Ludd"), Some three decades earlier, in 1779, one Edward ("Ned") Lud[dj is said to have broken into a house in the vicinity of Leicestershire and "in a fit of insane rage" destroyed two machines used for knitting hosiery! Soon, whenever a stocking-frame was found sabotaged-something that had in fact been occurring in Britain since the Restoration in the late seventeenth century(l)-folks would respond with the catchphrase, "Ludd must have been here." By the time his name was taken up by the frame-breakers of 1811, the "historical" Ned Ludd had become "Kiilg Ludd," DROGE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQ now a more-than-human. nocturnal presence, roaming the hosiery districts of England. In 1812, a band of Luddites was shot down on the orders of a threatened employerwho was afterwards murdered in reprisal The government of Robert Banks Jenkinson, second earl of Liverpool, enacted severe repressive measures wantto begin with two quotations, which, although culminating in a trial at York in 1813, which resulted in sevthey couldn't. differ mo~e in tone, I take to be saying enteen executions. Similar rioting broke out again in 1816, the same thing. The first comes from Christopher caused by the depression that followed the Napoleonic Hitchens's recent best seller,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA God Is Not Great: wars, but the movement was soon brought to an end by more zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA proscriptions and a reviving economy. Yet again it is demonstrated that monotheistic religion is a There is much more to the "historical" Luddites than the plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay of an popular use of this term would suggest. Luddites have been illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to ~ fabriappropriated positively both by Marxist historians as piocation of a few nonevents. (ffitchens 2007:280] neers of working-class self-awareness and by latter-day technophobes as early rebels a~ainst a dehumanizing The second is the well-known obiter dictum of Jonathan Z. 'machine civilization, as well as polemically (and more familSmith: iarly) by capitalists to refer to any movement motivated by To start a religion, all you need is a name and a place.' irrational fear and hatred of scientific and technological progress.' In a recent study of the Luddites, Kevin Binfield To think through the implications of these two pronounceseeks to rescue them from such "totalizing" interpretations ments is to realize at least four things: first, that religions and tries "to let them speak for themselves" (Binfield 2004: are not "founded" because there are no "founders" in the 7). Binfield has unearthed a wealth of original documents first place; second, that there is no originating moment of from the period of 1811 to 1817, including both articulate insight, or "big bang," that sets any religion in motion and public appeals for higher wages and semi-literate death drives it into the future; third, that when it comes to the threats against employers who paid no heed to such apstudy of the religious imaginary, invention is everything; peals, as well as songs and poems celebrating the exploits of and, finally, that The Jesus Project should be abandoned. the "perhaps apocryphal" Ned Ludd. Let me repeat that: Argumentum Per Analogiam the perhaps apocryphal Ned Ludd. In his richly textured micro-history, Binfield explores the Take Ned Lud[d], for example. Luddism (so called) was a variations between different regions of England and differmovement of early nineteenth-century English textile workent sectors of the textile trade as workers sought to adapt ers who, when faced with the replacement of their own the figure of Ned Ludd to their small-scale struggles with the skilled labor by machines, turned to destroying textile local economic and political establishment. Binfield uncovmachinery to preserve their jobs and their craft. The moveers a number of sometimes conflicting tendencies, including ment began with attack on wide-knitting frames in a appeals to centuries-old traditions, customs, and statutes shop in the vicinity of Nottingham in 1811 and in the next regulating the textile industry, trade-unionist ambitions to two years spread to surrounding cities. The "Ludds" or gain a seat at the table with manufacturers, and Jacobin "Luddites," as they called themselves, were generally calls to overthrow king and aristocracy alike. Luddism turns masked, operated at night, and often enjoyed local support. out not to have been monolithic but a series of overlapping They swore allegiance not to any British king but to their protests with discrete sets of discourses generated under own "King Ludd" (also referred to as "Captain" or "General Jesus and Ned Lud[d]: W hat's in a Name? zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA A .J . I an unique local circumstances. In all three of the Luddite A.J. DROGE works at the University of Toronto-Scarborough. This article is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered at a meeting of The Jesus Project in December 2008. VOL 3. NO.1 regions-the Midlands, Yorkshire's West Riding, and the vicinity of Manchester-Binfield finds competing interests and aims, conflicts, and unresolved tensions. Luddism was not generated by the dramatic actions of anyone individual nor by the sudden emergence of class consciousness but rather by a single, forceful act of naming-the creation and · appropriation of the eponym, "Ned Lud[dj." Even so, the sig-zyxwvutsrqpon 23 nificance of this eponym varied in the different regions Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but these neo(Binfield 2004: 18). In other words, there was no single oriLuddites have nothing in common with their alleged forefagin, no "big bang" that set the Luddites in motion, and certhers other than the name. Instead, they are engaging anew tainly no linear history that followed. in the imaginative and dynamic processes of social formation and mythmaking, in the construction of genealogies There are lessons to be learned from Binfield's particularizing history. His "redescription of Luddite origins" (to and the invention of histories, as they re-confect and regive it a familiar inflection) is an important contribution to deploy the figure of Ned Ludd in their own image and in the debate about popular protests generally and ought to be their own struggles with what they see as the dehumanizing of interest to those working in the area of Nazarene "orieffects of rampant globalization, the dark forces of technolgins" in several respects. It offers, in particular, another ogy,and postmodernity. exemplum of "social formation" and "mythmaking" of conTo See Ourselves as Others See Us siderable comparative potential for an understanding of the Nazarene movements of the first two centuries, especially The guild of scripture professionals should not be too quick social insofar as these are sometimes glossed with terms likezyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA to smile in superiority at these latter-day Luddites, for their own reconstructions of Nazarene origins, and in particular critique and social protest but above all because of the overtheir ongoing obsession with the figure of the Nazarene himweening preoccupation with the "historical" Jesus. Unlike the study of Nazarene origins, however,Binfield's self, reveal that they are not innocent of these very same culanalysis of Luddism impresses precisely because it manages tural conditions or immune from the temptations of a similar (mis)appropriation. What WilliamArnal has recently said to resist the temptation of anachronism and of an all-tooeasy translation of the evidence in the service of a totalizin The Symbolic Jesus (2005) could not be more true: ing discourse, whether of the left (Marxist, "neo-Lnddire") "Whether it is the scholarly study of the historical Jesus or a or the right (capitalist).' In light of his identification ofzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB cinematic representation of the Christ ... , a statement about Jesus ... is always a statement about something else, controversial, rich with implications" (Arnal 2005: 7, my emphasis). The names "Ned Lud[d]" and "Jesus" have both been, and continue to be, good "to think with." But let us not "Luddism was not generated by the confuse that with a critical, disciplined study of religion. Could any of us-at least those of us who construct ourdram atic actions of anyone individual nor selves as historians-imagine participating in the "quest of by the sudden em ergence of class the historical Ned Ludd"? Or imagine writing books with titles like Meeting Ned Ludd Again for the First Time (d . Borg consciousness but rather by a single, 1995) and The Incredible Shrinking Ned Ludd (d. Price forceful act of nam ing-the creation 2003)? Or imagine ourselves pronouncing that "Ned Ludd and his first followers ... were hippies in a world of and appropriation of the eponym , Georgian yuppies" (d . Crossan 1994: 198)? Or finally, and 'Ned Ludldl/" more pertinently, contributing a paper to "The Ned Ludd Project"? The answer to all four questions should be a resounding "Nol" I am as frustrated, and perhaps also as amused, as some regional variations in Luddism, with their conflicting interof you to watch our colleagues play ventriloquism with.the historical Jesus. But to pursue The Jesus Project-even if the ests and tendencies, it seems preferable to speak of "polyresult of that enterprise should be to demonstrate that Jesus genesis" rather than a singular moment of "vision" or dranever existed-will have two unforseen and unfortunate conmatic stroke of "genius" on the part of a "charismatic sequences: in addition to maintaining the Protestant fetish founder." Binfield displays none of the obsession with, or for "origins," it will also only reinforce the cultural authorimystifying language about, the "probably apocryphal" Ned ty of "Jesus" or the "Jesus sign," and, by association, religion Ludd that too many experts-conservative and liberalitself. Again, our task as historians of religion should be to have for their "historical" Jesus. Put simply, there's really show how the ventriloquism-both ancient and modemnothing "shocking" about Ned Ludd, and there's nothing works and not try to out-puppeteer our colleagues or fore"special" about the Luddites other than their humanness, runners! The simple fact "that people who talk about Jesus particularity, and historical contingency. are not really talking about Jesus at all was a point made by Although the period of Luddism was brief and its range Albert Schweitzer almost a hundred years ago. It seems as geographically limited, it produced a significant body of valid an observation today as then" (Arnal2005: 75). writings-primarily ballads, chalkings, manifestoes, and anonymous letters. But it was more the exploits of the Swan Song "machine wreckers," rather than their own writings, that Esteemed colleagues, haven't we learned by now that the would contribute to the creation of the "Luddite myth" in a Nazarene simply can't be killed? That he always manages to number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels, right escape? And that, rather like Ned Lud[d] himself, he will down to the latter-day Luddites, who inhabit the Internet, always be out there somewhere, a m~e-than-human prescreatively (mis)appropriate the name, and see themselves ence roaming the countryside of the religious imaginary? So as taking up the cause in the late-twentieth and now early let us be content simply to pronounce that, like Ned Ludd, twenty-first centuries. C AESAR : A tour net for the C ritical study of R eligion 24 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA and H um an Values Amal, William E. The SymbolicJesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism Jesus [of Nazareth] was "probably apocryphal." Please, just and the Construction of Contemporary Identity. London: Equinox, let it go at that and let us turn our attention to matters 2005. much more interesting and important when it comes to the Binfield, Kevin. Writings of the Luddites. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins invention of Christianity (and the invention of Christian University Press, 2004. "origins"). Take Marcion, for example.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Boring, M. Eugene. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. New York: Notes HarperOne, 1995_ 1. I would emend Smith's dictum as follows: "To start a religion, Crossan, John Dominic.jesusr A Revolutionary Biography. San Franall you need is azyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA name.""* cisco: HarperCollins, 1994_ 2. References in Anonymous (1971) s.v. "Luddite." Droge, A.J. "Cynics or Luddites? Excavating Q Studies," Studies in 3. Marxist: Thompson (1964); technophobe: Sale (1995); capitalReligion/Science Religieuses 37 (2008): 249--69. ist: Landes (1999). See also the fascinating appropriation of the --_ "Did 'Luke' Write Anonymously? Lingering at the Luddites by Pynchon (1984)_ antiker und Threshold." Iti Die Apostelgesechichte/<Knntext 'WI 4. Having held down a number of really shitty jobs in his youth, edited by J. Frey, C.K. jrUhchristlicher Historiographie, Binfield initially thought that these experiences would afford him Rothschild, and J. Schroter, BerlinlNew York: Walter de Gruyter, a distinct advantage in understanding a labor movement undertak2009, pp. 495-518. en two centuries ago. But in the course of collecting and compiling Hitchens, Christopher, G od Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons the primary materials for his book, he discovered that each new . Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. piece of evidence revealed the distance between himself and the Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are Luddites (Binfield 2004: xix-xx), So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: W.W.Norton, 1998. 5. I owe this formulation to Craig Martin_ Price, Robert M. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man. Buffalo, N.Y.: 6_ Some of the issues raised in this article are pursued at greater Prometheus, 2003_ length in Droge (2008, 2009). Pynchon, Thomas R "Is It O.K. to be a Luddite?" The New York Times Book Review. October 28.1984: 1, 40-41. References Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution, Lessons for the Cbmputer Age. Anonymous. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary_ Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Th/l",PS6Y\. ~.f. 1h£. McJt.i~/IF \-N. f.l\!jl.\sh WNbi"'~ Clo.~s.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgf + .. Footnote to a footnote: * I swear this is how I remember the Smithism (at Chicago, c. early 1980s), but it appears as follows in Burton L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 133: 'All you need for a founder figure is a name and a place. Jonathan Z_ Smith Claremont, 1986.' VOL 3. NO.1 25