In the past, technological decisions have usually been governed by narrowly economic criteria, to the neglect of environmental and human costs. New techniques for teaching, selling things or organizing political parties also required propaganda. Technological Pessimism holds that technology is progressive and beneficial in many ways, it is also doubtful in many ways. Different individuals and groups may define a problem differently and may have diverse criteria of success. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). This does not mean opting out of the use of technology. 2. They claim that any problems created by technology are themselves amenable to technological solutions. Founded in 1957 by the great Russell Kirk, Modern Age is the forum for stimulating debate and discussion of the most important ideas of concern to conservatives of all stripes. Traditional Western ethics have been anthropocentric and have considered only short-range consequences. Individuality is lost and local or regional differences are obliterated in the homogeneity of industrialization. In part 2 we will encounter optimistic forecasts of each of the particular technologies examined. Automation, for example, is capital-intensive and labor saving. Rational order is everywhere imposed at the expense of spontaneity and freedom. In addition, the bicycle carried cultural meanings, affecting a person's self-image and social status. 16. Defenders of technology point out that four kinds of benefits can be distinguished if one looks at its recent history and considers its future: 1. by James Fowler In many respects technology has hypernormalized a technological society in which citizens exercise less and less control over their lives every day and cant imagine anything different. Quite the contrary, says Ellul, technique enslaves people, while proffering them the mere illusion of freedom, all the while tyrannically conforming them to the demands of the technological society with its complex of artificial operational objectives., ___________________________________________________________, ____________________________________________________________, Technique, for Ellul, is a FORCE over society that controls people, and not merely a FUNCTION of what people in a society use to control things. Ted Lewis, Elluls Lectures on Planning and Forecasting, Excerpts from Presence in the Modern World Communication, Technological Society Excerpt for Spring 2023. A Synopsis and Analysis of the Thought and Writings of Jacques Ellul 36. From the Princeton University Anthropology news, Based on his 2017 Gifford Lectures, David Novaks Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, an, Born in 1955 in Australia, Peter Harrison is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the In, Over 100 years of lectures on natural theology, Professor David N. Hempton to Deliver the 202021 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Differing models of social change are implied in the three positions. Wise, Science and Technology. For most of them, the most important form of participatory freedom is the economic freedom of the marketplace, though in general they are also committed to political democracy. These new media offer the possibility of instant worldwide communication, greater interaction, understanding, and mutual appreciation in the global village. It has been suggested that by dialing coded numbers on telephones hooked into computer networks, citizens could participate in an instant referendum on political issues. However, in the present situation its the only vehicle with which to fight against an authority which is extending itself into all sectors of society. Social media, a web of behavioural and psychological systems, is just the latestexampleof convergence. 25. Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, trans. He insists that the critics have romanticized the life of earlier centuries and rural societies. Clearly they blame capitalism rather than technology for these evils of modern industrialism. The work week has been cut in half, and human wants have been dramatically fulfilled.7Emanuel Mesthene, former director of the Harvard Program in Technology and Society, grants that every technology brings risks as well as benefits, but he says that our task is the rational management of risk. William Pickets (San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1977). Emanuel Mesthene, Technological Change: Its Impact on Man and Society (New York; New American Library, 1970). Norman Faramelli, Technethics (New York: Friendship Press, 1971). ), His was largely an interior disposition, yet he lived in an era that demanded action. 21. For such people, Elluls recommendation will ring true and is perhaps all that is needed. As Ellul argues, technique has taken on a mind of its own; it is autonomous. Technique, he writes, is capable of self-generation. For Teilhard eschatological hope looks not to an intervention discontinuous from history, but to the fulfillment of a continuing process to which our own actions contribute. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). Melvin Kranzberg, Technology the Liberator. in Technology at the Turning Point, ed. Social and political forces affect the design as well as the uses of particular to technologies. Stalin and Mao would be impressed or perhaps disappointed that so much social control could be exercised with such sophistication and so little bloodletting. In Memoriam: John D. Barrow. . Contemporary technology is so tightly tied to industry, government, and the structures of economic power that changes in direction will be difficult to achieve. On the other hand, pessimists do not necessarily accept determinism, even in its weaker form. Paul Durbin (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1987), and A Christian Philosophical Perspective on Technology, in Theology and Technology, ed. Technique has taken substance, wrote Ellul, and it has become a reality in itself. Mitcham and Grote. This position holds that social change (including the redirection of technology) is possible, but it is difficult because of the structures of group self-interest and institutional power. Ellul's own comprehensive definition is found in the preface of The Technological Society: "Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity." According to Ellul, technique necessarily came into play at the Fall of man into sin. Social and geographical mobility allow a greater choice of jobs and locations. Harvey Cox, The Secular City (New York: Macmillan. In the case of energy, it is claimed that breeder reactors and fusion will provide environmentally benign power to replace fossil fuels. They would tend to side with our sec-and group, the critics of technology. First, in . Carl Mitcham and Jim Grote (New York: University Press of America, 1984). In this new society, according to the sociologist Daniel Bell, power will be based on knowledge rather than property. Families break down. I believe that we should neither accept uncritically the past directions of technological development nor reject technology in toto but redirect it toward the realization of human and environmental values. He thinks that both the optimists and the pessimists have neglected the diversity among different technologies and the potential role of political structures in reformulating policies. Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) French philosopher; Holds that technology is progressive and beneficial in many ways, it is also doubtful in many ways. Western thought since the Renaissance has increasingly encouraged man the master of nature; secular and reductionistic assumptions have prevailed. But those with power seldom use it rationally and objectively when their own interests are at slake. Technology, the source of the problem, will once again prove to contain within itself the germs of a solution compatible with the betterment of man's lot and dignity. Nineteenth-century factories and twentieth-century assembly lines did involve dirty and monotonous work, but the newer technologies allow greater creativity and individuality.8, A postindustrial society, it is said, is already beginning to emerge. 1965), and The Responsibility of the Christian in a World of Technology, in Science and Religion, ed. Industrial technology was developed when capital and resources were abundant, and we continue to assume these conditions. Almost entirely absent from these discussions is any mention of Jacques Ellul, once regarded alongside Lewis Mumford as one of the worlds foremost critics of unchecked technological development. But his confidence really lay in the unity, convergence, and ascent of the cosmic process of which humanity and technology are manifestations. Facebooks mantra move fast and break things epitomizes the technological mindset. This essay appears in the Summer 2019 issue of Modern Age. Gabriel Marcel, The Sacred in the Technological Age, Theology Today 19 (1962): 2738. Since then it has engulfed Western civilization and become the globes greatest colonizing force. Borgmann thinks that some large-scale capital-intensive industry is needed (especially in transportation and communication), but he urges the development of small-scale labor-intensive, locally owned enterprises (in arts and crafts, health care, and education, for example). 49. The philosopher Hans Jonas is impressed by the new scale of technological power and its influence on events distant in time and place. The French critic was the first to note that technologies build upon each other and therefore centralize power and control. The worker becomes the servant of the machine, adjusting to its schedule and tempo, adapting to its requirements. ^l)|{-13;+-n{x'J?ouGD O Zc +Sio&xA6|rJ O!&sk+G4R&K Ferr, Philosophy of Technology, p. 44. Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit from Each Other, in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, ed. People have much greater freedom in technological societies. An excerpt from I am concerned only with knowing whether things are so or not.. Western religious traditions have often drawn a sharp line between humanity and other creatures (see chapter 3). It has a single role: to strip off externals, to bring everything to light, and by rational use to transform everything into means. 2. We are even denied a human culprit. This is close to the definition given by Arnold Pacey in The Culture of Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), p. 6. Intermediate-scale technology allows decentralization and greater local participation in decisions The decentralization of production also allows greater use of local materials and often a reduction of impact on the environment. Technique became the defining force, the ultimate value, of a new social order in which efficiency was no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity. Meaningful work roles exist for only a small number of people in industrial societies today. The impact of technology sin society is particularly important in the transfer of a technology to a new cultural setting in a developing country. Studs Terkel, Working (New York: Pantheon. Computerized offices differ greatly from steel mills and auto assembly lines, even if they share some features in common. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). The standard of living of low-income families in industrial societies has doubled in a generation, even though relative incomes have changed little. 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. His works on sociology and theologywhich earned him some acclaim in English-speaking countrieswent largely unread in his native France. Gendron maintains that in a truly democratic socialism, technology would be humane and work would not be alienating.37 Most commentators hold that the demise of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was a product of both its economic inefficiency and its political repression. But to become a mass man entails a tremendous amount of psychic mutation. The workers, not the technologists, are the agents of liberation. Freedom understood individualistically became license for the economically powerful. In the previous volume, I discussed the social construction of science thesis, in which it is argued that not only the direction of scientific development but also the concepts and theories of science are determined by cultural assumption and interests. Thomas Misa, How Machines Make History, and How Historians (and Others) Help Them Do So, Science, Technology & Human Values 13 (1988): 30831. Comparing his ideas with the thoughts of other anti-technicists and technicists, we confirm . And a whole new arsenal of human techniquestherapy, pharmaceuticals, mass mediaemerges to help us adjust to our ever-increasing dislocation. 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. It plays a vital role in these contentious, confusing times by applying timeless principles to the specific conditions and crises of our ageto what Kirk, in the inaugural issue, called the great moral and social and political and economic and literary questions of the hour.. The experience of working in the heart of bureaucracy put Ellul off politicsat least in a public sensefor the rest of his life. On the other side, technique constitutes a system in the strict sense of the term (cf. The research material is based on the ideas of the French respective philosopher Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), who in the Russian encyclopedic literature is positioned primarily asa philosopher and. To Ellul, freedom is only possible when one submits wholly to the will of God, which one does by embracing Christian revelation. Norman Faramelli, Technethics (New York: Friendship Press, 1971). They are capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive, and they add to unemployment in many parts of the world. The Amish for example, have resolutely turned their backs on radios, television, and even automobiles. Large-scale systems are usually more efficient than small-scale ones. John W. Staudenmaier, Technologys Storytellers (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 16. Pace adds living things among the ordered systems (in order to include agriculture, medicine, and biotechnology), but I suggest that these are already included under the rubric of practical tasks. Frederick Ferr. Ellul believed that the first act of freedom a citizen can exercise is to recognize the necessity of understanding technique and its colonizing powers. 4 0 obj 2. Elluls own comprehensive definition is found in the preface of The Technological Society: Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity., According to Ellul, technique necessarily came into play at the Fall of man into sin. But, of course, life doesnt work this way: not all technologies are created equal. The views expressed in the third section presuppose a social conflict model. It is on technique that all other factors depend. pGBBB5afr 25Y) diEu2. Though influenced by Marx, Ellul looked to technique rather than forces of production or class struggle as his key to understanding modern society. Atdtudes of power and domination are incompatible with the humility and reverence that prayer requires.33. It is no longer merely a means and an intermediary. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & 1964), chaps. Resilience is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities. Improved Communications. A liberated technology could do much to heal the brokenness of nature and society. Teilhard affirmed the value of secular life in the world and the importance of human efforts in building the earth as we cooperate in the creative work of God. But technology directed to genuine human needs is a legitimate expression of humankind's creative capacities and an essential contribution to its welfare. Unrelieved pessimism undercuts human action and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is something satisfying in the way Ellul presents his assertion like a mathematical formula. Samuel Florman, Science for Public Consumption; More Than We Can Chew? Technology Review 86 (April 1983): 1213. Human ends are then adapted to suit the techniques available rather than the reverse. He was writing before the destructive environmental impacts of technology were evident. Like cancer in a living organism, the systematization of technique pervades every cell of our modern technical and technological society. The technical elite likewise serves the profits of the owners. Darrell Fasching, The Dialectic of Apocalypse and Utopia in the Theological Ethics of Jacques Ellul, in Research in Philosophy and Technology, vol. As summarized by the authors of Understanding Jacques Ellul: Christians are called to exercise what freedom they have by profaning technologydeconstructing its soteriological mythsand refusing to submit to technological necessity. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. 30. Again, technology may be considered an autonomous interlocking system, which develops by its own inherent logic, extended to the control of social institutions. Government intervention is needed only to regulate the most harmful impacts. Until the 18th century, technical progress occurred slowly and with restraint. J. Wilkinson (New York: Knopf, 1964); also The Technological System, trans. The villain is technique itself. % Of course, pollution abatement technologies can treat many of the effluents of industry, but often unexpected, indirect, or delayed consequences occur. 13. Their proliferation combined with our growing dependence on their services inevitably led to an erosion of human freedom and unintended consequences in every sphere of life. Leaders from a top U.S. business lobbying group said on Wednesday that Beijing's probe against U.S.-based chipmaker Micron Technology Inc marked a "major concern" for other companies operating in . (I can safely state. Elle uniformise les civilisations. Technolological determinists will be pessimists if they hold that the consequences of technology are on balance socially and environmentally harmful Moreover, any from of determinism implies a limitation of human freedom and technological choice. 20. We must do so, first, as the name of compassion. 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). Mental illness reaches epidemic levels. Jacque Ellul's The Technological Society, originally published in 1954, has become a footnote to one of the stranger events in U.S. history. The case for the social construction of technology seems to me much stronger. It is only in the process of giving ones mind and soul to Christ, according to Ellul, that one is set free from the false gods of the material worldand this includes the god of technique. As cocreators with God we can celebrate the contribution of reason to the enrichment of human life.17 Other theologians have affirmed technology as an instrument of love and compassion in relieving human sufferinga modern response to the biblical command to feed the hungry and help the neighbor in need. The problem, however, is much graver, and it is telling that most of the backlash stories invariably omit any mention of technologys greatest critic, Jacques Ellul. 2. 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. At the opposite extreme, Niebuhr describes Christian groups advocating withdrawal from society. Most technologies are designed by men and add to the power of men. But relative inequalities have increased, so that class distinctions and poverty amidst luxury remain. We will have total power over matter, reconstructing the very stuff of the universe. He looked to a day of interplanetary travel and the unification of our own planet, based on intellectual and cultural interaction.18. 1. The rich are usually more anxious about their future than the poor. Technology can contribute to the enrichment of human life and the flowering of creativity. They swore that social media would help citizens fight bad governments and would connect all of us. Queen Elizabeths death inaugurates an uncertain new era. It does systematically impose distinctive forms on all areas of life, but these can be modified through political processes. Hans Jonas (1979 [1984]) has argued that technology requires an ethics in which responsibility is the central imperative because for the first time in history we are able to destroy the earth and humanity. Technological change has its own momentum, and its pace is too rapid for trial-and-error readjustments. He was a onetime politician who largely disdained politics and did not vote; a hero of the World War II French Resistance who refused in his writings to side with the flawed democracies of his day over the totalitarian regimes that menaced them; an ardent admirer of Marx who had few kind words for socialism or Communism and spent most of his adult life witnessing to a very un-Marxist Christian faith. See also The Place of Technology in a General Biology of Mankind, and On Looking at a Cyclotron, in The Activation of Energy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). He was created for a living environment, but he dwells in a lunar world of stone, cement, asphalt, glass, cast iron, and steel. Without shame, technical wonks now talk of building artificial scientists to resolve climate change, poverty and, yes, even fake news. What is required is thus a global change in our habits or values, the rediscovery of either an existential ethics or a new ontology. 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. Florman, Blaming Technology, p. 183. 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.. The means of production were controlled by a small group within the Communist party, not by the workers. This third position seems to me more consistent with the biblical outlook than either of the alternatives. Membership is free. He has won seven National Magazine Awards for his journalism since 1989 and top honours for investigative writing from the Association of Canadian Journalists. Ian G. Barbour (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). 9. We should rely on the recommendations of experts on such matters.14 Florman extols the unquenchable spirit and irrepressible human will evident in technology: For all our apprehensions, we have no choice but to press ahead. 32. As Frederick Ferr puts it, science and technology in the modern world are both products of the combination of theoretical and practical intelligence, and neither gave birth to the other.44 Technology has its own distinctive problems and builds up its own knowledge base and professional community, though it often uses science as a resource to draw on. But to them I offer the (sometimes barely discernible) message underlying all of Elluls work: Dont give up. But it does not seem to be working out that way. The contextualists reply that the design of a technology is itself affected by social relations. Strong gender divisions are present among employees of technology-related companies. 41. 27. 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. A new technology may displace some workers but it also creates new jobs. Birth control techniques, for example, allow a couple to choose the size and timing of their family. 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. Technological Determinism. Like the authors in the previous group, those in this group are critical of many features of current technology. They would side with our first group, those who are optimistic about technology. The allocation of more than two-thirds of the U.S. federal research and development budget to military purposes has diverted expertise from environmental problems and urgent human needs, Technology also seems to have contributed to the impoverishment of human relationships and a loss of community. By that I mean that hope is transmissible, even without reference to a given God.. Without experimentation and change our existence would be a dull business. It remains to be seen whether any distinctive legacy from Marxism will remain there after the economic and political turmoil of the early nineties.

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