The Technological Society

Rating:
Summary: Technique - the bedrock of the modern world
Review: Before proceeding with this review, let me just say that no fewer than a hundred pages could be trimmed from its content without diluting its message at all. Many of the examples used in the book are extremely dated; while I think I'm fairly well read, I confess that I'm not really up on the vicissitudes and catfights of French academic sociology in the early 1960's (to give but one example). With that being said, this book is worth well worth the time spent reading its 436 pages.

This is undoubtedly one of the most important books of the twentieth century, and if you accept its thesis you won't be able to look at the political milieu in the same way ever again. (If you agree with it and it doesn't change the way you look at things, you haven't grasped its importance.) Most political theorists take ideology to be a central point from which "real world" consequences emanate. In other words, a Communist or libertarian ideology in practical use will produce a particular type society and individual divorced from the actual technical workings of the society. Liberals and conservatives both speak of things in such a manner as if ideology is the prima facie cause of existence - but as Ellul shows in painstaking detail, this is wrong. What almost everyone fails to grasp is the pernicious effect of technique (and its offspring, technology) on modern man.

Technique can loosely be defined as the entire mass of organization and technology that has maximum efficiency as its goal. Ellul shows that technique possesses an impetus all its own and exerts similar effects on human society no matter what the official ideology of the society in question is. Technique, with its never-ending quest for maximum efficiency, tends to slowly drown out human concerns as it progresses towards its ultimate goal. "...the further economic technique develops, the more it makes real the abstract concept of economic man." (p. 219) Technique does not confine itself merely to the realm of technical production, but infiltrates every aspect of human existence, and has no time for "inefficiencies" caused by loyalties to family, religion, race, or culture; a society of dumbed-down consumers is absolutely essential to the technological society, which must contain predictable "demographics" in order to ensure the necessary financial returns. "The only thing that matters technically is yield, production. This is the law of technique; this yield can only be obtained by the total mobilization of human beings, body and soul, and this implies the exploitation of all human psychic forces." (p. 324).

Ellul thoroughly shows that much of the difference in ideology between libertarians and socialists becomes largely irrelevant in the technological society (this is not to say that ideology is unimportant, but rather that technique proceeds with the same goals and effects.) This will doubtlessly please no one; liberals want to believe that they can have privacy and freedom despite a high degree of central planning, and libertarians want to believe that a society free of most regulation and control is possible in an advanced technological society. Libertarian fantasies seem especially irrelevant given the exigencies of a technological society; as Ellul notes, as technique progresses it simply cannot function without a high degree of complexity and regulation. "The modern state could no more be a state without techniques than a businessman could be a businessman without the telephone or the automobile... not only does it need techniques, but techniques need it. It is not a matter of chance, nor a matter of conscious will; rather, it is an urgency..." (p. 253-254). Can anyone really doubt Ellul here, especially seeing as how twenty-plus years of conservative promises to downsize government still result in more regulation and bureaucracy with every passing year? Planning, socialism, regulation, and control are the natural consequences of technique; an increasingly incestuous relationship between industry and the State is inevitable. "The state and technique - increasingly interrelated - are becoming the most important forces in the modern world; they buttress and reinforce each other in their aim to produce an apparently indestructible, total civilization." (p. 318).

This is not an optimistic book. Given that the nature of technique is one of a universal leveling of human cultures, needs, and desires (replacing real needs with false ones and the neighborhood restaurant with McDonalds), Ellul is certainly pessimistic. He does not propose any remedies for the Skinnerist nightmares of technique somehow leading to a Golden Age of humanity, where people will enjoy maximal freedom coupled with minimal want: "...we are struck by the incredible naivete of these scientists... they claim they will be in a position to develop certain collective desires, to constitute certain homogeneous social units out of aggregates of individuals, to forbid men to raise their children, and even to persuade them to renounce having any... at the same time, they speak of assuring the triumph of freedom and of the necessity of avoiding dictatorship... they seem incapable of grasping the contradiction involved, or of understanding that what they are proposing." (p. 434).

Rating:
Summary: A VITALLY IMPORTANT BOOK!
Review: Ellul's masterpiece is not an easy read, but it's a very rewarding one. His is a wake-up call similar to that of Alvin Toffler (who dismisses Ellul as "pessimistic"). More so than any other book I know, this book summarizes exactly what's gone wrong with the world and why. READ THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: IMpacts of Technology on human relationships
Review: I first read this book in college in 1971. It has had more lasting impact upon my view of the world than any other book I read at that time. I go back to it every now and again. Anyone interested in the effects of globalization and the drive to faster and faster technological change and the maximizing of shareholder value should read this book. We are driven to compartmentalize our relationships to become efficient, the ultimate law of technology. Our relationships with our families, our neighbors, our communities, our friends and our government are impacted by the drive for efficiency.

Rating:
Summary: Ellul and Technique
Review: If a book can be rated for just making you think than this is one.

Actually, the late-Jacques Ellul had been involved in the Reformed Church in France and was Professor of Law and Sociology and History of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux.

His Reformed theology wrestling with Marxist influence helped build his observations that have been appreciated by both social conservatives and liberals. He drew from the only viable Marxist critique - that industrialisation, in essence dehumanizes people (separates them from what they make). Just look at how impersonal Western society has become (this is just one aspect). Ellul goes further and describes the fetish for technique (e.g. learn something, do it, have power). A good current example of this is contemporary education (the road to power is knowledge, hence the Technique of the classroom). The danger lies in the Falleness of man with knowledge of Technique without proper morals and valuing.

However, Ellul often fell into the French deconstructive mindset, which always makes it difficult to build upon a proper weltenschaaung (worldview).

Ellul was a very humane man, who sought to be informative.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: In this famous volume, Jacques Ellul explores the role of technique in the modern world. In Ellul's view, ordered efficiency is the first and foremost law of the technical world, with widespread implications for human life. Modern man lives under a framework of artificial operational objectives he wasn't designed to cope with. Technique has turned men into mere resources thrown around wherever the technical system finds them most useful.

The technical system is no longer within the reach of human control: it has taken on a life of its own and constitutes an independent force consuming more and more of the non-technical world around it. Men do not use technique: technique uses men. The argument behind this is not as metaphysical as it may appear; in much Ellul is as materialistic as Marx and seeks to penetrate the social reality's "essence" just as Marx did in Capital.

The sociology and philosophy of this work is original, radical and logical. Whether you agree or disagree with Ellul, you are bound to be influenced and impressed by the intellectual effort put into this book.

Rating:
Summary: A revelation of the effects of technique on modern man
Review: This book put me in mind of Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and The Last Man. Both document the ascendance of the person who is a rational and insecure seeker of comfort, afraid of passion and psychologically tiny: the individual with a small "i". Ellul is pessimistic. Our plight is due to our complete immersion in technique, the end of which is "the one best way" and efficiency. Against this there is no appeal and human spirituality and individualism are left behind as the "mass man" is created. This is the person who seeks only pleasure and entertainment and doesn't see his/her loss of uniqueness, beguiled by the products of technology and the promise of material progress. Technology is the answer to all things and the destroyer of all that is not technique. This is not due to a malign intent but simply the result of technique itself. There is no escape from technique, it permeates our world. An excellent example is the writer who, though wanting to express a different perspective is forced through the sieve of the techniques of the publishing business in order for the composition to see the light of day. Ellul makes a strong and frightening case. The one major oversight, for which we cannot blame one who wrote in 1964, is the power of the Internet for individual expression. He would, however, likely maintain that although this is an outlet for expression, the individual's voice is still lost in a cacaphony of other voices, as a result of the techniques of computer communication. Not an easy read, this book is an intellectual delight. Ellul's ideas are even more powerful today for the fact that they have not been contradicted but reinforced in the 35 years since he wrote.