Today I read, cover to cover, “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of MIMH.” by Robert C. Obrien. It is delightfully short, and despite what it may seem, is far more than a simple children’s book.
As it turns out, it was a very fitting book to read on the technoSabbath.
I have read it multiple times, but this time, something really jumped out at me. The rats want to uproot themselves and destroy the machines and technological comforts they had built for themselves and build an independent society. I have often had whimsical, nostalgic impulses to do the same thing. (Become a farmer, live off the land, forget all the stresses of the Rat Race (or the People Race according to Nicodemus)).
That said, I am not planning on becoming a farmer any time soon, but I still really like the rats’ mentality in it all, which is: Not all technological advance is desirable, or even moral. That is a mindset I am trying to cultivate in being a technoSabbatarian.
As a side note, I really like this TED talk by Joshua Klein on crows, where he thinks about possible cohabitation with species usually thought of as pests. I also had this talk in mind while reading Rats of NIMH.
