Jacques Ellul and Technology: What We Can Learn

JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, Papers 102, December 1991

JACQUES ELLUL AND TECHNO LOGY: WHAT WE CAN LEARN

JEFF CAYZER

St Marys District Baptist Church, Sydney

ELLUL AND HIS THOUGHT ON TE CHNOWG Y AND TECHNIQUE

Jacques Ellul (born 1912) has been a most important commentator on the twentieth century scene. A former professor of the history and sociology of institutions at Bordeaux, and a native of that city, Ellul has been an active Christian layman since his conversion as a young student. Dismissed from his post as professor of law at Strasbourg by the Vichy government he entered local politics after the war hoping to have a Christian influence.

Although he rose to the post of deputy mayor of Bordeaux, he left politics disillusioned with the possibility of making radical social changes from such a position. Thereafter, until his retirement, he propagated his ideas using the academic world as his base. He has continued a prolific literary output in retirement.

Ellul has written some fifty books and many articles. His thoughtranges over a wide spectrum ofissues, but may perhaps be summarised as dealing with history, especially of institutions, sociology and social criticism and ethics. Some of his works on these areas have taken the form of stimulating and original Bible studies. l\Iuch of his writing has become available in English translation. Ellul's thought has generated numerous doctoral dissertations, principally in North America, and has been the subject of an extensive secondary literature.

In a brief article it is possible to give only a short outline of one important segment of his work and to point to its usefulness and suggestiveness for Christians as they consider the effects and implications on society of the use of technology. Ellul uses a dialectic approach. This emerges notably in that he does not accept uncritically the jargon and methodology of any one discipline. Speaking as a sociologist, he criticises the methods used by his colleagues to reach their conclusions. On biblical matters he feels free to abandon much of the modern critical approach and use the text as it stands. He aims at going beyond the received ideas and methods to get at the truth.

JEFF CAYZER

Ellul has a particular word, technique (Ia technique in French), to which he gives his own meaning. Nevertheless, he is wary of being too concrete in definition.

It seems that at the beginning the word technique designates, in accordance with its etymology, a certain way of doing things, a procedure or collection of procedures.'

So, for example, you may speak of a painter's particular technique, but then the idea moves quickly across to the procedures for constructing and using machines. 2 Robert Nisbet summarises Ellul's idea of technique as covering "the whole vast network of rules, regulations, ordinances and administrative decrees in modern society, with technology as such hardly mentioned".3

Technique is first the ensemble of the methods used to achieve mastery over the world. Second, technique acquires a life of its own, becomes a master, and once introduced it takes over from humans. It is like the evil genie released from the lamp in Arabian tales or the broom that divides itself uncontrollably into more brooms, all of which continue inexorably with the task of filling the tub in the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Third, technique is "self-directing, being guided by the single criterion of efficiency. Human choice has therefore little to do with technique, since technique prescribes always the one best or most efficient way in all things." ' Fourth, "techniques in different fields of necessity become linked together: economic techniques require political techniques, which in turn require propaganda techniques, and so on." ' Ellul criticises technique because it is autonomous. It sets up its own self-generating system and is responsible to nobody and to no corrective outside itself.'

Three particularlyimportant books on technique stand out among Ellul's writings. The first is La Technique ou l'enjeu du sie which was published in 1954 and translated into English in a revised edition in 1964 with the title The Technological Society. 7 The second is Le Systeme technicien (1977), translated into English as The Technological System (1980). 8 The third is Le Bluff technologique (1987), English translation The Technological Bluff (1990).

In the latest of these books, The Technological Bluff, Ellul asserts, inter alia, that technical progress is ambivalent. He uses a series of four propositions which I will describe because they introduce some of his main ideas. I will not always use his examples, since the aim is not to give a book precis or review, but to provide examples that illustrate his points.

First, all technical progress has its price. Witness the ugliness of many cities, says Ellul. As we think of cities, we might also reflect on the indirect effects of urbanisation today, as people stream from rural areas, put out of work by mechanisation or by government economic decisions that ignore or devalue rural life, or otherwise make traditional country living undesirable (see Ellul's biblical study, The Meaning ofthe City). There is an arm of modern missiological thought based around the study of the modern megacity, its nature and needs, and how Christians might bestrespond.

Of course, continues Ellul, the many discoveries of modern science have helped prolong our lives and that must be good. But is it? People who previously would have died from illness now lead lives in a twilight zone of indifferent health and are a drain on medical and welfare services. A large and ageing population adds to the draining effect. We now also have less sensitivity to sentiments like grief, fatigue and privation.'0 I could multiply the examples but they are enough to make me ponder the effects of interfering with existing processes. The motto of technique is: If we can do it, then why not do it? Ellul wishes us to pause before we continue such apath.

Second, at each stage, technicalprogress raises more and greater problems than it solves. There is a profound and widespread belief in developed 11 countries, says Ellul, that everything is ultimately a technical problem. "Everyproblem - social, political, human, or economic - must be analysed in such a way that it becomes a technical problem. Technique is then a perfectly adequate means to solve it." " For example, better medicine and food production means an increase in population, which in turn puts a strain on those same medical and food production resources. But not only on food production. Food distribution is also important. "Direct food aid to Third World countries is ultimately disastrous in most cases, since the products compete with local products and bring ruin to Third World farmers." 13 Whatever we might think of the examples .adduced by Ellul, we should consider first whether his basic .case'holds, and orily then whether his examples support it, or whether other, better examples might be found to underpin a case with which we fundamentally agree.

If we agree that improvements in food and medical technology have produced a birthrate that is too high, on what ethical base can it be lowered? Ellul points out that, of all the political alternatives, dictatorships have the best success rate in stopping undesirable social trends. Do we want dictators introducing compulsory sterilisation or other measures? These are the extremes to which we can be led if we put an uncritical trust in technique.

Third, the harmful effects of technical progress are inseparable from its beneficial effects. "One of the great weaknesses of those who separate the good results of

JEFF CAYZER

technique from the bad is that they constantly think of people as wise, reasonable, in control of their desires and instincts, serious, and moral. Thus far experience has not shown that the growth of technical powers has made us more virtuous." 14 This is a major problem: we are not in control of ourselves, so how can we control technique? Or, to resume an earlier analogy, the sorcerer's apprentice must first achieve understanding and mastery over his own inner self and life before he can hope to exercise power over the broom.

A second major problem flows from the first: we cannot control technique so that it will have only good, not bad, effects. Examples may be multiplied. Think for instance about specialisation. Now apply this to the various specialist departments working on the planning of a modern suburb. It is difficult to plan, to think of all the needs and possible outcomes of chains of events and their effects on other aspects of the area. Ask a resident for anecdotal evidence of lack of consultation or of an overall plan. Residents are frustrated by poor shopping and recreational facilities, isolated by lack oftransport, and threatened by the social dislocation that puts many young unemployed people together in an isolated area. Yet the positive outcome is that people are housed, so governments go on planning new suburban areas with no real fore-sight, depending on specialists \Vho operate largely independently of each other.

Fourth, technicalprogress has many unforeseen effects. The medicine that cures your ailment may provoke or aggravate another. Ellul reminds us of the awful thalidomide case. He then devotes an entire chapter to the issue of unpredictability.

The basis for the kinds of problems outlined above and many others, says Ellul, is in the ideologies of science. He believes that the collective conviction of our age has been that rationality is the path ofprogress and that progress willineluctably translate into human happiness.15 There have been other voices crying in the wilderness against this assumption but they have been marginalised as artistic aberrations, e.g., surrealism and cubism or have lost momentum or credibility for one reason or another, e.g., the hippie movement.

However, the events of World War II and its aftermath have caused some scientists to reconsider the ideal of a pure search after truth. Events such as the Nazi medical experiments on prisoners and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bomb have caused a re-evaluation. But this re-evaluation has not been total. It has produced a somewhat mid-course correction, so that "there is thus spreading abroad the consoling conviction that everything depends upon the way in which we use science." 16

So science has rallied from its crisis of conscience following World War II. A new pragmatic definition has helped in this comeback. Now science has been pressed into service to help the world recover from its economic ills. Science no longer has to be used to disprove God; it now has economics as its greatest ally. There is no other hope than science to help the economies of nations to recover. Again, God is left out of the picture. Having usurped God's role as creator, science now takes over his role as saviour.

APPLI CATI ONS AND 11\IPLI CATI ONS FO R TO DA Y

Many questions are raised by Ellul's provocative interpretations of the modern world. At the simplest level, we need to ask whether his fundamental theses are correct. For example, is technique inexorable in its advance? Can its positive effects be separated from the negative?

If we are happy with Ellul's statements on areas such as these, we can move to such questions as: What intrinsic attitude to the world in general and to humanity in particular is betrayed by our adoption of technique? As Christians, we will be unimpressed with a view of humanity that debases peopleand makes them subservient to machines or that effectively makes the multi-faceted wonder of human nature subordinate to an undefined, unproven ideal of progress. We will be disturbed that technique has become another god, a self-driving, self-perpetuating force that purports to be good and yet brings great suffering with it. We will not be happy that technique has no achievable goal for the majority of humanity.

In the West we give up one form of technology because it has been found to have harmful side-effects but then the two-thirds world " is ready to adopt the same technology. Their leaders then cry "unfair" because we have risen a step higher on the back of this discarded technology before they have even had a chance to catch up to our previous position.

Technique is based on unexamined economic presuppositions. The poor are defined as those who lack our techniques.18 They are not defined by their own hopes and aspirations but by ours which we impose on them. If we believe that God created a diverse world, where is the room for diversity when the Western view of progress is imposed on all?

It is a cliche that spiritual values are lacking in the West. As Christians we can hardly assume that the existing spiritual values of many non-Western countries, whether we agree with them or not, are best replaced by a spiritual void which we sometimes call materialism but which the Bible calls idolatry. Can we offer them a new form of idolatry to replace the old and then say that they have made progress?

JEFF CAYZER

The problems of the two-thirds world are not necessarily best assessed or solved by a mind trained in Westernpragmatism. Yet we have successfully sold our attitudes to them so that manyleaders oftheir countries can imagine only aWestern-like future.

Can the world be held together when technique drives the agenda? If we agree with Ellul, to what extent can we Christians continue to go along with a world order that leaves God out and replaces him with a parody, with a god created by our own cleverness, that is then unleashed to rage like a plague out of control?

What ought and what can we do? " What is the role of prayer? Should we admit at last that we cannot solve the mess we have created and ask for divine wisdom, if not intervention? 20

ENDNOTES

1. Le System technicien, p. 32 (my translation).

2. ibid.

3. Robert Nisbet in the Introduction to C. G. Christians and J. l\1. van Hook (eds), Jacques Ellul, Jntetpretative Essays, Champaigne, Ill, p. vii. This useful book contains a bibliography of works by and about Ellul.

4. C. George Benello, "Technology and Power: Technique as a Mode of Understanding l\lodernity", in Christians and van Hook, p. 91.

5. ibid.

6. Benello devotes some space to an examination of Ellul's ideas on the autonomy of technique (pp. 93-97). He argues that technological possibility alone does not account for such e\ents as the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan; power-political imperatives must also be taken into consideration (p. 97).

7. La Technique ou l'enjeu dusiecie, Paris: Armand Colin, 1954. English Translation: The Technological Society, New York: Knopf, re\. ed. 1964.

8. Sansfeu ni lieu, Paris: Gallimard, 1975. English Translation: The Meaning ofthe City, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.

9. Le Systeme technicien, Paris: Calmann-Lvy, 1977. English Translation: The TechnologicalBluff, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990 It will be obYious that there is some possible confusion between the terms techniqueand technology in the translations of Ellul's works. One of hismajor translators, Geoffrey Bromiley, points out that "established usage in English makes it difficult to retain the distinction that Ellulhimself al\\ays makes and emphasisesbetween Iatechnique (technique) and Ia lechnologie (technology)" (The Technological Bluff, p. ix). The interested reader is referred to Ellul's works to gain a "feel" for the terms.

10. The Technological Bluff, p. 44.

11. See the important article on Development, in seven chapters, by Wolfgang Sachs in The New Internationalist (June, 1992). In Chapter 1 (pp. 4-6), Sachs argues that the concept of developed versus underde\eloped countries is an invention of the so-called developed nations. Chapter 3 (pp. 12-14): "Technology as a Trojan Horse" gives a very readable and provocative introduction to some questions raised by Ellul.

12. ibid., p. 48.

13. ibid., p. 53.

14. ibid., pp. 55-56.

ELLUL AND TECHNOLOGY

15. The Technical Bluff, p. 175.

16. ibid., p. 178.

17. Notethe trouble wehave with givingthema label: third-world, underdeveloped, developing - all these say more about our attitude than about their reality.

18 See Sachs, pp. 7-9.

19. Such a question as this in itself poses a dilemma. We have got oursehes into this mess, says Ellul, by doing what we can do. Our agenda should start with the questions of necessities and obligations before it moves onto the question of possibilities.

20. Ellul has written numerous articles in various journals. The journal Foi et vie has been a forum for many of his ideas. Other useful references not cited above include: J. M. Hanks and R. Asal, JE: A Comprehensive Bibliography, Greenwich, CT and London, 1984; B. Kristensen, "Jacques Ellul," Christian Graduate, 29:4, (1976), pp. 106-110; Douglas Sturm, "Jacques Ellul" in A Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Martin E. 1\larty and Dean G. Peerman, second, enlarged edition. Nashville: Abingdon, 1984, pp. 561-582.