“You criticize technology, yet you use it! ” (cliché no. 1)

Even if the intellectual level of this worn-out pundit smacks of nothing, the arguments he calls for in return do not have the same flavor. Therefore, it is important to answer it once and for all.

I — What does this state of affairs reveal in those who actually use technology by criticizing it?

Among activists of all stripes, the temptation to purity is often felt. Admitting the defilement of which one knows one is guilty would therefore, for many of them, have the value of self-flagellation to atone for their crime of impurity. Getting out of this activist's desire for chastity is a first step to take when we are committed, like us, to fighting industrial society.

More than a mocking cliché, this non-argument actually tests the anti-tech activist's ability to get by without the technological paraphernalia he is equipped with. When technological dependence is such that deprivation is equivalent to suicide^[1], we know In fine that the commitment is just a facade — something that this cliché is precisely putting your finger on.

The activist, if he wants to convince, must above all be exemplary. Any reasoned argument that is not supported by actions can backfire. It is therefore important to accompany your commitment with a concrete change in the way you live. The anti-tech activist must refuse the lie he is being told, but also reject the lies he is telling himself. Certainly, the efforts to produce are numerous, but the fruits obtained from them taste better than all the most delicate dishes that servitude can offer. Indeed, even the poorest urban activist can learn to cultivate a piece of land by rubbing shoulders with a friendly of gardeners, to fight his dependence on screens and to his comfort by putting on a pair of hiking boots to follow the itinerary of a GR, to find people with whom to work his sore muscles by relaxing under technological infusion; in short: to anchor his existence in this fertile breeding ground that is called Real life.

Clearly, these efforts will end up being thwarted. Since industrial society was not built on the individual and collective aspiration to autonomy, it must nip in the bud all the successful manifestations of life outside the framework it has determined. Acting like an organism, it must eliminate or assimilate what is harmful to it. Thus, a lifestyle that wants to alternate but anyone who does not direct their efforts towards the elimination of industrial society would condemn themselves to be neutralized, or even to provide the system with one more argument against those who would point out the impossibility of living differently as long as this system survives. “If you don't like this world, you still have Ardèche or ZAD! ”, your enemies will retort with a wry smile.

However, if there is a Real life to find again, it is good that the one proposed to us is Artificial. And it is precisely because we do not confuse the use of a technology and the validation of the paradigm surrounding its production that we allow ourselves to criticize it, and even participate in its disappearance. But the treatment of this point will be done in the next section.

II — What does this cliché reveal about the person who formulates it?

The primary effect of this cliché is to condemn any action on the sole ground that it is underpinned by a contradiction. But yes Polemos (war, conflict) is the father of all things, to quote Heraclitus, so let us recognize contradiction as its decisive role as a driver of action. It is precisely because this interlocutor underestimates the power of the contradiction that he believes himself to be relevant, that he winks at his own remark. This rejection of contradiction and this propensity for neutral positions are precisely what does not trigger the movement necessary to transform a frustrated human being into a committed activist. At the source of all commitment is this contradiction between individual aspirations and the social model that is offered to us. A flint and a stone collide, and this is how the activist's spark is born.

Second, this cliché reveals the absence of awareness mentioned above between the existence of a technology and the paradigm that presides over its development. It is because the redevelopment of cities was designed to promote the circulation of vehicles that everyone is forced to buy one; it is because commerce, care, education, sociability have all been robbed by computers that the Internet and the telephone have become fundamentals from which to extricate oneself condemns to a suffered marginality. In addition, this cliché reveals a certain disregard for the effectiveness of the means at our disposal. Even if it may be disappointing, technology will have to be used, among other things, to defeat it. The romance of an anti-tech revolution that would be the work of neo-savages cannot last long in the face of attacks by drones or terrestrial robots equipped with tear gas sprays, electric impulse guns, launchers, defense bullets or Glock 9MM pistols.^[2]. Technological monitoring and a genuine safety culture are necessary elements, but not the only ones, of a genuine anti-tech fight.

III — In short, the anti-tech fight against abstraction.

It would have been a good idea to start by clarifying the realities of the word “technology.” However, this definition was a perfect fit for a conclusion. To do this, let's cite the 208^th paragraph of Theodore J. Kaczynski's manifesto, Industrial society and its future :

“208. We distinguish between two types of technology: small-scale technology And the technology dependent on an organization. The first is implemented by small communities, without outside help. The second is based on large-scale social organization. When it comes to small-scale technology, we are not aware of any significant examples of regression. But technology of the second type is regressing actually if the social organization on which it depends collapses. For example: during the fall of the Roman Empire, small-scale technology survived, because any skilled craftsman could still make a watermill, just as a blacksmith could still work steel using Roman methods, etc. Conversely, technology dependent on the Roman organization, Regressa. Its aqueducts fell into disrepair and were never repaired. Its road construction techniques were lost. Its sewage system was forgotten so that, until quite recently, that of European cities hardly surpassed that of ancient Rome.^[3].”

We other anti-tech activists are not fighting against abstraction but against what is opposed to all our desires for autonomy and freedom. We are not enemies of a concept but of a tangible reality, which destroys nature and its inhabitants just as much as the concrete possibilities for change; it is through and to the life we are fighting for.