Farmers versus Technocrats: A Comparative Analysis of A. D. Gordon and Theodor Herzl on Nature and Technology

Abstract This paper analyzes the treatment of nature and technology in the writings of two prominent early Zionist thinkers, A. D. Gordon and Theodor Herzl. At the heart of Herzl’s vision, we find technocrats applying industrial systems to dominate the naked nature that Gordon is committed to preserve. Gordon, in contrast, describes Jewish national revival as triggered by farmers utilizing Eretz Israel’s natural world to extract Jews from industrial society, underwriting Herzl’s Zionist vision. Expanding the analysis to the domains of nature and technology reveals the two thinkers’ creeds to be rival Zionist ideologies in which nature and technology serve as catalysts for competing visions of national revival.