No single one provides a comprehensive summary of his conclusions, but the best starting point remains his most famous book, The Technological Society, published in French in 1954 and in English a decade later. He didnt travel much, criticized politics of every stripe and was a radical Christian. The experience of working in the heart of bureaucracy put Ellul off politicsat least in a public sensefor the rest of his life. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), See also Carl Mitcham, Technology as a Theological Problem in the Christian Tradition, in Theology and Technology, ed. Education Virtualization Prospects In Pessimistic Light Of One respondent, the Jesuit priest and English professor Walter Ong, who would later become best known for his work on orality and literacy, agreed with much of Ellul's essay but said that "he makes technology a Samuel Matlack is managing editor of The New Atlantis. Ellul's pessimistic Arguments are: a. I will indicate why I agree with the third of these positions, which emphasizes the social construction and use of particular technologies. Mitcham and Grote. I will suggest that the most important from of freedom is participation in the decisions affecting our lives. 10. 13. In China the authorities have gone one step further. He, too, warned about the promise of leisure provided by the mechanization and automatization of work. Technology, then, is but an expression and by-product of the underlying reliance on technique, on the proceduralization whereby everything is organized and managed to function most efficiently, and directed toward the most expedient end of the highest productivity. But this misses the mystery of human existence, which is known only through involvement as a total person. Since then it has engulfed Western civilization and become the globes greatest colonizing force. In all these versions, science is itself driven primarily by technological needs. Pandemonium, which examines the impact of global trade on disease exchanges, received widespread national acclaim. . 8. Technological determinism underestimates the diversity of forces that contribute to technological change. Alienation of the Worker. A Synopsis and Analysis of the Thought and Writings of Jacques Ellul William Pickets (San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1977). The near catastrophe at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 were the products of human errors, faulty equipment, poor design, and unreliable safety procedures. The human fabric is not an envelope around a culturally neutral artifact. Magazine. Winner says that large-scale systems are self-perpetuating, extending their control over resources and markets and molding human life to fit their own smooth functioning. Biotechnology, for example, depends directly on recent research in molecular biology. Any modification of the ensemble likewise modifies the elements of their relationships. (Just count the number of gadgets telling you what to do or where to go or even what music to play.). His concern for humanistic values informs each . The optimists usually evaluate technology in a utilitarian framework, seeking to maximize the balance of costs over benefits. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Technology and Man: A Christian Vision, in Science and Religion. Each of us can adopt individual life-styles more consistent with human and environmental values. We will see later that particular legislative committees, government agencies, and industries have formed three-way alliances to promote such technologies as nuclear energy or pesticides. Technology is dehumanizing and uncontrollable. See also Charles Susskind, Understanding Technology. The ancient dream of a life free from famine and disease is beginning to be realized through technology. With new forms of transportation, one can in a few hours travel to distant cities that once took months to reach. But when he looked to the future, he expected that because of our technology and our spirituality we will be increasingly separated from other creatures. Throughout his life Ellul maintained that he was neither by nature, nor doctrinally, a pessimist, nor have I pessimistic prejudices. Langdon Gilkey, Religion and the Scientific Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). In many respects technology has hypernormalized a technological society in which citizens exercise less and less control over their lives every day and cant imagine anything different. Nineteenth-century factories and twentieth-century assembly lines did involve dirty and monotonous work, but the newer technologies allow greater creativity and individuality.8, A postindustrial society, it is said, is already beginning to emerge. The Technological Society: Social Theory, McDonaldization and the Once armed with one (or all three) of these introductory texts, one is well poised to begin wrestling with the genuine item. They see run-away technology as an autonomous and all-embracing system that molds all of life, including the political sphere, to its requirements. Executive Summary Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI)a general purpose technology affecting many industrieshas been focused on advances in machine learning, which we recast as a quality-adjusted drop in the price of prediction. In a bureaucracy, the goals of the organization are paramount and responsibility is diffused, so that no one feels personally responsible. Ellul argues that technology is not an objective force that can be used for good or evil; instead, it is intrinsically neutral. We will confine ourselves here to criticisms of the human rather than environmental consequences of technology. Ellul relocated his family to Martres in the French free zone, where he became a farmer and a participant in the Resistance. However, in the present situation its the only vehicle with which to fight against an authority which is extending itself into all sectors of society. - may seem that technology is primarily concerned with the product. 32. It is worth noting that the word normal didnt come into currency until the 1940s along with technological society. Individual rights were given precedence over the common good, despite our increasing interdependence. They may acknowledge the presence of technological choices but expect such choices to be missed because they are pessimistic about human nature and institutionalized greed. Alternative patterns of modernization are less environmentally and socially destructive than the path that we have followed. The key question will be: What decision-making processes and what technological policies can contribute to human and environmental values? 3. Resistance, which is never futile, can only begin by becoming aware and bearing witness to the totalitarian nature of technological society. Though he was ultimately theocentric (centered on God), and he talked about the redemption of the whole cosmos, many of his images are anthro-pocentric (centered on humanity) and imply that other forms of life are left behind in the spiritualization of humankind that technology will help to bring about. Ellul's own comprehensive definition is found in the preface of The Technological Society: "Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity." According to Ellul, technique necessarily came into play at the Fall of man into sin. By Vicki Robin, Fran Korten, Resilience.org, Fran Korten is former executive director, publisher and contributing editor for YES! In order to avoid misunderstanding it may be useful to mention again what I mean by Technique often wrongly called Technology (cf. Cf. February 04, 2021 11:00 PM. The fact of the matter is that when one begins to read Ellul, understanding increases. Andrew Nikiforukhas been writing about the oil and gas industry for nearly 20 years and cares deeply about accuracy, government accountability, and cumulative impacts. Here there is a compartmentalization of spiritual and temporal spheres and different standards for personal and public life. Genuine community and interpersonal interaction are threatened when people feel like cogs in a well-oiled machine. Thomas Derr, Conversations about Ultimate Matters: Theological Motifs in WCC Studies in the Technological Future, International Review of Missions 66 (1977): 12334. Now genetics gives us power over humanity itself. The technical elite likewise serves the profits of the owners. It is often easier to find a technical fix for a social problem than to try to change human behavior or get agreement on political policies.13, Florman urges us to rely on the judgment of experts in decisions about technology. It is only in the process of giving ones mind and soul to Christ, according to Ellul, that one is set free from the false gods of the material worldand this includes the god of technique. 1. In an urban industrial society, a person's options are not as limited by parental or community expectations as they were in a small-town agrarian society. They hold that greater productivity improves standards of living and makes food and health more widely available. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & 1964), chaps. She answers the question of What Could Possibly Go Right?. Liberation from bondage to nature, he says, is the victory of spirit over matter. endobj New techniques for teaching, selling things or organizing political parties also required propaganda. It is on technique that all other factors depend. The son of a French-Portuguese mother and a Serbian-Italian father, Ellul came to view his outsider statusboth as a product of the melting pot and as that rare French intellectual who eschewed Parisas a key component of his self-identity. The magnitude of these stakes, taken with the insufficiency of our predictive knowledge, leads to the pragmatic rule to give the prophecy of doom priority over the prophecy of bliss.26 We should seek the least harm, not the greatest good. We have no right to tamper genetically with human nature or to accept policies that entail even the remote possibility of the extinction of humanity in a nuclear holocaust. They would tend to side with our sec-and group, the critics of technology. 2017 Gifford Lecturer Agustn Fuentes elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature. Social controls over the controllers are always essential. He insists that the critics have romanticized the life of earlier centuries and rural societies. Life is indeed impoverished if the technological attitudes of mastery and power dominate one's outlook. Jacques complied, completing his doctoral thesis in 1936. We can make decisions about technology within a wider context of human and environmental values. Man is caught like a fly in a bottle. Melvin Kranzberg, Technology the Liberator. in Technology at the Turning Point, ed. 35. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. Quantitative criteria tend to crowd out qualitative ones. This contrasts strongly with the greater work autonomy, job satisfaction, and commitment to work found in the professions, skilled trades, and family-owned farms.21, Other features of technological development since World War II have evoked widespread concern. As Ellul argues, technique has taken on a mind of its own; it is autonomous. Technique, he writes, is capable of self-generation. The further one moves along on the Ellul Understanding Curve, the further ones existential despair edges over into a subtle but perceptible joyregardless of whether one is actually making a difference in the world. The digerati also promised that digital technologies would usher in a new era of decentralization and undo what mechanical technologies have already done: centralize everything into big companies, big boxes and big government. Teilhard seldom acknowledged the tragic hold of social injustice on human life. He holds that biblical ethics can provide a viewpoint transcending society from which to judge the sinfulness of the technological order and can give us the motivation to revolt against it, but he holds out little hope of controlling it.23 Some interpreters see in Ellul's recent writings a very guarded hope that a radical Christian freedom that rejects cultural illusions of technological progress might in the long run lead to the transformation rather than the rejection of technology. But they do not consider the institutional structures of economic power and self-interest that now control the directions of technological development. They may be pessimistic about our ability to respond to a world of global inequities and scarce resources. Technology assuredly fragments human communities, but in the world of technique centralization remains the norm. Ellul, for example, has characterized engineers as the high priests of technology, who cherish technology but cannot steer it. ed. It is not yet able to control its errors and dysfunctions, to react on its source and modify itself. Another philosopher, Albert Borgmann, does not want to return to a pretechnological past, but he urges the selection of technologies that encourage genuine human fulfillment. Nevertheless, technique is lacking in one of the essential characteristics found in any organized ensemble, reaction. Melvin Kranzberg, a prominent historian of technology, has presented a very positive picture of the technological past and future. People have much greater freedom in technological societies. Ellul believed that Christians had a special duty to condemn the worship of technology, which has become societys new religion. Barbour. For such people, Elluls recommendation will ring true and is perhaps all that is needed. Ferr, Philosophy of Technology, p. 44. Technologies are social constructions, and they are seldom neutral because particular purposes are already built into their design. A good jumping-off point for those who wish to venture down the rabbit hole is Chastenets collection of interviews (Jacques Ellul on Politics, Technology, and Christianity), which provides a human touch that Ellul denied himself in his writing. His subsequent books, especially The Political Illusion (1965) and Propaganda (1962), further develop and refine elements . Technique has taken substance, wrote Ellul, and it has become a reality in itself. Many critics have misunderstood Elluls diagnosis of the worlds social ills via technique, because they have wrongly perceived that he was attacking technology. Four issues seem to me particularly important in analyzing the differences among the positions outlined above. Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture (New York: Doubleday, 1969), and Where the Wasteland Ends (New York: Doubleday, 1972); see Ian G. Barbour, Science, Religion, and the Counterculture, Zygon 10 (1975): 38097. Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) French philosopher; Holds that technology is progressive and beneficial in many ways, it is also doubtful in many ways. 40. He wanted his work to have the same comprehensive sweep as Marxs, even as he recognized that Marxs proposed solutions of the nineteenth century had contributed to the very problem Ellul was now attempting to address in the twentieth. 2. The suppression of the critical faculty mans growing incapacity to distinguish truth from falsehood, the individual from the collectivity, action from talk, reality from statistics, and so on is one of the most evident results of the technical power of propaganda., Faking the news may have been a common practice on Soviet radio during Elluls day, but it is now a global phenomenon leading us towards what Ellul called a sham universe.. For them the most important fount of participatory freedom are opportunities for participation in political processes and in work-related decisions. The hole in the ozone layer caused by the release of chlorofluorocarbons had not been anticipated by any scientists. They believe that alienation and inequality will disappear and technology will be wholly benign when the working class owns the means of production. Defend your principles. If we are convinced that nothing can be done to improve the system, we will indeed do nothing to try to improve it. We have let technology define the good life in terms of production and consumption, and we have ended with mindless labor and mindless leisure. This view tends to be more pessimistic about social change, but it does not advocate withdrawal from society. Cheris Kramarae (New York and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988). At times he seemed to have unlimited confidence in humanity's capacity to shape its own destiny. Receiving it in joy and love, and responding in obedience, we can cooperate in meaningful service of God and neighbor. Any product or process can be made safer, but always at an economic cost. The moment of unity following the death of Elizabeth II reminds us of the importance of honoring our own political Post-liberalism must embrace the universal to save the West and its nations.
Categorias