LUDDITE CLUB

“The positive ideal that we propose is Nature. That is, WILD nature: those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control. And with wild nature we include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of the functioning of the human individual that are not subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will, or God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions).” — Theodore Kaczynski

“One of the most dangerous features of the technoindustrial system is precisely its power to make people comfortable (or at least reduce their discomfort to a relatively acceptable level) in circumstances under which they should not be comfortable, e.g., circumstances that are offensive to human dignity, or destructive of the life that evolved on Earth over hundreds of millions of years, or that may lead to disaster at some future time.... On the contrary, one of our most important worries should be that people may be made comfortable with almost anything, including conditions that we would consider horrifying.”  — Theodore Kaczynski

"I have found that some of the simplest things have given me the most pleasure. They didn't cost me a lot of money either. They just worked on my senses. Did you ever pick very large blueberries after a summer rain, walk through a grove of cottonwoods, open like a park, and see the blue sky beyond the shimmering gold of the leaves? Come in out of the subzero and shiver yourself warm in front of a wood fire? The world is full of such things." — Richard Proenneke

“The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict. The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempts to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so than the present one.” — Theodore Kaczynski

“If we accept the principle of social planning from the bottom upwards without regard for spiritual values we are left with a machine-made culture which differs from one country to another only in so far as the process of mechanization is more or less perfected. To most people this is rather an appalling prospect, for the ordinary man does not regard the rationalization of life as the only good. On the contrary, men are often more attracted by the variety of life than by its rationality. Even if it were possible to solve all the material problems of life: poverty, unemployment and war and to construct a uniform scientifically-organized world order, neither the strongest nor the highest elements in human nature would find satisfaction in it.” — Christopher Dawson

"Technology alienates those who depend on it and live by it. It deadens their human qualities and their moral perceptiveness. Gradually, everything becomes centered on the most efficient use of machines and techniques of production, and the style of life, the culture, the tempo and the manner of existence responds more and more to the needs of the technological process itself. Unfortunately it is too often assumed that the technological process is inevitably rational. This is not the case. It is sometimes highly irrational—to the point that what is good for the process may be very bad indeed for humans.” — Thomas Merton

“Perhaps the greatest threat to the efficiency of the megamachine came from within: from its rigidity and repression of individual ability, and from a sheer lack of rational purpose.” — Lewis Mumford

“It is extremely improbable that we have suddenly become better and smarter than our predecessors. In fact, what has happened is that we have lost the ability to understand functional social patterns other than markets and bureaucracies. The result is that the past appears irrational, our society is plagued by dysfunctions we cannot understand or deal with, and we treat our own blindness and stupidity as the triumph of virtue and enlightenment.” — James Kalb

“Man is a social animal, meant to live in groups. But only in SMALL groups, say up to 100 people, in which all members know one another intimately. Man is not meant to live as an insignificant atom in a vast organization, which is the only way he can live in any form of industrialized society.” — F.C

"Biologically speaking, man is a moderately gregarious, not a completely social animal – a creature more like a wolf, let us say, or an elephant, than like a bee or an ant. In their original form human societies bore no resemblance to the hive or the ant heap; they were merely packs." — Aldous Huxley

"Every living organism is fulfilled when it follows the right path for its own nature." — Marcus Aurelius