People opposed to technology are often called Luddites (usually written with a capital L), a reference to a late 18th-/early 19th-century band of workers who destroyed manufacturing machinery in the north and midlands of England, afraid that the machines would replace workers. A piece on the BBC's website looks at the original Luddites and considers whether the term is used correctly these days.
The Luddites were so called possibly after one Ned Lud, who lived in a Leicestershire village in about 1779. In a fit of rage he rushed into a ‘stockinger's’ house, and destroyed two frames so completely that the saying ‘Lud must have been here’ came to be used throughout the hosiery districts when a stocking-frame had undergone extraordinary damage (this story is taken from the OED). Rioting and destruction spread to the cotton and woollen mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The state put down the revolts brutally and a number of rioters and wreckers were hanged, while others were sent to Australia.
The 19th-century Luddites were afraid that technology would cut workers' wages, they were not opposed to technology per se, but since the 1970s the word Luddite has been used to refer to anyone who either can't use technology or doesn't want to.
Some historians bridle at the 'wrong' use of the term Luddite, but we use a lot of historical terms in English that are far removed from their original meaning: cavalier, puritan, bolshie, nazi, philistine, for example.
Here's the BBC piece.
Comments