RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

Man alone has freedom to transcend his condition, in limited ways physically but on principle in unlimited ways spiritually, to include the functions of culture, religion and morality.

The ability to transcend any cultural situation, by creating new ones, is man’s nature.

Nature means that which grows on its own.

Luddites revolt against this ability, and wrongly since it is natural to man, of himself and in fact evidence of his freedom, alone among creatures such as we know them, to transcend any given.

However, part of at least the original Luddite argument was that man tends to take the works of his hands for symbols of himself or God, which is really the same thing — classically called idolatry — and this taking, which is all but impossible to avoid, depersonalizes and dehumanizes actual men and women where they live and is therefore wrong and must be condemned.

Luddites were right about that. Machines concretize aspects of the structure of reason — Logos — which is the structure of man and of nature, and indeed of being itself, but to take machines as symbolizing man or nature in whole produces evil.

Marx, Freud and the existentialist movement argued thusly — though usually in partial terms and to evil ends other than those they condemned.

The Luddites’ denial of man’s self-transcending activity should be deplored but their insight that mechanization is an occasion for self-destructive idolatry should be applauded.

The truth is the whole.

OM NAMA SHIVAYA