After two recent crashes, airline industry officials around the world have grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8. On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump responded to the situation by avoiding the question of the Boeing plane’s safety and instead laying blame for the crashes on increasingly complex technology. Ignoring the evidence that technological advancements and improved infrastructure have made air travel much safer, Trump instead argued for simpler machines.
Trump’s reaction was widely mocked, but the impulse he had was by no means an unfamiliar one in the history of technology. Revisiting the Victorians’ responses to rapid technological change punctures the illusion that Trump wants to create of human instinct triumphing over the threat of machines.