The New Luddities

[catharticprocess]

Aye, thanks for the mention, Andrew.

For stuff particularly related to the Luddites, and applications to current times, check out "Rebels Against the Future: the Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolutions, Lessons for the Computer Age" by Kirkpatrick Sale.  It's a brilliant history of ideas and action with particular attention to how and what we can learn from them.

My continued attraction to industrial culture goes back to SPK and their manifestos, Maurizio Bianchi and the work of bands like A.B.G.S.   Reading "Wreckers of Civilization," it's clear why Genesis hated SPK and MB - they reflect a completely alternate view of industrial civilization.  To SPK and MB, industrial civilization is a regression of the species, the death of the species.  Genesis and Throbbing Gristle relish in the myth of progress, and further are happy to continue gnawing on the fruit of the tree of knowledge, to transcend the human and become gods as part of an inverted gnosticism or Luciferian transhumanism.  Genesis' emergence as the industrial Frankenstein meets Crowley (a mockery of chaos magick, and adherent to the initiatory systems) typifies the alternate image the SPK was putting forward.  Besides, SPK made better music, anyway.

I could, as Andrew said, provide a lengthy reading list on technology.  I'm a big fan of John Zerzan's work, but there's a lot more out there.  "The Culture of Technology" by Pacey is amazing, as is "Technology, Time and the Conversations of Modernity" by Lorenzo C Simpson.  If you can find "Questioning Technology: A Critical Anthology" edited by John Zerzan and Alice Carnes, grab it.  Some of the best material on technology by dozens of great authors from Stanley Diamond to Jean Beaudrillard and Jacques Ellul to Lewis Mumford.  "Against Civilization," mentioned above, is also a terrific anthology and highly recommended.  "Technopoly" by Neil Postman is good, also.  If you want more, I could name a bunch of other, perhaps relating more to environmental issues, or to the negative effects of cities on communities, or the process of "development" of non-modernized communities, for instance.  There's a lot of proto-fascist stuff out there by J Evola, Pentti Linkola and the like, but it comes across as ridiculously confused - abhorring the technics of machines but not of advanced forms of governments to manage bloated populations communed around cities.  If you want something without nearly as much postmodernist or leftist language (though the above mentioned works are more post-left), I would suggest checking out Ivan Illich.  He's a lot more of a "traditionalist," and a terrific writer.  Edward Goldsmith truly reclaims the term "conservative" in his vision of limited technology, ecological thinking, connection to the land, localism and value of family and community.  His work is unbelievable, and much is available online at http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/.  His last great work, "The Way," might be my manifesto.  The more conservative among you on the forum would enjoy his work the most, I would think.  (Me being an anti-globalist, politics are largely irrelevant to me, as I think they are developed organically in a community, based on human ecology and environment; politics are only relevant with imposed economic structures that unnecessarily link communities to build empires and accumulate resources and slaves.)

Happy to see this thread on here.  The vision of industrialism as death, is what makes industrial (music) culture interesting to me.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

The situation is also relative.... the type of equipment/processes that get fetishized today were obviously once "new technology", so you have to question whether someone with an anti-techno perspective would go back in time and start criticizing the very things they idealize today.

It is true, but when you look things like "old school punk", "old school metal". They were revolutionary and fresh new things when they first appreared. But that's not really their only quality. Creation of timeless classic, which survives the test of time, and is as valid now, as it was then. Same with industrial noise for example. Or electro acoustic/experimental music.

Some of the material surely aged badly. When they utilized the modern gadgets without much artistic insight. You listen some late 80's industrial, and it often wasn't as innovative when surviving with mere vision & insight..  When they had access for more, it often came less.
Some cool tools as chaospads and poorly used ebows, I think might someday remembered as very dull results when mere technology overrided talent & vision. Where only few masters managed to use them properly.

Knowing these things, I think "politic" and "aethetic choise" is pretty much the same thing. Lesson learned through experience and observation. But in end of line there isn't really obsessive festishistic collecting of vintage equipment. I have very little of gear, and perhaps should have even less. I'm often surpriced when I hear about sheer volume of vintage pedals and synths people have. Perhaps availability & prices are different elsewhere.

[LIFE]

Knowing these things, I think "politic" and "aethetic choise" is pretty much the same thing. Lesson learned through experience and observation. But in end of line there isn't really obsessive festishistic collecting of vintage equipment. I have very little of gear, and perhaps should have even less. I'm often surpriced when I hear about sheer volume of vintage pedals and synths people have. Perhaps availability & prices are different elsewhere.

The way I see it, no way.... obviously making an aesthetic choice to do something is going to have certain political undertones at the heart of it all (certain cases more than others), but it's not the same thing as making a political platform out of it. It's like Ted Kacynski---his lifestyle could have been seen in the same light as an "aesthetic choice", something personal, where he's only "living by example" if someone takes the time to notice. But he went beyond that and reached out to the world with extroverted "terror", which is much different than simply the lifestyle he lived. Maybe like Kacysnki, most artists/musicians can't separate their politics and aesthetics, but I don't think it's a rule.

I agree 100% "old school" things have a lot more to offer than just some yearning for old times, and I often prefer them. Where I'm coming from, I'm asking if people who set themselves up on an anti-technology bend are truly anti-technology, or if it's just angst aimed at modern technology (i.e. the world they know)?  I mean, is someone who criticizes metal today for not being Iron Maiden going to go back and criticize Maiden for not being Black Sabbath? Someone's probably done it. If someone is anti-technology, I suppose I expect them to go all the way back to the pillow and the wheel, not just the car and the laptop or whatever. Blame the source... but once you start doing that, the entire world starts looking like it needs to get bombed.

It's absurd in most cases to say "technology up to this point is acceptable, anything beyond is not", because technology exists in constant motion---we relate technology to the products of technology, but it's a neverending chain of impulses/events. Someone can make any kind of fascist demands they want, but it doesn't stop the basic impulse. I'd just have a big problem going up to a seagull who learned that the easy way to smash open a clam is to drop it on a hard surface (or nowadays, they drop them on sidewalks, ha), and telling them, "you can't go any farther than this technique!"

Maybe an exception is technology that is grossly damaging to the environment. A lot of seemingly harmless products indirectly fuck the environment, too, of course, but I'm getting away from the point... looking at all of this from the perspective of art/music, my ultimate thought is.... innovate the old with the help of the new. I record almost everything analog at this point, and often use a simple wav editor to move the results beyond my normal capacity. Sometimes the post- editing is minimal to non-existent, other times it has a bigger role. In either case the heart of the material is organic. Even if I didn't use the modern (how modern is a wav editor, truly? haha) technology as a helper, I'd still feel like an asshole calling myself a neo-Luddite or anything like that. Maybe an amoeba has the right to be a true Luddite, but if any amoeba goes around calling himself a "Luddite", he IS the biggest asshole of all time.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

For me I can say I'm against laziness and it seems like certain technology at hand like downloads, mp3's and laptops have made people even lazier than before and, come to think of it, less free. It's not the technology I oppose but the way the vast majority choose to utilise it thus becoming even more dependent, lethargic and ignorant.

I wouldn't be so pompous as to describe or even label my tapes and vinyl as neo luddisim but by forcing lard ass out of the couch to change the record or turn the tape instead of scratching his belly while clicking the mouse for the next mp3 I feel I, even if in the most miniscule way, have at least attempted to counteract the above.

[Zeno Marx]

RE:  Life

I'm going to assume most "formal" luddites, when pressed, would draw the line at the Industrial Revolution as the turning point, at which they would see no philosophical or pragmatic reason to continue down a proposed slippery slope that ultimately ends at sticks and stones; the point at which there was a disconnect between production and existence (farming, hand-craftsmanship, bartering for necessity and sustenance, etc).  I would also assume that would be a logical conclusion, or at least a remote tugging of their consciousness, for most people who experienced a lesser urban environment.

[LIFE]

Zeno, that makes sense, but you have to consider the human impulse to keep innovating, changes in population and environment, etc. which together make "drawing lines" almost impossible. I think "formal" or "old school" Luddites are a bit more sympathetic than some "neo-Luddites" in the same way that it's easier to accept Nazis as a product of circumstance, whereas neo-Nazis are masturbators. And I actually feel the same way about this neo-"Ludditism" in art as I do neo-Nazism in art. I can enjoy it, even respect certain aspects of their views---but seeing it as legitimate practice? No....

[Bloated Slutbag]

Passive aggressive ludditism brought on more by frustration than by design has been a great inspiration for me. Nothing more arousing than bearing witness to suffering enhanced by that which is supposed to make living "easier".

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Zeno, that makes sense, but you have to consider the human impulse to keep innovating, changes in population and environment, etc. which together make "drawing lines" almost impossible. I think "formal" or "old school" Luddites are a bit more sympathetic than some "neo-Luddites" in the same way that it's easier to accept Nazis as a product of circumstance, whereas neo-Nazis are masturbators. And I actually feel the same way about this neo-"Ludditism" in art as I do neo-Nazism in art. I can enjoy it, even respect certain aspects of their views---but seeing it as legitimate practice? No....

Would this mean than anything else than following the mainstream route or isolation to indefference would be foolish? Are changes in population and environment something one has no control of, and what is "past", is really the past, somewhere in linear development? I don't think so. I strongly believe in ability of sculpturing world to what you require it to be, and to promote not only right aesthetic, but also right ideals. Of course one can't return to 40's national socialism, since it isn't 40's. Or one can't really return to 1800's Luddity ideals, but just like some thought liberal capitalism & globalisation had "won", and there is no argument against it, when the first crisis actually hit close to home base, a lot of people suddenly start to see that this might not be the only good way. Or the most strangest aim of increasing profit & increasing welfare. The whole ideal of growth, in situation where most people advocating it are dying in abudance and freedom. Ideals of luddities or the nazis might be handy in new rising decade, even if they won't manifest them in original form so many years later.