ellul's pessimistic arguments about technology

EDUCATION VIRTUALIZATION PROSPECTS IN PESSIMISTIC LIGHT OF TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM BY JACQUES ELLUL . Meanwhile computers and other gadgets have diminished our attention spans along with our ever-failing connection to reality. In part 2 we will encounter optimistic forecasts of each of the particular technologies examined. The reverse contribution of technology to science is also often evident. 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. Daid Kipnis, Technology and Power (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1990). Barbour. PDF Thomas Merton and the "Pessimism" of Jacques Ellul - GORDON OYER Yes I am a member (login) | Philosophy of Technology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Samuel Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering (New York: St. Martins Press, 1977) and Blaming Technology: The Irrational Search for Scapegoats (New York: St. Martins Press, 1981). In other words, it doesnt matter if a drone is delivering a bomb or book or merely spying on the neighbourhood, because technique operates outside of human morality: Technique tolerates no judgment from without and accepts no limitations.. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). 13. By Vicki Robin, Fran Korten, Resilience.org, Fran Korten is former executive director, publisher and contributing editor for YES! He spent his career at the University of Bordeaux as a professor of law and. endobj In this instance we have sought to be more literal than on other occasions when technique has been rendered as technology and socit technicienne as technological society. 2 The French text mis-titles this volume Sept essais. Jacques Ellul: A Hopeful Pessimist | Sojourners The final option described by Niebuhr is a transformation of society by Christian values. Another critique worth considering is that Elluls definition of technique casts too wide a net. This is most clearly evident in the defense industries with their close ties to government agencies. - may seem that technology is primarily concerned with the product. In practice, few did. 10. Buckminster Fuller, The Critical Path (New York: St. Martins Press, 1981); Herman Kahn et al., The Next 200 Years (New York: William Morrow, 1976); Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam, 1971) and The Third Wave (New York: William Morrow, 1980). On the other side, technique constitutes a system in the strict sense of the term (cf. Either he remains what he was [prior to the disruptive technological development], in which case he becomes more and more unadapted, neurotic, and insufficient, loses his possibilities of subsistence, and is at last tossed on the social rubbish heap, whatever his talents may be; or he adapts himself to the new sociological organism, which becomes his world, and he becomes unable to live except in a mass society. Only relatively affluent groups or nations can afford the latest technology the gaps between rich and poor have been perpetuated and in many ideas increased by technological developments. Organized knowledge allows us to include technologies based on practical experience and invention as well as those based on scientific theories. Cf. Main theologians who do not totally reject technology criticize its tendency to generate a Promethean pride and a quest for unlimited power. The economy will be devoted mainly to services rather than material goods. There is something satisfying in the way Ellul presents his assertion like a mathematical formula. He also urges the upgrading of indigenous technologies, the exploration of intermediate-scale processes, and greater dialogue between experts and users. How are science, technology, and society related? 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. Technological determinism underestimates the diversity of forces that contribute to technological change. Roger Shinn, Forced Options: Social Decisions for the 21st Century, 3d ed. For instance, the spinning mule helped to break the power of labor unions among skilled textile workers in nineteenth-century England. Kinder, Gentler Colonialism: Bungling Billionaires and Their Arrogant Adventures in Saving the World, Decolonizing Black Womens Health Through Land Reparations. Paradoxically, as one continues to read, understanding decreases for some time until, in fact, the average reader misunderstands Ellul. Controversies developed about the relative size of front and rear wheels, seat location, air tires, brakes, and so forth. Ellul believed that Christians had a special duty to condemn the worship of technology, which has become societys new religion. Values are built into particular technological designs. <> He didnt come from French blue blood; he was a meteque.. In a world of limited resources, it also appears impossible for all nations to sustain the standards of living of industrial nations today, much less the higher standards that industrial nations expect in the future. But to them I offer the (sometimes barely discernible) message underlying all of Elluls work: Dont give up. An International Jacques Ellul Society is going strong, publishing The Ellul Forum and holding well-attended biannual conferences focusing on all aspects of Elluls work and their implications for contemporary society. Second, technological pessimists neglect possible avenues for the redirection of technology. 40. Technologies are not neutral because social goals and institutional interests are built into the technical designs that are chosen. A third group asserts that technology is ambiguous, its impacts varying according to the social context in which it is designed and used, because it is both a product and a source of economic and political power.4. 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. 10, ed. Because it explains the nightmarish hold technology has on every aspect of life, and also remains a guide to the perplexing determinism that technology imposes on life. 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. K. C. Smith (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1937). Cynthia Cockburn, The Material of Male Power, in The Social Shaping of Technology, ed. And since Ellul concedes that technique is, on some level, a natural human impulse, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the benign technique metastasizes into the civilization-devouring, hive-minded epidemic (something akin to the Star Trek Borg) he confronts in his book. The enemy is techniquea broad term Ellul uses to refer to the technological mentality and structure that he sees pervading not only industrial processes, but also all social, political, and economic life affected by them. 3. Darrell Fasching, The Dialectic of Apocalypse and Utopia in the Theological Ethics of Jacques Ellul, in Research in Philosophy and Technology, vol. Contextualism is most common among our third group, those who see technology as an ambiguous instrument of social power. What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. By the nineteenth (19th) century the bourgeoisie recognized technique as the key to their material and commercial interests. 28. However, he also believes that it is inevitable and irreversible, meaning that we cannot simply choose to go back to a pre-technological age. An excerpt from Norman Denny (New York: Harper & 1964), chaps. Facebooks mantra move fast and break things epitomizes the technological mindset. Whereas the first two groups give little emphasis to politics, the third, with which I agree, holds that conflicts concerning technology must be resolved primarily in the political arena. Kipnis claims that the person with technological knowledge-often has not only a potent instrument of control but also a self-image that assumes superiority over people who lack that knowledge and the concomitant opportunities to make decisions affecting their lives.28. Like cancer in a living organism, the systematization of technique pervades every cell of our modern technical and technological society. Of course, pollution abatement technologies can treat many of the effluents of industry, but often unexpected, indirect, or delayed consequences occur. Appropriate technology does not imply a return to primitive and prescientific methods; Father seeks to use the best science available toward goals different from those that have governed industrial production in the past. with Ellul on the rejection of technology's positivist . Technology influences human life but is itself part of a cultural system; it is an instrument of social power serving the purposes of those who control it. Two decades of bombing and sabotage ensued, culminating in the publication-by-extortion of Kaczynskis manifesto Industrial Society and Its Future, which contained clear echoes of Elluls themes. . 2. 18. Sojourners could readily devote an issue to himand did just . Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. 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. Some Third World authors have been beenly aware of technology as an instrument of power, and they portray a two-way interaction between technology and society across national boundaries. It is impossible to have confidence in men who apparently lack these faculties. STAS111 Chapters 6-8 Notes - STAS111 CHAPTERS 6- CHAPTER 6 - Studocu Technology assuredly fragments human communities, but in the world of technique centralization remains the norm. The optimists usually evaluate technology in a utilitarian framework, seeking to maximize the balance of costs over benefits. His subsequent books, especially The Political Illusion (1965) and Propaganda (1962), further develop and refine elements . 17. But the welfare of humankind requires a creative technology that is economically productive, ecologically sound, socially just, and personally fulfilling. Technology is finally thought of as the source of salvation, the agent of secularized redemption.29 In an affluent society, a legitimate concern for material progress readily becomes a frantic pursuit of comfort, a total dedication to self-gratification. 3. With electronic technologies (radio, television, computer networks, and so on), the speed, range, and scope of communication have vastly increased. Niebuhr holds that the majority of Christians are in three movements that fall between the extremes of accommodation and withdrawal. 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. A couple of years ago the big topic of handwringing was drones. Sometimes a technology was indeed based on recent scientific discoveries. 9. Technologies are social constructions, and they are seldom neutral because particular purposes are already built into their design. Human identity is defined by roles in organizations. Genuine community and interpersonal interaction are threatened when people feel like cogs in a well-oiled machine. As Ellul noted back in 1954, History shows that every technical application from its beginnings presents certain unforeseeable secondary effects which are more disastrous than the lack of the technique would have been.. Humanity will move beyond dependence on the organic world. 1. The place to begin, they say, is one's own life. The Human Person Flourishing Technology in Terms of Science - Quizlet Kipnis shows that military and transportation technologies fed the conviction of colonists that they were superior to colonized peoples. By autonomous, Ellul meant that technology had become a determining force that elicits and conditions social, political and economic change.. Four issues seem to me particularly important in analyzing the differences among the positions outlined above. 24 The political scientist Langdon Winner has given a sophisticated version of the argument that technology is an autonomous system that shapes all human . The dense and discursive work lays out in 500 pages how technique became for civilization what British colonialism was for parts of 19th-century Africa: a force of total domination. Such an obsession with things distorts our basic values as well as our relationships with other persons. Ellul didnt regard technology as inherently evil; he just recognized that it was a self-augmenting force that engineered the world on its terms. But some former Facebook executives such as Chamath Palihapitiya belatedly realized they have engineered a force beyond their control. Morning Bid: Another one bites the dust | Reuters There is a considerable range of views among contemporary Marxists. Elle s'auto-accrot en suivant sa propre logique. A third basic position holds that technology is neither inherently good nor inherently evil but is an ambiguous instrument of power whose consequences depend on its social context. Education Virtualization Prospects in Pessimistic Light of Thomas Derr, Conversations about Ultimate Matters: Theological Motifs in WCC Studies in the Technological Future, International Review of Missions 66 (1977): 12334. John Zerman and Alice Carnes. 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. Translation copyright c by David Lovekin and Carl Mitcham.). 2. The technologies needed there must be relatively inexpensive and labor-intensive. Receiving it in joy and love, and responding in obedience, we can cooperate in meaningful service of God and neighbor. Here was an inspiring vision of a planetary future in which technology and spiritual development would be linked together. To subscribe now, go here. Ellul calls for personal acts of auto-critique, humility and authentic liberty. Expertise serves the interests of organizations and only secondarily the welfare of people or the environment. 26. In replying to these authors, we may note first that there are great variations among technologies, which are ignored when they are lumped together and condemned wholesale. 42. Emanuel Mesthene, Technological Change: Its Impact on Man and Society (New York; New American Library, 1970). It embraces artificiality and seeks to replace all natural systems with engineered ones. 2. Some Christian groups are critical of the impact of technology on human life. 20. Computerized offices differ greatly from steel mills and auto assembly lines, even if they share some features in common. 39. His attempts at culture, freedom, and creative endeavour have become mere entries in techniques filing cabinet.. Micron case causing concern for US companies in China, business chamber This view tends to be more pessimistic about social change, but it does not advocate withdrawal from society. Both the linear and the determinist view imply that technology determines work organization. Technology, he wrote, cant put up with human values and must necessarily don mathematical vestments. The philosopher Hans Jonas is impressed by the new scale of technological power and its influence on events distant in time and place. We are impressed by Elluls critique, yet wish that he had developed more concrete alternatives. Certainly, anyone who has experienced a dramatic religious conversion (as Ellul did as a young man) is aware of the rapid and decisive reorienting of inner commitments that occurs as part of that process. See for example Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, vol. Like the sorcerer's apprentice who found the magic formula to make his broom carry water but did not know how to make it stop, we have set in motion forces that we cannot control. A series of six lectures to be delivered in academic session 20202021. Human ends are then adapted to suit the techniques available rather than the reverse. Our material wants have escalated and appear insatiable. Biotechnology, for example, depends directly on recent research in molecular biology. Again, technology may be considered an autonomous interlocking system, which develops by its own inherent logic, extended to the control of social institutions. For them the most important fount of participatory freedom are opportunities for participation in political processes and in work-related decisions. stream Ellul was a man who defied easy categorization: a legal scholar, sociologist, theologian, poet, historian, and philosopher (though he eschewed that label), his contribution to each of these genres was idiosyncratic. 10. However, some determinists retain great optimism about the consequences of technology. Technology has been celebrated as the source of material progress and human fulfillment. Technique is no longer some uncertain and incomplete intermediary between humanity and the natural milieu. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). Photo byJan van Boeckel, ReRun Productions, Creative Commons licensed (CC BY-SA 4.0). In this view, technologies develop from the push of science and the pull of economic profits. - According to Jacques Ellul's pessimistic arguments: a. We simply cannot sleep while there are masses to feed and diseases to conquer, seas to explore and heaving to servey.15. Ellul believed that the first act of freedom a citizen can exercise is to recognize the necessity of understanding technique and its colonizing powers. Children raised by screens and vaccinated only by technology will not have the capacity to resist, let alone understand, this world any more than someone born in space could appreciate what it means to walk in a forest. The youth counterculture of the 1970s was critical of technology and sought harmony with nature, intensity of personal experience, supportive communities, and alternative life-styles apart from the prevailing industrial order. 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. Economic Policy for Artificial Intelligence - Innovation Policy and the (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981). Arnold Pacey, Culture of Technology. But an ancillary development like power steering doesnt carry much discernible downside. 1). 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. This would give to the commercial sponsors of technology the choices that are ours as responsible citizens. We have seen that a few theologians are technological optimists, while others have adopted pessimistic positions. If one adopts Elluls worldview, it is almost more of a challenge to figure out what is not technique than what is. The worker's alienation was a central theme in the writing of Karl Marx. Others spend their entire professional lives in the technosphere of artifacts, machines, electronics, and computers, cut off from the world of nature. Andrew's latest book,Empire of the Beetle, a startling look at pine beetles and the worlds most powerful landscape, Tags: building resilient societies, fake news, techno-optimists, Technology, By Multiple organizations, 4Liberation.org. Technology may be defined as the application of organized knowledge to practical tasks by ordered systems of people and machines.5 There are several advantages to such a broad definition. The optimists are confident that technical solutions can be found for environmental problems. Like the authors in the previous group, those in this group are critical of many features of current technology. This emphasizes again that technique is really the Milieu in which modern humanity is placed. 19. . 11. The idea of effecting decentralization while maintaining technical progress is purely utopian, wrote Ellul. In The Humiliation of the Word, Ellul criticizes abusive scientism that pretends to be the whole truth by limiting and excluding everything that goes beyond it. Science, for Ellul, is a commendable human pursuit, but in the vacuum created by mysterys retreat it has taken on religious overtones. 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. The views expressed in the third section presuppose a social conflict model. His most influential sociological book with the English title, The Technological Society, was originally entitled in French, Technique, the Stake of the Century, for example. George Wise, Science and Technology. Osiris, 2d ser., 1 (1985): 22946. Pacey calls for greater public participation and a more democratic distribution of power in the decisions affecting technology. An isotope separator can enrich uranium for peaceful nuclear reactors or for aggression with nuclear weapons.

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