The Betrayal by Technology: A Portrait of Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul was a French theologian/sociologist and anarchist. He first became well-known to American readers when his book The Technological Society was published in English in 1964.
This book leveled a broad critique of technique, a term that means more than gadgets and machines - as the English word technology means.
For Ellul, technique represented an entire way of life characterized by life fragmented so that efficiency ultimately rules over all ethical decisions.
Ellul warned that technique was having drastic effects on all aspects of modern life. His books, Anarchy and Christianity, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man are two examples of how his political and religious outlooks mutually reinforced one another.
Many Green Anarchists have cited Ellul's work on technique as influential on their thought.
Jacques Ellul's anti-technological stance is undercut by his own use of technology. He acknowledges his use of the telephone, but his record-player, his books, even the clothes he wears, are all products of technology. Despite his claim that people are happier living in nature, he appears to be living in an urban envirnment. And of course he is recording all this for a film!
It's not clear what solutions he is proposing, if any, but he certainly has not made the case for abandoning the fruits of modernity, an idea that has been fashionable among intellectuals since Rousseau, but almost always preached more than practiced.
Nevertheless, his comments about how people being too narrowly focused and not thinking about what they are doing can lead them into irresponsibility, are well taken.
The way I see it is like this: science and technology will never be able to give answer to fundamental questions unless it incorporate spirituality. In this form science is leading us away of spiritual and it makes us rebelius or depressed. People are spiritual beeings and all life we are actually seeking spirit in us but we look outside of us instead inside. Why ... because nobody teaches us diferently and the one who does is freak, crackpot and must be critizied and discredited. We are all conditioned by society we live in and when we start to be aware of this we will start to feel more free.
glaring holes - a lot of what ellul says is always good but he places way too much emphasis on religion. Wisdom he says does not come from intellectual reflection, but by the generational transfer of knowledge in combination with reflection. Patently wrong - it comes from BOTH.
And it is not a question of either/or re technology vs nature - both can be sacred if applied and regarded responsibly. Unfortunately there is no responsibility or balance re the two now (he is right on that at least).
He was right for his time in terms of certain basic concepts, but he shows as dated now.
so he gets a 6 out of 10 :)
However on the theory of propaganda he has always been superb :)
Is not technology utilized as a tool of the capitalist system that seeks to exploit science and the people for profit and as such, sustain contemporary social structures?
If technology were not profit driven, it might have the potential of connecting rather than isolating us from ourselves and the natural world. Again, technology rather than seeking to purely exploit natural laws and resources, might approach nature with due reverence.
The non-thinking willingness of people in allowing themselves to be manipulated by those motivated exclusively by the exploitive accrual of power is indeed a faustian contract as Ellul warns.
very true could'nt be explained any better then this
The Shamans of the Amazon are being replaced by science and technology. We need to preserve the Shaman as the Shaman can tell you if you are harming yourself or not, by simply putting the female feeling brain back into the equation and recasting from there.
Male domination science will make life great for some, but miserable for the rest, unless we remember where we came from. Which is the planet, plants and womb of the mother (earth and human mother)
As a very wise man once said, let the ignor*nt b*stard freeze in the dark.
i cant seem to find any reference to this student riot in sweeden in 1953? this point it seems ultimately represents the point being made. trying to discover what has been lost is difficult.
Very pathetic documentary. Bohemian and utopian at its core...
Very pathetic documentary. Bohemian and utopian at its core...
Very pathetic documentary. Bohemian and utopian at its core...
Very pathetic documentary. Bohemian and utopian at its core...
Very pathetic documentary. Bohemian and utopian at its core...
How about that busker who plays the trumpet and accordion simultaneously? "C'est ça la technique, hein?"
The Noble Savage argument is such bunk - people always wish the lack of technology on others but never themselves.
"Instead of thinking of God they amuse themselves...by means of technology" - this is really what this guy is selling - conservative religious order.
He goes on to cite a few popular problems in modern society (belittling the benefits of course) and then he puts GOD in as the solution. Very boring vapid 'God of the gaps' argument.
His disdain for ordinary people throughout is distasteful to say the least. Glass tower fantasist cr*p done only the way that a christian Platonist can do it.
Replace "technology" with "religion" and everything makes sense all of a sudden; I'm not buying his angle. Interesting, but I don't think he understands that technology is just as natural of a system as anything else in the universe. He's too obsessed with categorizing and dividing the world into the sacred and non-sacred. Technology is amoral - While it's true that human behavior is changing because of technology I don't think it penetrates our morality but rather the other way around (technology is a reflection of what is already there but couldn't before be expressed).
If commercialism is going to determine the future we're in big trouble. Most goods are hyped and meant to con people into having to have "it". What every one believes they want becomes a social and financial trap. I'm amazed to see how much junk pople store in their basements and garages. When a percentage of people are killed, mamied or poisoned for corporate projects only to see that in the next ten or fifteen years many of these projects will already be in need of great repairs. How good is this kind of obsession for something new? Especially that their still are buildings standing that date back to the Eleventh Century B.C. and even earlier.
The quality of life has actually diminished especially, in our love for beauty and culture.
How about only having a child or two? Inventions that have changed the world? In my opinion there are a lot of documentaries about commercially promoted ugly ice boxes called a "new" design for that obsessive drive for something "new" and yet meaningless. Why do we have a five day work week? Who made that mandatory? Our Medical professions are poisoning everyone. I got rid of my lung cancer by avoiding surgery and modern medicine! (I did).
As a builder and architect for 35 years I've seen some awful workmanship and
little pride in what many consider "new idea's".
Few people are aware of the fact that humanity thinks in a dialectical manner. Everything that comes into our thinking is always deciding a decision that is weigh by yes or no, good for me, bad for me, do I prefer brown or green, and why? This inner dialog originates from a existential return to our first cause, that is "being".
Primitives would make some symbol or something resembling a human counterpart to hope that an answer would be forthcoming. And it does often answer the problem. This is today known as meditation. The Greeks and than the Romans, for example, and before them, projected a anthropomorphic (Human) aspect to their God's to whom they could somewhat identify participating with a projection he could identify as "other". All of this is a self projection of participating with "another", that is what we call the projection of our inner mystical spirit of "being". But first a person must understand that it is the process of humility and surrender toward being human.
Samuel Becket's, Waiting For Godot, is actually a very good example of faith, contrary to what many readers think. Didi and Gogo are waiting for Gogot to arrive. Like those who await the present of God from our exterior view of faith have a very difficult understanding for faith arriving.
From a Catholic understanding the existential aspect of man is "interior."
Gogo and Gigi were looking outside themselves for Godot's arrival that's why he doesn't arrive. The tradition,for Catholics, is that the tomb is empty, the Christ is not there. He is located some where in the vicinity of the greatest Temple of Humanity, the human heart, waiting to be invited in. That's why their waiting and searching is absurd. There's no answer. Godot never arrives.
@Arnold Rudge To say technology has done nothing BUT improve life is a fallacy (a false comment/claim) . Although technology has improved lives in certain societies and circles within those societies. (Example: those with money and resources)
Technology has also gave us the power to utterly destroy, pollute, deforest, over populate and radiation everything. technology is a TWO bladed sword. To say technology has not done as much harm as good is very short sighted and ignorant claim.
In fact, if we do not grow up we will kill ourselves WITH all the toys and gadgets we have. THIS must be recognized as well as the 'good' that technology has done. Do not forget the perils, else all your 'toys' will be taken and your species claim to existence!
His ideas are not too dissimilar to those of Martin Heidegger as expressed in his ''The Question Concerning Technology'' and "The Age of the World Picture". I highly recommend reading these pieces.
technology has done nothing but improve life, what decides how the role of technology in our lives is our dominante culture, so in fact hes just looking at a symptom of an underlying bigger problem, Zeitgeist Moving Foward explains this really well.(it's available here)
@Bob Anderson
You can s**k my french d!ck you ignorant dipsh!t.
I guess there is no such thing as being open minded, even though I too, don't entirely agree with Ellul. But at least, I learnt how to analyse and criticize effectively, those of which you fail to express properly.
Sir you are a huge failure !
Merci et bon soir.
In my opinion Ellul has nothing against technology itself, as it said at the start of the doc, technology's always been present and always will be, we need it. The problem is : what technology has become to us.
Before the renaissance and subsequently the industrial revolution, the relation between humankind and the environment was one of respect and dependence, we were part of nature, and that was due to the fact that this kind of thinking was passed on from generation to generation through thousands of years.
What he is complaining about is that from the moment we discovered a way to increase almost infinitely our quality of life via technology, we just decided that everything that was thought until then was completely discardable and had no use at all. Just as teenagers who think what their parents taught them is rubbish and decide to go on a quest of their own, just to find out, after getting kicked in the face many times, that they actually knew what they were talking about.
Of course, times change and knowledge has to be updated to fit these changes, but some things (essences) DO NOT change, and to acknowledge that all we have to do is to take a look at the world today to see that we are having to dig up old notions about life and the world if we are to survive.
It sucks to see that many intelligent people here on TDF do not allow themselves to be provoked, i see so many comments of people just saying that "this is bulls***" or "this is great" just because the docs support their opinions or not.
This guy is full s@#$, typical French self-righteous arrogant a$$hole. its the best way i can explain his critical thinking.
"You only get what you give." Give the interview a chance. You don't have to be right about everything to say something of interest. Nobody was ever right about everything, unless we all missed the occation. We must have, or we would have understood and be right, too.
Every choice in the history of mankind leads to a different world. In the case of the atom bomb, it has lead sof far to the present situation, with the laborious attempts to keep it under control.
Thus, every choice of that kind rules out another path of history. If we choose to find out how to live with no respect for nature, we cannot later "un-choose", snap our fingers and have back the dodo.
However, I think recnology, although gone over our heads and beyond the comprehendable, is not the greatest danger that mankind poses to its own survival and health.
Power is. It is the strongest drug in the world. And it comes in the form of money that carry no burdon of history og reality. The current financial crisis shows this with the explicity of a crashing Concord.
As Jacques Ellul said in the interview: they go on and do it just because they can - without even thinking of it. Well, at least some of us can't help themselves. Power does that to most people. The afrodisiac and adrenalin kick of the brave new world. And also the highway to paranoia and total isolation.
I got nuttin.