On January 13, Iowa City resident Nicholas Lecnar was washing his clothes at Laundromania on Bloomington Street when he picked up a shovel and bashed the washing machine multiple times, resulting in an estimated $1,700 in damage. And let’s be honest. We’ve all been there. When you’re trying to call “911” and your cell phone freezes; when you’re late for work and your car’s engine light comes on; when your Thanksgiving guests are all seated and you discover the turkey is still frozen because the digital thermometer said it was baking at 400 degrees but it was really 100 degrees—you tend to take it personally.
Mr. Lecnar did not happen to mention what sent him into a spin cycle at Laundromania or what the heck he was he doing with a shovel in a laundromat. But any number of things might have set him off. Maybe the washer ate his quarters. Or it just went round and round and no water came out. Or he remembered he left his cell phone in his pants pocket and couldn’t get the door back open when the wash cycle started. He was probably momentarily overcome with anger, illustrating why impulsive people should not carry shovels.
Back in 2020, Lecnar was arrested for peeing on his neighbor’s moped. It turns out the neighbor had been making a terrible racket and Lecnar tried to keep his irritation to himself, but finally he couldn’t hold it in any longer. It’s interesting, though, that he took out his revenge, not on his neighbor, but again, on a machine.
Since the days of the Industrial Revolution, humans and machines have been at war. Before that time, weavers in England made a good living and were their own bosses. But with the invention of big power looms, hand weavers became obsolete and the unskilled loom operators were badly paid. On March 11, 1811, after a group of textile workers, demanding higher wages were dispersed by government troops, they returned later that night and smashed dozens of industrial looms. The Nottingham workers claimed their leader was a Robinhood-like figure named Ned Ludd —and the term “Luddite” was born.
Today, a Luddite is someone who struggles with technology and rebels against it. You know you’re a Luddite if you think toasters are getting way too complicated. You know you’re a Luddite if you’re worried your smart watch is after your job. You know you’re a Luddite if you still own a VCR and it’s still blinking “12:00” because you never figured out how to set the time.
A Luddite is different from a troglodyte, somebody who is not simply hiding from progress but who literally lives in a cave. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber was a Luddite who mistrusted technology and carefully carved his wooden bomb boxes by hand. Osama bin Laden lived in a cave, but was very good with technology—though not good enough to hide from Seal Team Six.
I don’t know if Nicholas Lecnar is a Luddite or if he just ran out of quarters for the dryer before his tighty whities were done. But the only posting on his old Instagram page seems eerily prophetic. It reads, “Hey, it’s the ghost in the machine.”