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TRANSLATOR's PREFACE the Area of Technique, Technology, and the Technological System Is One in Which Jacques Ellul Undoubtedly S

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TRANSLATOR's PREFACE the Area of Technique, Technology, and the Technological System Is One in Which Jacques Ellul Undoubtedly S TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE The area of technique, technology, and the technological system is one events may well be doubted, but in this regard Ellul has greater hopes, in which Jacques Ellul undoubtedly speaks with a prophetic voice. Already perhaps, from the New World than the Old. With the same sober optimism events have justified many of his earlier warnings or even shown them to be we present his exposure of the bluff to the English-speaking public. too restrained. In this latest work, which rests on solid research and covers a wide and varied range of topics, his message comes through with unusual Pasadena, Pentecost 1989 GEOFFREY W. BROMILEY urgency and force. He might be mistaken on some of the details but this ought not to blind us to the truth in the general thesis. Conversely, even if we find the thesis implausible, this ought not to prevent us from hearing the challenge of the details. As Ellul sees it, either technology as a whole or individual technologies are hurrying us into a situation of catastrophe. Lulled by the bluff of technological discourse, we sleepily fail to perceive the perils that confront us. Ellul's purpose, therefore, is to jolt us awake before we pass the point of no return. A special concern, perhaps, is to awaken the timid churches that are paralyzed by their fear of being derided as old-fashioned and outdated. Since most of the specific examples that Ellul adduces are taken from his native France, readers should be advised that in a few instances where explanatory footnotes might be needed the details have been omitted. The context will show what is meant in the case of some systems such as Minitel for which the United States has no existing equivalent yet. Established usage in English makes it difficult to retain the distinction that Ellul himself always makes and emphasizes between la technique (technique) and la technologie, (technology). It should be remembered, however, that in the title Ellul has the stricter sense in view, that is, technology as discourse, study, or system. The same applies, of course, to his discussion of technological terrorism. Whether the powerful tocsin of Ellul can arrest the march of ix FOREWORD xii FOREWORD On seeing the title of this book some people might exclaim: "What! appear finally in 1954. Today the wheel has turned full circle and there is a Another book on technology!" They would not be wrong. In 1950 I wrote a multiplicity of writings on the subject. Hardly a week passes without a work comprehensive study of "The Technical Society.” This was meant to be the coming out on these questions in France. title, but the publisher, a sociologist, would not let me use it, stating that he himself was writing a work with this title, although in fact he never finished it. Among such works I find three categories. First there are popular Hence my own book became La technique ou l'enjeu du siécle (1954; descriptive accounts of technique itself, usually of high quality, and dealing translated into English as The Technological Society). But at that time two with specific subjects such as the computer or the laser and their application important publishers had also rejected the manuscript on very similar (e.g., the computer in schools or offices). Then there are lighter works grounds. What kind of a subject was this? they asked. Whom did I expect to consisting of essays on modern society under the impact of techniques and interest in a subject that was no subject? Yet even at that time there were their rapid development (the consumer society, the computer society, the studies of the industrial mechanism (a model being the work of Georges wasteful society), the upshot being that as technique achieves domination the Friedmann) and literary works on society that carried references to technique society becomes one of networks rather than groups; we shall return to this (e.g., G. Duhamel's unjustly forgotten Les scènes de la vie future). There idea. Finally, there are philosophical works. Since Heidegger and Habermas were also works (e.g., Huxley's Brave New World) at a level much higher than technique has become a primary theme in philosophy. Many philosophers the dreadful and stupid books and films, no less vulgar than misleading, that are trying to understand the phenomenon (e.g., Cérézuelle, Janicaud, go by the name "science fiction.” But there was nothing on technique itself, or Neirynck, Hottois) or to see what its influence is on the world (e.g., on the society about to be assimilated by it.1 My book needed the influence of Baudrillard, Morin, Brun). I refer only to books in French! Thus some think M. Duverger with a fourth publisher to that this book of mine cannot hope to say anything new. Nevertheless, I see some important things that have not yet been brought to light. I am not going to repeat what I said in my two earlier works.2 But I will obviously begin with the conclusions I then reached and the phenomena I discerned. Only a few weeks ago an American sociologist told me how very relevant my first work on the subject still is. With no false modesty I can say that social, economic, and technical developments have confirmed in its entirety what I said thirty years ago. I have no need to correct or modify anything. Unfortunately, these analyses have been largely ignored in France, due to labeling. When my first book came out it was described as anti-technique, as hostile to progress, as reactionary. There was thus no point in reading my other books; their contents were known in advance. The Protestant world in particular has paid no attention to what I have written in xi this area. The label adequately described the product. It is true that many writers, without knowing their origin, have used analyses and conclusions of mine that have passed into common discourse (e.g., the neutrality of technique, or the ineluctable character of its development that escapes our grasp, or its universality). But the label remains. Although I was never 1 In this book we shall retain the distinction in French between la technique, which against technique, and stated expressly that this would be absurd, and that I Ellul defines as "the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute did not want a return to the Middle Ages, the label resulted from the rigor of efficiency in every field of human activity," and la technologie, which is the study of technique. As in The Technological Society (for the most part, except for the my analysis, which gave to readers with a serene and superficial title!), we shall translate the former as "technique" and the latter as "technology.” For Ellul's elaboration of this distinction, see, e.g., The Technological Society, tr. John Wilkinson (New York: Knopf, 1964), pp. xxv-xxvi; idem, Perspectives on Our Age, ed. William H. Vanderburg, tr. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Seabury, 2 The Technological Society and The Technological System, tr. Joachim 1981), pp. 32-33.-TRANS. Neugroschel (New York: Continuum, 1980). FOREWORD xiii xiv FOREWORD view of technique the impression of being in the presence of a strange, two who are not. But people did not read the warning, and the book found its aggressive, and constrictive world. Obviously, someone who wrote in this way onto library shelves and among the quiet studies of slightly outdated way had to be an enemy of technique. They preferred the soothing language intellectuals. The only ones to take it seriously belonged to a society in which of advertising which argues that technique brings freedom. it was already too late to do anything--the USA. There both intellectuals and the public at large seized on my book because it described exactly what they A recent example of the game of labeling, which leads to two false were already experimenting with and experiencing. It helped them to conclusions, may be found in a work by A. Bressand and C. Distler3 who say understand what had taken place and how they had reached the point they that those who are most opposed to technology are now reexamining it. Thus had. But the book had only retrospective interest. In France people Ellul now grants it the benefit of ambivalence. (A first mistake here is that I dismissed my expositions as the reveries of a solitary walker who prefers the already granted it ambivalence in 1950, and this had nothing whatever to do country to the town. No one had any idea that it might change the course of with the fact that it offers us very useful and satisfying products, which I have things. I had indeed dreamed of another possible development. I wanted to never denied.) The first false conclusion is that of opposition to technique. play a role that no one had assigned to me, that of a watchman. But no one That is just as absurd as opposition to an avalanche or to cancer. It is listened to me and the result was inevitable. My main purpose today, then, is childish to say that someone is against technique. The second false not quite the same. I am now looking at the point which we have reached conclusion concerns my work Changer de révolution, which the authors quote today. but totally misunderstand. They say that I changed my view of technique because some new techniques serve the cause of decentralization and offer There is a story behind this book. My first intention, stated at the end of more free time.
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