imbalance.

Globalizing Democracy

My Luddism takes numerous forms, all of them harmless enough, some of them a source of merriment to my friends: I am hopelessly unadventurous with my computer, for example, and, though I do not use it, I am reluctant to throw away my electronic typewriter--just in case of, well, I don't know, in case of some huge, unimaginable, armageddonesque cyber-melt-down of some sort.