The lessons of living like a prince outside cyberia

Discover the second article in the series written by autonomist and luddite author Mark Boyle for The Guardian between 2016 and 2019. In these texts, he shares his experience of living without modern technology. The first article in the series can be read here.

You can read the other texts by Mark Boyle here:

1. Technology destroys people and places. I’m rejecting it

2. Lessons of living like a prince outside cyberia

3. Bored? No way. Ditching technology makes life complicated and beautiful

4. Environmentalism used to be about defending the wild – not any more

5. Living without technology taught me about life in society;

6. You don’t need modern medicine to be healthy;

7. Living without technology is not romantic;

8. We must resist, revolt, and rewild ourselves;

9. Disconnecting from the industrial world helped me discover what reality really is.

__________

People defend that on which they depend. This has been the way since time immemorial. So while the “uncivilised savages” of indigenous and tribal lands defend mundane, unimportant things like the animal herds, rivers and forests that their lives depend on – often with their bodies – e-Homo sapiens defends a progressive way of life – with its factories, supermarkets, cheap flights and online shopping – forgetting what this Mumfordian megamachine depends on. It’s a tendency within us that’s as problematic as it is understandable. [...]

In giving up complex technology and moving towards preindustrial and primitive ways, I wanted to explore these issues without agenda or addiction. The lessons have come thick and fast.

Lesson 1

Things take longer. Much longer. [...] 

Lesson 2

Once you get rid of the aforementioned bills, effectively rejecting Benjamin Franklin’s tightfisted, minute-pinching idea that “Time is money”, you find yourself slowly having more time to do the things you love, free from modernity’s relentless financial demands. [...]

Lesson 3

Our industrial culture is more genocidal and ecocidal than Adolf Hitler or Tony Blair. Yes, even Tony ... Living without tech, you become more sensitive to its violent, unhealthy, toxic ways.  [...]

You become more acutely aware that industrial culture has replaced craft with efficiency, distinctiveness with standardisation, aspiration with ambition, rootedness with transience, contentment with progress, attentiveness with speed, and the natural rhythms of life with tight schedules. This manifests in the everyday – how we eat, build dwellings, even our erotic lives. Nothing is sacred in industrialism’s insatiable need for speed.

‍

To read the full version:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/life-without-technology/2017/feb/06/all