Live Simply So that Others May Simply Live
By Gerard Albans
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Editor's Note
The Journal editorial collective apologizes that due to a technical error, this article was not printed in full. Included here is the entire text of the article. Our apologies to the author.
This thought pattern seems so passé today, because of course it doesn’t fit into our new secular religion—faith in salvation through instant information everywhere. How quickly progressives forgot this idea, and rushed out to buy computers and get into the plastic playpen of the internet!
(I’m not talking about those who were truly forced to go online, for personal economic survival... it’s the volunteers for the playpen that mystify me.) Everyone who cares about the future continuity of anything positive in the world, should eschew and resist computer dependence.
I’m surprised that progressives, especially environmentalists don’t assess and analyze the technologies offered to them and use their powers of discrimination to see which are simply incompatible with the survival of the Earth, and then shun them. Why are progressives so dazzled by the glamour and personal gratification that they can’t transcend myopia and look beyond and see the big picture? It doesn’t matter so much what you believe, it matters what you do. A fascist who refrains from buying computers is less harmful than a politically correct environmentalist who buys and uses computers, playing happily in the electronic playpen, unable to see the bars, but enjoying the pathetic illusions of community in the ghostly cyberspace.
There are so many grounds for my position, let me mention only a few. People who buy computers are participating in the creation and maintenance of the planet as a toxic global concentration camp for these reasons: computers and semi-conductors are profoundly polluting to manufacture, use and dispose of. The price of purchase and monthly service fees go directly or indirectly toward...