The Machine Will Never Triumph: A Lawrencian Critique of Technology

The book you are about to read is not a standard, dry academic tome on D. H. Lawrence. It is not just a tract against technology, although it is that in part, but is meant to be a guide to living one’s life in the modern world, despite all its vicissitudes. The modern world is a hell, and this text will first take us through inferno so as to demolish the metaphysical essence of modernity. We will then proceed through the long purgatorio of change, and will finally, Gods willing, arrive in paradiso, a new world free from the chains of modern technology. There are many critics of the modern, technological world-view, and some of them will be introduced here, but this book is based on the writings and life of David Herbert Lawrence, who didn’t just write against technology, but lived in accordance with his principles. Lawrence demolished the ontological structures of the systems that chain us, but he also created a doctrine that is life-affirming and vivifying. Rather than tackling the problems of our age on their own terms—through analysis, statistics, and data—we aim for a qualitative criticism of technology that goes straight to the heart. Our aesthetic criticism of technology is timeless and we hope will appeal to all those life-loving people who can still marvel in wonder at birds, beasts and flowers. As such, this work is both poetic and religious.