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Dear Automobile Purveyors,
How shall I thank thee, let me count the ways:
Should I thank you for plundering the accumulated knowledge of centuries of horsemanship and then claiming your contraptions represent "progress"?
For destroying the apprenticeship system?
For fouling the air and poisoning our streets with noxious fumes?
For wasting vast quantities of a blacksmith's time attempting to coax some useful understanding from your mechanically-inclined customers, time which could instead be spent training young farriers who, being possessed of actual craft, could learn proper technique and maintain what they shoe?
For eliminating stable hand positions, and thus the path to becoming a skilled horseman, ensuring future generations who cannot so much as bridle a mare? For giving me a sputtering machine to contend with when a gentleman needs transport instead of an actual horse who understands voice commands, responds faster, and has a chance of genuine loyalty?
For replacing the pleasant clip-clop of hooves with infernal mechanical racket? For providing the means to fill our roads with smoke-belching contraptions, making passage by honest horse nearly impossible?
For enticing businessmen with the promise to save some fraction on stable costs, not actually arrive any faster once you account for breakdowns, cutting off their future supply of trained coachmen while only experiencing a modest to severe reduction in reliability, dignity, and passenger comfort (tradeoffs they are apparently eager to make)?
For replacing the noble whinny with the honking of mechanical geese? For adding a "motor" to every blessed thing, most such additions requiring expensive petroleum and specialized repair?
For running the grandest and most damaging confidence scheme of this century? I think not.
This letter was a reminder that the motorcar is sure to flood the remainder of our thoroughfares with noise and danger, swamping our peaceful lanes, and making every journey suspect, forever.
When did we stop considering things failures that create more problems than they solve?
Respectfully disgusted,
A Farrier of Thirty Years
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Dear Purveyors of the Printing Press,
How shall I thank thee, let me count the ways:
Should I thank you for plundering the entire corpus of sacred and classical texts and then asserting the right to reproduce them without permission from those who painstakingly created and preserved them?
For destroying the monastery education system?
For felling entire forests and fouling rivers with your ink and paper mills?
For wasting vast quantities of a scholar's time attempting to correct the errors your hasty mechanical process introduces, time which could instead be spent training novice scribes who, being actually literate, could learn proper letterforms and understand what they copy?
For eliminating scriptoria positions, and thus the path to becoming a master illuminator, ensuring future generations who cannot so much as hold a quill properly?
For giving me a cold, identical page when a reader deserves a manuscript crafted by human hands that reflect devotion, beauty, and the chance of divine inspiration?
For replacing the contemplative silence of the scriptorium with the clanking of mechanical presses?
For providing the means to flood Christendom with pamphlets and broadsheets, making works of genuine scholarship nearly impossible to distinguish from common rubbish?
For enticing bishops with the promise to save some fraction on copying costs, not actually produce holier works, cutting off their future supply of trained monks while only experiencing a modest to severe reduction in accuracy, artistry, and spiritual merit (tradeoffs they are apparently eager to make)?
For replacing the living hand of the scribe with the stamping of metal letters?
For adding "printed" versions to every blessed text, most such editions lacking proper marginalia, illumination, or prayerful intention?
For running the grandest and most damaging deception of this century?
I think not.
This letter was a reminder that the printing press is sure to flood the remainder of human discourse with heresy and error, swamping the faithful, and making every text of uncertain provenance, forever.
When did we stop considering things failures that create more problems than they solve?
In devoted opposition,
Brother Aldric, Copyist of the Scriptorium