GoKawiilThe woodworker had a way of running his fingers along the grain before making the first cut. A ritual -- the wood had something to say, and he was listening, and he loved it. Not the completed chair, really, or the money, not even the praise, but the work itself. The resistance of the material. The correction of mistakes. The slow, deliberate shaping of something real.
Then the new machines arrived. They were faster, precise, consistent; they could cut in minutes what took him hours. Designs could be generated, adjusted, and executed without a human ever touching the wood.
Nothing stopped him from continuing as before. No one forbade him or chained his hands.
And yet, we are told, something tragic occurred.
The market "pressured" him. Clients wanted faster delivery. Prices adjusted and expectations shifted. We are told that he reluctantly, even tragically, set aside the chisel and picked up the machine. And with that, we are asked to believe, he lost his love.
What kind of creature is this? What sort of being abandons the work he claims to love because a faster method exists? What sort of passion evaporates the moment efficiency enters the room? Is man's devotion so fragile that it cannot survive the existance of a tool?
Am I to believe that the human soul is so fragile that it must be protected from human-made tools in order to remain whole?
If that is true, then the Luddites was right; they are protectors of human condition. Smash the machines, for they threaten not your job, but your ability to care, love, and be human.
Absurdity. A tool cannot make you stop loving your craft. All this just reveals what you valued all along.
At this point, the modern explanation arrives, with all its intellectual seriousness: alienation.
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