Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer (Penguin Modern)

by Wendell Berry

[Kevin Costain]

Written in the late 1980s, I was very excited to read an old, crotchety Luddite perspective from a man who held fast against the onslaught of the coming revolution. We know what happened with computers, Berry does not. All at once that seems amusing and a bit like cheating. Also, born August 5, 1934, Berry is still with us. I don wonder if he still puts pencil to paper, even at 85.

Some of Berry’s arguments may have been persuasive, but today hold little power. I love this line: “I would hate to think that my work as a writer could not be done without a direct dependence on strip-mined coal.” Berry’s strong disdain for energy companies seem to paint his view of anything technology related.

It doesn’t stop at the earth-destroying use of energy though. Berry offers the idea that computers take hi away from the fundamental connection between his body and the work: “I do say that in using computers writers are flirting with a radical separation of mind and body, the elimination of the work of the body from the work of the mind” - really not a bad argument and one wonders what our world might look like if rejected the march of technology for these ideals.

Also, he uses the word palimpsest twice. Twice. That’s a weathered manuscript or parchment just so you know.