By Jacques Ellul
A penetrating research of our technical civilization and of the influence of an more and more standardized tradition at the way forward for man.
"Jacques EIlul is a French sociologist, a Catholic layman energetic within the ecumenical move, a pacesetter of the French resistance within the struggle, and—one is tempted so as to add, after examining his book—a nice guy. definitely he has written a powerful ebook. ... the interpretation by way of John Wilkinson is excellent.
"With enormous calm and maddening thoroughness he is going via one human job after one other and exhibits the way it has been technicized—rendered efficient—and reduced within the process...." — Paul Pickrel, Harper's
"The Technological Society is likely one of the most crucial books of the second one half the 20th century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that expertise, which we proceed to conceptualize because the servant of guy, will overthrow every little thing that forestalls the inner good judgment of its improvement, together with humanity itself—unless we take the mandatory steps to maneuver human society out of our surroundings that 'technique' is developing to fulfill its personal needs." — Robert Theobald, The Nation
"...The impression is a contained highbrow explosion, a heated acceptance of a sad trouble that has overtaken modern society." — Scott Buchanan, George Washington legislation evaluate
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Additional resources for The Technological Society
Sample text
I do not say that no solutions will be found; I merely aver that in the present social situation there is not even a beginning of a solution, no breach in the system of tech nical necessity. Any solutions I might propose would be idealistic and fanciful. In a sense, it would even be dishonest to suggest solu tions; the reader might think them real rather than merely literary. I am acquainted with the "solutions" offered by Emmanuel Mou nier, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ragnor Frisch, Jean Fourastie, Georges Friedmann, and others.
Capitalism did not create our world; the machine did. Pain stakin g studies designed to prove the con trary have buried the obvious beneath tons of p rint And. if we do not wish to play the demagogue , we must point out the guil ty party. Ihe machine is an tisoci al, says Lewis Mumford. � The machine took i ts pl ace in a social milieu that was not made for it, and for that reason created the in human society in which we live. Capitalism was therefore only one aspect of the d ee p disorder of the nineteenth century.
It avoids shock and sensational events. Man is not adapted to a world of steel; technique adapts him to it. It changes the arrangement of this blind world so that man can be a part of it without colliding with its rough edges, without the anguish of being delivered up to the inhuman. Technique thus provides a model; it specifies attitudes that are valid once and for all. The anxiety aroused in man by the turbulence of the machine is soothed by the consoling hum of a unified SOciety. " The ma chine remained an external object, and man ( though Significantly influenced by it in his professional , rrivRt...