Wendell Berry was a complete moron. He is a living embodiment of the word "luddite." And not in a good way. He comes across as an ignorant, brainwashed, hysterical greenie, obsessed with saving the world when the world doesn't need saving. >I would hate to think that my work as a writer could not be done without a direct dependence on strip-mined coal. What? I say, what? Does he think that Royal typewriter his wife types on didn't require energy to produce? >For the same reason, it matters to me that my writing is done in the daytime, without electric light. We're talking Amish-level luddite here. >It is well understood that technological innovation always requires the discarding of the "old model" - the "old model" in this case being not just our old Royal standard, but my wife, my critic, my closest reader, my fellow worker. As if this idiot's wife couldn't proof read his copy on a computer screen. WTF? The only difference is that she wouldn't need to type it out in hard copy for this lazy ass. >I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil. "Better" is problematical. In my opinion, you can write better, because it's easier to make insertions and corrections and to move blocks of text than it is when writing on paper with a pencil or pen. But "easier?" Come on now. Anyone who has used a spell checker on a computer knows that a computer is easier. Anyone who has written directly to a computer file knows it is easier than transcribing on a typewriter from a handwritten manuscript. Wendell Berry, whose work I don't know and haven't read, was a fool. He was wrong on almost all his points. The only point he made in which he was correct was to say that new technology should be better than the old technology it replaces. True. A computer is better than a typewriter. Which is why everyone has a computer, and typewriters are as archaic as dial telephones.