ANTI - TECHNOLOGY ATTITUDE 1870-1900
Yrd. Doç. Dr. Sema EGE
The adoration of Science and Technology-one of the most;
strik-ing features of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-was
fiercely contested by a number of writers and thinkers on both sides
of the Atlantic. Those writers who had adopted an anti-Science or
anti-Machinery bias can roughy be divided into two groups. On one
hand there were those writers-and they were mainly those who wrote
prior to the turn of the century-who simply argued t h a t the infiltration
of the Machinery into human life would destroy many of the things
which man so far valued. It naturally follows t h a t the literary output
of most of these writers lack any substantial philosophical basis, or
extensive study of the psychology of the individual in a highly
tech-nological or scientific society. Another group of authors, on the other
hand, fully realising the value and the importance of science and
tech-nology, were as much afraid of the kind of world its abuse and idoletry
would produce. The swift and unbridled march of Science and the
impending catashrophes of 1914 and 1939 urged a number of early
and mid-tentieth century writers to examine the impact of this new
phenomenon on the individual and how it would effect human
relati-onships in the form of anti-utopias. A brief analysis of the former
group, however, is the concern of this paper while the following paper
seeks to introduce a study of the later group.
One of the major writers of the nineteenth century who raised the
argument against the advent of technology was F. Dostoevski
(Dostoevsky). in works like Letters from the Underworld, The Demons
(or The Possessed) Dostoevski sought to investigate the stifling and
insidious implications inherent in a rationalised and industrialised
society in greater depth than some of his British and American
counterparts had done.
70 SEMA EGE
Samuel Butler, the nineteenth century English novelist, in his
satirical utopia Erewhon, (which significantly when read in reverse means
'Nowhere') championed the view that making excessive use of
mac-hinery would create new problems and lead to frustrations. Butler, also
attacked Darwin's law of natural selection -the theory which had
imp-ressed Wells immensely- instead arguing that variations were due
to striving of individuals and handed on through 'unconscious memory'.
In Britain, however, the most persistent opponent of too much
dependence on the new technology was William Morris, the socialist
thinker who held that there was a sensous pleasure in manual work.
It is not surprising that as a craftsman, an artist, and most importantly,
as the Poet Laureate, Morris should preach t h a t engagement in
hand-icrafts and other manual labour was an act of creativity, though this
did not mean that Morris was repulsed by labour saving devices. In
his address to the Birmingham Art Students in 1879 he asserted that
the chief duty of civilisation should be to render work happy for man
and to minimize unpleasent and unhappy labour for all. The condition
Morris abhorred was one which Butler had feared in Erewhon-allowing
machines to be our masters and not our servants. Too much
depen-dance on the new technology would dwarf man's mental, moral, and
physical strength and also his creative faculty which would eventually
deteriorate. As a lover of beauty and aesthetics Morris was convinced
t h a t mechanical devices would destroy the spirituality of life in
addi-tion to the despoilaaddi-tion of the environment, The modern technological
city with its soul-less mechanical contrivances and its factories was
a potential destroyer of the good in man, Unlike Bellamy, the
prog-ressive visionary in the United States of America, Morris was a
medieva-list believing in the simple rural life with its crafts and idyllic pleasures
which offered man the opportunity to cultivate and perfect his
phy-sical, mental, and spiritual proclivities.
Such convictions provoked in him the desire to challenge Bellamy's
highly industrialised rationalised socialistic state. The result was one
of the best return-to-nature utapias in which the march of mechani
sation was arrested. The background is the middle ages though the time
was projected forward to that almost coinciding with Bellamy's
ex-cessively technological Boston. Whereas the Bostonians in Bellamy's
Looking Backward live in densely populated towns of tall concrete
buildings, their contemporaries in rural London lead a care-free life,
collectively and individually in an untouched Nature. While the
Bosto-nians rush daily to join their industrial armies, the inhabitants of the land of pure commmunism are engaged in manual industries in an environment of simple and friendly craftmanship where everyone takes according to his needs and contributes according to his abilities. While Bellamy's Bostonians conceive no other pleasure than walking in weather protected streets and relaxing in man made parks, the Lon-doners of the year 2000 roam about on small stone bridges among rose bushes and in green meadows, they swim in clean blue rivers and travel by what Bellamy had called in 1879 'the vanishing kind of conveyance -the boat' 'They consider themselves as the most fortune people on earth for such a natural pattern of life has also enabled them to enjoy a harmonious relationship with their fellowmen. Their cultural tools are not'piped music' (that is, the radio) but human voice to the accompaniment of medieval instruments. In a word, it is an unpolluted, satisfying, and contented world where there are no industrial armies, no industrial saints or heroes, no ruling elite, no rewards for enterprise and no restrictions.
This pastoral and tranquil existence displayed in News from Nowhere was a hostile yet totally peaceful protest against Bellamy's monolithic, industrially integrated and highly efficient rational state. The underlying argument is that real communism exists only in free craftmanship and fraternity. Admittedly, such a dream could not solve the unpre-cedented problems of the nineteenth century industrialisation, but it did offer a splendid break from politics and economic theories that could have exhausted multitudes in the last decades of the nineteenth eentury. Undoubtedly it was on account of this that Morris's alter-native title for his book was An Epoch of Rest. The whole work is like one long pastoral poem, the kind of un-rhyming poetry which even Bellamy's industrial people would like to hear recited on their radios as a piece of classical literature.
Morris's world of rural felicities spurred to action even writers on the other side of the Atlantic, especially those who maintained that the excessive use of mechanical contrivances in all sections of life devas-tated the spirituality of life and the beauty of things. William Dean Howells, whose socio-economic fiction owed a lot to Bellamy expressed delight at the fact that Morris was persistently preaching that pastoral virtues produced a better civilisation than the artificialties of a tech-nological era. In fact, Howells's criticism of Looking Backward had revealed that he was not least attracted by the matcrial delights Bellamy
72 SEMA EGE
offered. B e l l a m y ' s assurances t h a t t h e m e t r a p o l i s o f t h e t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y w o u l d n o t be only a l a n d of i r o n a n d steel w h e r e i n t h e m e t a l l i c r a t t l e of t h e M a c h i n e fell u n p l e a s e n t l y on I r a m a n e a r s b u t a place w i t h g a r d e n s , d o m e s , a n d f o u n t a i n s h a d failed t o convince Howells. H a p p y childhood m e m o r i e s of t h e simple j o y s of his n a t i v e Ohio forests and fields
Howells t o r e n o u n c e B e l l a m y ' s a n d o t h e r -l i k e - m i n d e d A m e r i c a n w r i t e r s ' i n s i s t a n c e o n midd-lec-lass comforts a n d l u x u r i e s . i n his review o f B e l l a m y ' s u t o p i a h e disclosed t h a t ' h e should h a v e preferred t o h a v e t h e millennium m u c h simpler, m o r e i n d e p e n d e n t o f m o d e r n i n v e n t i o n s , m o d e r n conveniences, m o d e r n fascilities'. It seemed to him t h a t ' i n a n y ideal c o n d i t i o n . . . w e should get o n w i t h o u t m o s t o f t h e s e t h i n g s w h i c h are b u t s o r r y p a t c h e s o n t h e r a g s of our civilisation, or only t o y s to a m u s e our greed'.2 As he v a l u e d
p e r s o n a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d i n d i v i d u a l freedom t o a g r e a t e r e x t e n t t h a n B e l l a m y , he disfavoured m a c h i n e r y for he saw it as t h e g r e a t e s t t h r e a t t o p e r s o n a l c o n t a c t s a n d i n d i v i d u a l i s m . M e c h a n i s a t i o n , h e held, w o u l d u l t i m a t e l y replace m a n i n i n d u s t r y , t h e r e b y d i m i n i s h i n g his choice a n d e m p l o y m e n t p r o s p e c t s , In fact, he w a s c o n v i n c e d t h a t t h e m e c h a n i c a l m a r v e l s B e l l a m y a n d t h e l i k e m i n d e d t h i n k e r s p r o -m o t e d could a p p e a l t o n e i t h e r r u r a l n o r u r b a n dwellers, for t h e for-mer were u n f a m i l i a r w i t h t h e m while t h e l a t t e r were a l r e a d y t i r e d o f t h e m . So t h e blissful existenee he displayed in A Traveller From Altruria, t h o u g h founded o n m a n y o f t h e s o c i o - e c o n o m i c principles B e l l a m y c h a m p i o n e d , h a s done a w a y w i t h excessive r e g i m e n t a t i o n a n d i n d u s t -rialisation, instead favouring much simpler and pastoral joys.
Howells w a s expressing i n good l i t e r a r y s t y l e w h a t w a s i n t h e m i n d s or in t h e h e a r t s of some o t h e r c o n t e m p o r a r y t h i n k e r s or less significant w r i t e r s . E d w a r d E . H a l e , f o r i n s t a n c e , a l t h o u g h a f e r v e n t s u p p o r t e r of B e l l a m y ' s social a n d economic t h e o r i e s d i s a p p r o v e d of his o v e r d e p e n d e n c e o n technological resources. 'Mr B e l l a m y ' , h e c o m p -lained, ' h a s n o r i g h t , w h e n h e w a n t s t o get o u t o f a s c r a p e , t o i n v e n t a n i n v e n t i o n for t h a t p u r p o s e '3. S o m e ecclesiastical circles, t o o , r e s e n t e d
t h e glorification o f t h e M a c h i n e C u l t u r e . O n e c l e r g y m a n referring t o B e l l a m y ' s idea of delivering s e r m o n s in accoustically p r e p a r e d c h a m -bers like m u s i c a l p e r f o r m a n c e s said t h a t w e ' h a v e o u r m u s i c laid o n b y t e l e p h o n e a s w e l a y o n o u r g a s ; o f h e a r w h a t i n B e l l a m y ' s u t o p i a passes m a s t e r for p r e a c h i n g - w i t h o u t a n y of t h e i n s p i r a t i o n of c o m m o n w o r s h i p o r t h e s p e a k e r b e h i n d t h e v o i c e " .4 T h e m o r e c o n s e r v a t i v e fraction o f
t h e C h u r c h feared t h a t t h e i n f i l t r a t i o n o f religious life b y m a c h i n e r y w o u l d r e n d e r i t t o t a l l y u n s p i r i t u a l . A n o t h e r pious o p p o h e n t voiced such
criticism w h e n , r a t h e r i n a s a r c a s t i c m a n n e r , h e a s s e r t e d t h a t 'of t h e p u l p i t eloquence we h a v e a s p e c i m e n , a n d it is s t a r t l i n g l y like o u r s . O n e g r e a t i m p r o v e m e n t , h o w e v e r , there i s ; t h e p r e a c h i n g i s d o n e b y t e l e p h o n e a n d y o u c a n s h u t i t off. Y o u t u r n o n t h e celestical music as y o u t u r n on gas or w a t e r . T h e visions of a m a t e r i a l h e a v e n on e a r t h n a t u r a l l y arise as t h e h o p e of a s p i r i t u a l h e a v e n fades a w a y ' .5
O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , less o u t s t a n d i n g a u t h o r s , like A n n e B o w m a n D o d d dismissed o u t r i g h t a socialistic h e a v e n w h e r e love of m a c h i n e r y h a d r e p l a c e d t h e desire for i n d i v i d u a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s .
In s u m m a r y , t h e message in all t h e s e b o o k s , w h e t h e r e x p r e s s e d artistically o r n o t , i s c l e a r : H a p p i n e s s i s n o t a l w a y s c o m p a t i b l e w i t h t e c h n o l o g y a n d an overly technological society will d e s t r o y all t h a t is good i n u s a n d e x t e r n a l t o u s . I n fact, t h e k i n d o f t h e b a d u t o p i a t h e e a r l y a n d m i d - t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y a u t h o r s d e p i c t e d , are h i d d e n i n t h e t r a n q u i l a n d b e a u t i f i e d worlds Howells a n d Morris r e v e r e d . R e v e r s e t h e d r e a m - l i k e p i c t u r e in A Traveller From Altruria or News
From Nowhere y o u get t h e H e l l t h e collapse of t h e socialistic a n d t e c h
-nological u t o p i a - w r i t e r s of all n a t i o n a l i t i e s Îike F o r s t e r , Carel K a p e k , Z a m y a t i n , H u x l e y , o r Orwell c r e a t e d .
R e f e r e n c e
1 - E d w a r d Bellamy. ' O l d b u t W o r t h S a v i n g ' , Springfield Union ( A u g u s t 19, 1876).
2 - W . D . Howells, ' E d w a r d B e l l a m y ' , ed. b y E . H . C a d y , p . 2 5 1 . 3- E. E. Hale, ' F r a t e r n a l G o v e r m e n t ' , Book Buyer, 15, No .7 ( A u g u s t ,
1897), p . 8 9 .
4 - W i l l l i a m H i g g s , ' S o m e O b j e c t i o n s t o M r B e l l a m y ' s U t o p i a , Yale
Review, 240 ( M a r c h , 1980).
