#modernity

“But while the Luddites lost their war, their case was always correct. That war was not fought against technology per se—what Lewis Mumford called ‘technics’. Most Luddites operated weaving looms themselves, and were quite comfortable with machinery. What mattered was who controlled it. They were fighting what they called ‘the factory system’—the destruction of lived freedom, and the regimentation of both body and soul. Like the Fen Tigers and the many unnamed people who have stood up against the onward march of dehumanising ‘progress’, General Ludd and his legions were fighting the monster from the desert, and their struggle was existential. If they could see us today, transfixed by our glowing screens, deskilled and dependent on oligarchs for permission to earn, eat and speak, with the factory system gone global and the Earth heating up from its exhaust, they might be permitted a grim smile.”

"The “greater holy war” is a man’s struggle against the enemies he carries within. More exactly, it is the struggle of man’s higher principle against everything that is merely human in him, against his inferior nature and against chaotic impulses and all sorts of material attachments. [….] : “Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul.”"