Description
Anti-technology extremism – or Neo-Luddism – is on the rise. As the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolutions promise to transform society, different extremist ideological milieus – among them, Insurrectionary Anarchism, Eco-Radicalism, and Eco-Fascism – have progressively taken a more radical stance towards technologies. Despite different narratives and end goals, these milieus have found a common inspirational figure in Theodore J. ‘the Unabomber’ Kaczynski. Kaczynski’s intellectual and operational influence on the contemporary Anti-Technology Movement is, indeed, quite palpable. As Fleming has recently argued (2021), Kaczynski’s thought was, in turn, a synthesis of the works of Jacques Ellul, Desmond Morris, and Martin Seligman. Yet, while the intellectual origins of anti-technology extremism have been the subject of scholarly inquiry, the influence of popular culture has been largely neglected. As novels, series, movies, and other cultural artefacts depicting dystopian future technological societies have mushroomed in the last decades, uncovering the influence that popular culture exerts on the Anti-Technology Movement could offer a refreshing analytical perspective and contribute to our understanding of the origins and prospects of anti-technology extremism.
