The Luddite With His Cellphone

The dictionary defines a Luddite as “a member of any of the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton and woolen mills, that they believed was threatening their jobs (1811–1816).”

Luddites, then, are those individuals who fear changes wrought by new workplace and other technology, who consider their jobs and self-worth to be in jeopardy unless and until those changes are obliterated one way or another. The Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century had so frightened workers that normally law-abiding English millworkers violently protested against trends that they believed could seriously diminish or eliminate their families’ ability to survive financially.

Why use a machine to create product when a man could do it instead? the thinking went. Why permit a faster and superior man-made technology to assume one’s working chores?

Ultimately, Luddites found themselves being shot by mill owners, and eventually the Luddite movement was pretty well eliminated by the military. The resources of the reluctant workers were limited and they were ultimately overpowered by the armed forces of the Crown.

Today there are millions of American Luddites of varying degrees trying to come to grips with the fast pace of the technology of the last twenty or thirty years.

That is, we all know people who refuse to purchase or use cellphones, who will not learn to text, and who avoid computers altogether, disdaining the use of nearly universal email communication. Some of these people make do with alternate, simplified electronic communication such as faxes. Some still use typewriters. A few still rely on carbon paper copies rather than modern copiers. And a very few (very stubborn) individuals write virtually all communications by longhand.

My own daughter avoids writing anything, even a thank-you note, by cursive script, claiming that she was never taught to do this as a schoolchild (I beg to differ). But she is in fact very well-versed in electronic communications of all kinds, far better than I am.

Let’s face it: this is in considerable part a generational thing. Although some of the tech wizards today are near my senior citizen age, we are all familiar with the practically inborn ability of young people to pick up all manner of electronic communication seemingly without effort. No one under the age of 40 or 50 is unable to use electronic communications easily and routinely. It’s all they have ever known. (By contrast, I couldn’t give away an expensive electronic typewriter, a relic of the late 20th century; there simply were no takers.)

To be fair, some people—even after decades of communicating via an originally taught method—still manage to keep up, after a fashion, with the electronic age.

For example, my mother insisted that I set her up with a Mailstation email machine that permitted her to communicate electronically with her friends and family but did not otherwise connect to the Internet. I paid a monthly $10 EarthLink connectivity fee through her telephone line for the last ten years of her life. My offer to buy her an Apple laptop and teach her how to use it fell on deaf ears. Mom happily used the stripped-down Mailstation to keep in touch until her death in 2011 at the age of 92.

She wasn’t afraid of using a keyboard or learning the rudiments of electronic communication, but she rejected all the bells and whistles of a computer, any authentic computer.

The timing was perfect since Mailstation upgrades, parts, and new instruments were discontinued in 2012.

President Donald Trump, however, who has authority over the electronic communications of his administration and indeed, the nation (including military and other national security matters), has been openly scorning electronic messaging through a traditional computer, notebook, iPad, or other similar device. Instead, he has been using first an Android and then an iPhone to tap out Twitter messages to the Faithful among his supporters.

That is, the Luddite who is our nation’s chief executive and is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution if it is under attack (which it is by Russian and other foreign agents using a variety of electronic means) does not communicate messages in private by the use of email in spite of the efforts of various staff members to do this on his behalf.

As far as can be determined, the concepts of WordPerfect and Word (even OpenOffice, Google Docs, and the like) are foreign to The Donald, and his staff provides him with printed photocopies of electronic news items with important matters circled with sharpies.

This is technology that was developed at least half a century ago.

Moreover, and this is especially frightening, the Commander in Chief uses his cellphone on an unsecured line to discuss national security concerns with a variety of individuals, American and foreign, some few diplomatically cleared but most entirely uncleared, even through the office of his Chief of Staff John Kelly or the White House Communications Agency. 

These calls often occur in the White House personal quarters occupied by Trump and may be made during the late afternoon into the evening, the wee hours, and the early morning hours of the next day. It is the whim of Trump that dictates when and to whom and for how long such calls are made, not the security concerns of the nation.

Trump even makes many of these unsecured calls in his White House offices in the middle of the day, undeterred by the absence of any of his staff or the lack of knowledge of any of his technology employees. He appears to have no concerns about just who, located somewhere else in the world, and working for any number of hostile powers, is listening to, recording, and acting upon the information revealed in such calls. And a good number of these calls are being made to heads of state all over the globe, as well as to uncleared presidential cronies.

Moreover, the current occupant of the White House believes that couriers (real people with diplomatic pouches containing actual paper documents) safeguard communications better than encrypted electronic communications.

HE HAS NO IDEA. He doesn’t understand computers. And as one commentator remarked,

“[H]e seems to have disdain for anyone smarter or seemingly smarter than him, so he likely does not have many people near him who actually understand computers.

“I have worked under many managers like him. He knows the answers and will tolerate some discussion, but ultimately he will do what he does. Those kinds of managers are nearly impossible to teach new things to since at some point they will have to admit that their old way was wrong and they are very reluctant to admit they were wrong.”

Hence, the security of the United States in a world where France, the UK, NATO, Pakistan, India, North Korea, China, the Russian Federation, and potentially Iran all arguably have access to useable nuclear weapons is precariously violated by the U.S. president whose Luddite proclivities prevent him from learning how to use (secured) electronic communication or requiring that anyone communicating on his behalf do the same.

“Mommy, I’d rather do it myself.

“On my own time.

“In my own way.

“Without any help from anyone else.

“So take your electronic toys and clear out.

“Just leave me alone with my phone.

“Which I have learned to regard as my Best Friend.

“Donald Trump XXXXX”