Create an Intellectual biography

Ellul, J. (1964). The Technological Society. (J. Wilkinson, Trans.) New York: Vintage Books.

Intellectual Bibliography

Situate in Scholarship:

Jacques Ellul was born in Bordeaux, France in 1912. His self-professed cosmopolitan identity was the result of his mother’s Protestant, French-Portugese background and his father’s Greek Orthodox/Voltarian, Italo-Maltese and Serbian roots. Ellul studied philosophy at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris, where he met friend and colleague Bernard Charbonneau in 1929 who shared his interest in social philosophy and political ecology. Ellul’s early work was influenced by Marx, Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth. Barth’s writings inspired Ellul to take an interest in theology and the Gospel, and in 1932 Ellul converted to Christianity after having a vision of God which he refused to discuss throughout his lifetime. Ellul concluded that he was unable to synthesize Marxist doctrine with Christianity, and many of his post-conversion writings emphasize the dichotomy between these two philosophies.

Ellul obtained his doctorate in 1936 with a thesis entitled The History and Legal Nature of the Mancipum. He began his teaching career at the Faculty of Law in Montpelier (1937-38) before moving on to posts in Strasbourg and Clermont-Ferrand. During World War II, Ellul was a leader in the French Resistance, and he was later honored for his efforts to save Jews during this engagement. After the war, Ellul vowed to remain absent from party politics, although he briefly held an administrative position with the City of Bordeaux from 1944-1945. He also worked as a lay pastor and began what was to become a lifetime engagement with various theological organizations.

Ellul’s academic career resumed when he was appointed professor of social history at the University of Bordeaux in 1947. Here he began to seriously pursue publication on a wide variety of specializations including Roman law, the history and sociology of institutions, Marxism, propaganda, and technique in society. By the time of his death in 1994, Ellul had produced 58 books and more than a thousand articles.

Major Question:

Although Ellul is well known for his philosophical contributions to the subjects of religion, politics, justice, humanism, and media ecology, Ellul is probably best known for his writings on technology and the human environment. Ellul’s philosophic approach toward technology revolves around the question of technological determinism. In The Technological Society (1954), Ellul explores the concept of modern technique as an autonomous force which unconsciously compels man to serve its purposes, creates a false reality, and eventually replaces spirit as a locus of the sacred. In connection with this notion, Ellul asks the question “Into what has technique transformed man’s efforts into the spiritual?”

Book Metaphor:

The principle metaphor employed in The Technological Society is “technical phenomenon,” a term used to describe the social revolution in which political, social, and human techniques became joined with the state. Ellul maintains that the technical phenomenon is the most important in human history (233) because it separates man from human motives and renders him an unconscious participant in the autonomous agenda of technique, eventually turning against the very spirit of creativity which inspired it. The technical phenomenon leads to technological civilization, a metaphor which implies a construction by and for technique, whereby all social reality is exclusively technique.

Significance to the Study of Philosophy of Communication:

The single most important concept identified by Ellul relating to the philosophy of communication is Ellul’s contention that technique constructs and shapes human communication according to its demands because, by its nature, technique possesses a monopoly of action. Toward this end Ellul maintains that “no human action is possible except as it is mediated and censored by the technical medium” (418). Therefore, “every human initiative must use technique in order to express itself” (420).

Chapter I – Techniques

Key Metaphors: organization, technical phenomenon, universalism, progress, invention, social plasticity

Chapter Thesis: The term technique should not be confused with or limited to machines. Technique is autonomous phenomenon which represents an end to itself. Its goal is to control results of future events in advance. The development of a proper understanding of technique requires an understanding of the historical circumstances which surround its emergence and propagation.

Significance of Each Metaphor to Communication Ethics: Technique must be defined by the duality of rational judgment with conscious behavior, i.e., the technical phenomenon. The way a civilization views its spiritual and intellectual relationship with the world determines its acceptance of technique. Technique represents pure externality and does not thrive in the presence of a universalizing philosophy. When individual possibility is applied to the external or material world, man employs method to organize, invent, and progress for the purpose of ensuring technical control.

Chapter II – The Characterology of Technique

Key Metaphors: Rationality, artificiality, automatism, technical slavery, self-augmentation, technological civilization

Chapter III – Technique and Economy

Key Metaphors: Technical progress, economic technique, political economy, statistical atmosphere, norms and plans, liberal interventionism, macroeconomy

Chapter Thesis: “Technique always creates a kind of secret society, a closed fraternity of its practioners” (162). Comprehension of economic theory now requires one to be both a specialist and a technician. The common man and his needs are left out of the conversation. As natural law concedes to technical law, humans are absorbed into the processes until technique is no longer conscious or obtrusive.

Significance of Each Metaphor to Communication Ethics: The merging of science with economics, methodology and technique, urges us to “stick to the facts” (160). Political economy becomes technique, loses its moral dimension, and develops its own ethical framework (161). Human necessity thus becomes defined by economic necessity.

Chapter IV – Technique and the State

Key Metaphors: technical organism, motive force of the state, propaganda, public and private morality, totalitarianism, zweckwissenschaft

Chapter Thesis: Ellul maintains that the “technical phenomenon” which joins political, social, and human views with that of the state is the most important in human history (233) because it separates man from human motives and renders him an unconscious participant in the autonomous agenda of technique, eventually turning against the very human creativity which inspired it.

Significance of Each Metaphor to Communication Ethics: The “technical organism” which the state becomes as it co-opts traditional and private techniques into its system fails to consider man as the motive. Thus, politicians become subordinate to the technical phenomenon. “Theoretically, our politicians are at the center of the machinery, but actually they are being progressively eliminated by it” (254). Political doctrine becomes a “rationalizing mechanism” for the actions of state (282). Example: wars of “necessity” (286). Public and private conceptions of morality no longer have force or reality in the fantasy constructed by a political technique that has become totalitarian (288). Man becomes restrained in both thought and action by an external reality which he has self-imposed (303).

Chapter V – Human Techniques

Key Metaphors: Human milieu, humanizing technique, psychological technique

Chapter Thesis: In order to effectively question what form of humanity is under attack at the hands of technique, we must agree on a conception of man that is “a priori and non-scientific” (392).

Significance of Each Metaphor to Communication Ethics: Humanism is a term that has developed in response to technique. The argument that moral development will follow material development is part of the false technical reality. Ellul argues that humanism is “a conception that involves contempt for man’s inner life to the advantage of his sociological life, contempt of his moral and intellectual life to the advantage of his material life” (338). Human techniques such as propaganda are designed to manipulate the passions and “a good social conscience appears with the suppression of the critical faculty” (369) creating a new sphere of the “sacred” (370) and a complete reconstruction of reality (371).