The future (and the now) according to Jacques Ellul: Determinism or mindful?

ThisarticleappearedinajournalpublishedbyElsevier.Theattached copyisfurnishedtotheauthorforinternalnon-commercialresearch andeducationuse,includingforinstructionattheauthorsinstitution andsharingwithcolleagues.

Otheruses,includingreproductionanddistribution,orsellingor licensingcopies,orpostingtopersonal,institutionalorthirdparty websitesareprohibited.

Inmostcasesauthorsarepermittedtoposttheirversionofthe article(e.g.inWordorTexform)totheirpersonalwebsiteor institutionalrepository.Authorsrequiringfurtherinformation regardingElsevier’sarchivingandmanuscriptpoliciesare encouragedtovisit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Futures

jou r nal h o mep ag e: w ww .elsevier .co m /loc ate/fu tu r es

The future (and the now) according to Jacques Ellul: Deterministic or mindful?

W. David Holford * , Anne-Laure Saives

Department of Management and Technology, School of Management, University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), P.O. Box 8888, Downtown Station, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada

Article history:

Available online 29 November 2012

Keywords: La technique

Determinism

Mindfulness

Dialectics

Dynamic essentialism

1. Introduction

Across a point–counterpoint interpretation, we argue that Ellul’s thesis of the technological society is perhaps not as deterministic or fatalistic as some of his critics may claim. At once, divergent and similar to Touraine’s more optimistic message of the transformative subject, Ellul proposes a dialectical approach, which in many ways reminds us of Weick’s own call towards mindfulness. It is a way forward for mankind that is far from easy: one that involves self-critique, humility and overcoming our passions of greed, coercive power as well as our fear of authentic freedom.

2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Jacques Ellul is perhaps best known for his critique of la technique (which not only encompasses the technological, but also all technical aspects of disciplines, activities and interactions embedded within all spheres of society). Author of close to sixty books and countless articles, one of his over-arching themes has been the threat to human freedom posed by la socie´te ´ technicienne In his seminal book, La Technique: L’enjeux du Sie`cle, he argues how the emergence of a ‘‘technical tyranny’’ has overtaken all of humanity [1]. A good deal of his book describes both private and State organisational contexts in which the technical manifests itself in countless ways across our pursuit of (in this case, economic) rationality and efficiency, starting with the sacrosanct Plan As we read on, we are tempted into recalling Weber’s iron cage, in which bureaucracy and procedures play leading roles. If Weber’s [2] description of organisational ‘‘disenchantment’’ appears grey and demoralising, Ellul’s [1,3] rendition of the technical society is downright dark and lifeless. Nowhere, is there any hint of human subversion to the technical phenomena at work. In this regard, many will label Ellul as being a ‘hard’ technical determinist [4–6]. Their accusations appear well founded when we read words such as ‘‘technique enters into every area of life, including the human It is no longer face to face with man but is integrated with him, and it progressively absorbs him This transformation is the result of the fact that technique has become autonomous’’ – Ellul [7, p. 6]; or ‘‘The individual who is a servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself This mechanical penetration of the unconscious indicates that nothing human is exempt from the influence of technique’’ – Ellul [3, pp. 138 and 404]. Toffler’s [6] rebuttal will be that technology offers variety and choice, and as such, offers ever-increasing freedom. Ferkiss [8] will add that any problems arising from technology can be handled as long as Man remembers it can fall into immature or bad hands, and as such, proceeds with appropriate caution.

This article first attempts to elucidate Ellul’s position(s) and message(s) regarding the technological society by first proposing a point–counterpoint interpretation of some of Ellul’s literary works (and social actions) while also comparing

* Corresponding author.

E-mail address: holford.w_david@uqam.ca (W.D. Holford). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

0016-3287/$ – see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2012.11.003

W.D. Holford, A.-L. Saives

these interpretations to other key authors. Throughout our interpretations, we will try to relate the significance of Ellul’s messages back to specific organisational as well as socio-economic contexts. We will argue that Jacques Ellul is perhaps not as deterministic as some of his critics may claim. In fact, far from being uni-dimensional and ‘overly-coherent’, we slowly uncover an ambiguous figure, whom across certain complementary contradictions (or oppositions), depicts a much more complexified message that is well worth considering.

2. Technique as an all-encompassing definition

Ellul [3] presents La Technique or ‘the technical’ as an over-arching term that is not restricted to any particular application. Here, we first borrow from Robert K. Merton’s preface:

By technique [Ellul] means far more than machine technology. Technique refers to any complex of standardised means for attaining a predetermined result. Thus, it converts spontaneous and unreflective behaviour into behaviour that is deliberate and rationalised. The Technical Man is fascinated by results, by the immediate consequences of setting standardised devices into motion. He cannot help admiring the spectacular effectiveness of nuclear weapons of war. Above all, he is committed to the never-ending search for the ‘‘one best way’’ to achieve any designated objective. (p. vi)

For Ellul [3, p. xxv], it is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity. Organisations, sports, politics and so on are all forms of technique, with the machine as ‘‘its most obvious manifestation’’ [9, p. 254] Yet, as Ellul [3, pp. 1–6] explains, while technique took the machine as its starting point, it is much more than just the machine itself, in that technique has proceeded towards applying the logic and ideal of the machine towards all spheres of human activity. Ellul [3] attempts to transmit, by means of a global analysis, a concrete and fundamental awareness of the technical phenomena as a whole. Ellul’s principal argument is that no social, human or spiritual reality has as much importance as the reality of technique within the modern world. Growth of technique within the Western world can be explained by the presence of five stages, namely: a long collective maturation/incubation of technique; a demographic expansion entraining growing needs that could only be met via technical growth; a stable and changing economic environment allowing for technical inventions to get a foothold; a plasticity of the social environment (via the disappearance of social taboos and natural social groups) malleable to the propagation of technique; and a clear technical intention that unites all forces towards the pursuit of the objective of technique. In turn, these five reunited conditions are sufficient for individual technical invention to make its development and full deployment within the entire modern society at large. Irrespective of whether we are speaking of neo-liberal capitalism or of a moderate and/or radical socialism, Ellul argues that societies at large are now determined by La Technique. For example, in another work [10, p. 155 translated from French]1 he explains that ‘‘capitalism is a reality that is historically outdated. It can very well last for another century, yet it is of no historical significance. What is new, significant and crucial, is technique’’. To this Ellul [11, pp. 52–53 and 55 translated from French]2 adds, ‘‘Caught by the technical fever, the leadership of the USSR obey the same rules as those followed by the capitalist elite: always more efficient, always more rapid, always more powerful [of course, today we can replace the word USSR by Russia, China, etc.] The government or State, whatever its qualifying adjective, (republican, democratic, socialist ), remains a complex bureaucratic apparatus of constraining means, and of a semblance of legitimisation via a fictive relationship with the people or the proletariat’’. In returning to his principal work, Ellul’s [3] secondary arguments include:

1. Technique can be characterised via: its rationality of seeking what is the most efficient, its artificiality, its automatism, its auto-growth, its unicity or indivisibility, its universalism, and its autonomy. Technique breaks all barriers, and imposes its own structure and logic.

2. Technique commands the totality of contemporary economic evolution such that it itself becomes technical in nature. The rate of technical progress and its deployment is such that the economy is or will soon be at risk of no longer being able to supply the necessary capital.

3. Technique also commands the State (in terms of a ‘technical politic’). This ‘technical State’ not only sanctions economic plans and other economic techniques that will render the economy efficient, but the entire nation (including men) becomes its object from all points of view. Ideology, morals and justice are progressively repressed in the face technical progress and its quest for efficiency.

4. Man has become a functional object of both the ‘technical economy’ and the ‘technical state’.

5. Techniques are also specifically addressed to Man so that he can continue to supply the efforts required to support the technical objectives and returns expected of him (e.g. schooling, entertainment and leisure, propaganda, sports, etc.). The aim is to totally integrate Man body and soul into the technical power (with no ‘apparent’ pain). This finality is not a result of any Machiavellian intent on the part of individuals – it is simply imposed by the logic of technique itself.

1 « le capitalisme est une realite deja historiquement depassee. Il peut bien durer un siecle encore, cela n’a pas d’interet historique. Ce qui est nouveau, significatif et determinant, c’est la technique »

2 « Saisi par la fievre technicienne, le monde dirigeant de l’URSS obeit aux memes lois que le monde dirigeant capitaliste : toujours plus efficace, toujours plus rapide, toujours plus puissant », « L’E ´ tat, quel que soit son adjectif qualificatif (re ´ publicain, de ´ mocratique, socialiste...), reste un complexe d’appareils bureaucratiques, de moyens de contraintes, et d’apparence de le ´ gitimation par une relation fictive au peuple ou au prole ´ tariat »

W.D.

Holford, A.-L.

The verdict seems clearly in favour of determinism: some will say that Ellul describes a society where Man is much more dependent on technology than he is able to control it; to others, this is an understatement – Ellul [3] is a ‘hard’ determinist, whereby he depicts the technical as being a process which progresses in complete independence of social concerns and that Man has no freedom whatsoever in influencing the outcome [4,6].

3. Ellul’s thesis: naive fatalism or valid psycho-social arguments?

From an ontological viewpoint, words such as ‘‘autonomy is the essential condition for the development of technique’’ [3, p. 133], when taken in isolation, tend to imply an apparently passive subject being shaped and manipulated by technique. A subject so passive, that there seems to be no active subversion/rebellion on his part, thus clearing the way for technique to continue its total dominance over mankind. This would seem to contrast with Touraine’s [12] position of the alwayssubversive subject: after all, when the rationalist world refused to recognise the existence of the human subject did this not lead to a progressive break-up of the rationalist model of modernity? Using Touraine’s logic, this is what should be in store for a technical system that chooses to ignore the subject’s existence. For Touraine [12], the only way to prevent these ruptures is for modernity to recognise the full expression, as well as the complementary nature, of both Reason (rationalisation) and the subject (subjectivation), whereby technical and economic rationality, rather than destroying subjectivity, builds the subject across the work an individual uses to transform himself into an actor; that is, an agent capable of transforming his situation via innovation and creativity rather than only reproducing it like an automaton. Yet, in Ellul’s favour, we have all heard (more often than not) of organisational bureaucracies both within the private and public sectors (which Dupuy [13] refers to as ‘‘intermediate bureaucracies’’) which rob individuals of their ability to innovate, create and conduct meaningful work (in the fullest sense). In such cases, Weber’s bureaucratic iron cage returns with a vengeance. For example, how many times have individuals (management and non-management, alike) been forced by a disconnected bureaucratic body to generate meaningless KPI’s supposedly related to quality improvement, which in the end does exactly the opposite? Yet, Dupuy [13], in Touraine’s favour, argues that this need not be an inevitable outcome: all it requires is for a management (and workforce) to ‘think otherwise’ (‘‘pensez autrement’’)! Dupuy [13] argues that management needs to: (i) open up towards the informal; (ii) reduce its emphasis on rules and procedures; and (iii) incite individuals to work together as real teams in the sense of Enriquez’s [14] differentiated (as opposed to massified) workgroups, whereby members have both the psychological space to express themselves while maintaining an authentic cohesion.

Yet an unimpressed and apparently monolithic Ellul [3] would counter on two fronts: (1) ‘thinking otherwise’ is more of an exception than a rule and (2) beware of ‘window-dressing’ masquerading as true success stories. For it is towards the end of his book that Ellul [3, p. 402] states in a tone of pragmatic sarcasm:

‘‘And if it is asked whether [it] could be otherwise, the answer is that it could. So could the conditions of work. And the state and human nature. But if we are going for all of these conditionals, paradise could also find a place on earth’’. Ellul then goes on to explain how the technical comes to invade Man’s subconscious, integrates him totally within its system and then proceeds to anesthetise his suffering and anguish [3, pp. 403, 411 and 412]:

‘‘Modern man (I do not speak of the theoreticians) represses his fears of the technical world and intoxicates himself with action, or, better, with the illusion of action Every technique, and above all every human technique, makes a fundamental appeal to the unconscious Rare are the men who have so completely renounced the inner life as to hurl themselves gladly and without regret into a completely technicised mode of being I have repeated time and again that this tension, this dichotomy, is harder and harder to bear and begins to appear more and more baneful in its influence even to psychologists, sociologists, and teachers, that is, to the psychotechnicians in general .the psychologist in turn elaborates a science of human behavior with its own laws of human psychology; for example laws concerning worker fatigue, and so on The human being ends by being encased in an even broader technical framework. It will doubtless make life easier and enable him to work with a minimum of effort, but only on condition that he follow its rules to the letter The worker is in the same situation as the invalid racked by pain who receives an anodyne narcotic which makes him an addict – the addiction persists even after he has been ‘cured’’’.

This psycho-analytical position reminds us of a similar argument on the part of Marcuse [15] who warns us of the illusion technology presents to workers – that is, the illusion of being dis-alienated. But in actual fact, the basic cause of alienation remains – the symptoms have simply been transferred towards the purely mental and spiritual. The high numbers of workaholism, labour related stress, work accidents, show that the pain of this alienation is not felt through physical extenuation. But mental/spiritual alienation eventually comes back to ‘hit’ us physically. The only ‘liberty’ that has been attained is the choice between gadgets and brands. The message that we have attained ‘liberation’ via technological advances is therefore false [15] In a similar, yet more general fashion, De Gaulejac [16] explains how the culture of Excellence, in itself a perfect example of Ellul’s technical rationality involving the objective of economic efficiency (yet ironically, being an amalgam of slogans and edicts whose objective is to expect perfection as a norm rather than as an ideal, leads to anything but excellence due to the climate of fear and paralysis it instils), has led organisational members towards schizoid behaviours involving the separation of the ‘‘official ego’’ from the ‘‘genuine ego’’, thus leading to a ‘‘freely consented subservience’’, whose long term consequences involve insecurities, psychosomatic troubles, depressions and burn-outs.

W.D.

Holford, A.-L. Saives

/ Futures 47 (2013) 9–16

The above arguments would help explain how such a dominant technical system has succeeded in repressing the subject in its fullest sense without triggering any meaningful subversion on its part, thus avoiding Touraine’s logical outcome of modernity’s break-up and demise – at least for now. Before further analysing this venue, there are perhaps other Ellulien allies worth examining when we read other passages of Ellul’s [1,3] work on La Technique Ellul [3, pp. 75–79], for example, argues that instrumental reasoning has pervaded all of society, and yet only gives partial solutions to a given problem due to its inability to consider the local contextual aspects of any given situation partly because of its ‘blinded’ obsession for efficiency via standardisation. Ellul [3, p. 387] adds that ‘‘ The public gravitates unerringly to glaring superficialities and wavers between unreasoning fear and false security, [and] never penetrates to the heart of the problem of modern societies’’. For Ellul [1, pp. 399–409], a given technique will on the one hand solve certain aspects of a complex, multi-faceted problem, while on the other hand either exacerbate other existing aspects or create new problems altogether; and as newer generations of techniques are created in an attempt to address the problems caused by the older generations of techniques, we then fall further within the spiral (or vicious circle) of problem solving and problem creation; thus, rejoining Pauchant and Mitroff’s [17, p. 5] description of how conventional linear-thinking crisis management not only leads to ‘‘problem shifting’’, but to ‘‘problem spreading’’. This leads us to Beck [18, p. 21] who defines risk as a ‘second order effect’ consisting of industrial society’s way in which ‘‘hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation itself’’ are dealt with. For Beck, critical rationality no longer predominates (rejoining Ellul’s arguments), and instead is defined by available ‘‘system’’ or functional knowledge, the strict exigency of a strict causal justification (vs. the reality of plurality and circularity of causes), and an instrumental reasoning of the type ‘what isn’t measurable does not exist’ [19, pp. 49 and 53] – thus leading to an inability to recognise invisible risk due to an obsession of always needing explicit ‘evidence’ before contemplating further action [19, pp. 81–83]. In this way, Ellul and Beck’s words remind us of how bureaucratic rules and procedures can effectively muzzle out important tacit insights within organisational contexts. This is exactly what happened according to Vaughan’s [20] analysis of the challenger disaster. Her investigations showed that NASA’s cultural environment regularly repressed tacit and informal aspects of knowledge (such as intuition and ‘gut feelings’ based on experience), always to the benefit of strictly codified or quantitative knowledge. Furthermore, any signs of critical reasoning were usually ‘muzzled’ across a strong adherence or ‘hiding behind’ formalised rules and regulations. It therefore, came as no surprise that critical, yet informal tacit knowledge that could have alleviated the challenger disaster, which certain Thiokol engineers possessed, had not circulated freely amongst different parties at a key meeting preceding the ill-fated launch. A climate of fear and too high a dependency on formal rules and codified knowledge prevented this from happening.

In a more general sense, Beck seems as pessimistic as Ellul (if not more so) as to mankind’s ability to extricate itself from the consequences of this pervasive instrumental logic. In contrast, we have Touraine’s [12] hope of mankind’s ability to actively change its situation. Along these lines, Weick [21,22] highlights the subject-actor’s own influence on (and shaping of) the object by reiterating Berger and Luckmann’s [23] construction of social reality across the process of enactment through which we proactively shape and structure our realities in an unconscious manner. Morgan [24, p. 141] offers a succinct explanation on enactment: ‘‘Although we often see ourselves as living in a reality with objective characteristics, life actually demands much more of us than this. It requires that we take an active role in bringing our realities into being through various interpretive schemes, even though these realities may then have a habit of imposing themselves on us as ‘‘the way things are’’ [24, p. 141]. Of course, this enactment process can be either constructive or deleterious in nature. We can choose to enact (or ‘re-create’) different environments including the purely destructive, the status-quo (whether destructive or constructive in outcome), or a refreshing and much-needed change [21,22]

Hence, as Mumford [5] suggests, should we not object to Ellul’s [3] apparent fatalism? After all, just as there are numerous cases of bureaucratic sclerosis, are there not equally valid cases for organisational creativity and innovation? Firstly, Ellul [1,3] would argue that all of our actions, whether novel or repetitious, are inscribed within a total and interconnected system called the technical system Whether we are churning out more of the same, or evermore novel technologies, it is driven by the overall objectives of endless accumulation, growth and novelty [25] And as we achieve new milestones with newer techniques, these very same newer techniques give us greater capacities to continue along the same manner – only faster. This total system as described by Ellul [3], echoes more recent concerns by Clegg et al. [26, pp. 87–88], for example, in regards to knowledge management as being

‘‘another new idea’’, ‘‘with deep roots that go back to Frederick Taylor and scientific management First there is the treatment of knowledge as a commodity, through the mechanization and objectification of knowledge creation, diffusion and storage. Treated this way it increases management’s sense of control. Second, there is the soft domination of the knowledge worker by identification-based control. The highest degree of trust is when the person completely identifies with the organization, in which case his/her self-image is aligned with managerially determined objectives What knowledge management seeks to do is draw from the tacit knowledge of individuals and the social capital of the group to construct new and improved routines Knowledge management grows out of the crosspollination of scientific management and human relations theory to make obedient subjects creative’’.

Secondly, a first glimpse at a more ambiguous Ellul can be seen across his hinting that all may not be lost in the preface of a 1965 [27] edition of The Technological Society (trans. John Wilkinson, pp. xxix and xxxi): first with redeeming phrases such as ‘‘only if’’ and ‘‘only then’’; and then with a declaration of ‘‘I am convinced the situation is not completely hopeless’’; followed by the message that if we fail to act, the technical forces will be ‘‘transformed into inevitabilities’’ (cited in Monsma [28, pp. 205–206]). According to Ellul [29], this action involves an authentic revolution, not in the form of abstract words, but

W.D. Holford, A.-L. Saives

in the form of personal acts repeated on a daily basis. These could easily have been the words of Touraine [12]! In fact, when we read many of Ellul’s other works, as well as peeking into Ellul’s biography, we see anything but a resigned or fatalistic individual. Having adopted the words ‘‘exister, c’est resister’’ [30], he himself explains that his life-work has been dedicated towards the notion of liberty [10] And his actions as an engaged citizen seem to unequivocally reflect his principal credo: from 1943 to 1945 he participates in La Resistance [31]; as of 1958 he joins a Bordeau association aimed towards fighting youth delinquency [10]; from 1973 to 1977 he joins and invests himself in the ecologist association Comite ´ de De´fense de la Coˆte Aquitaine [10]

4.

The next section further examines which personal acts, according to Ellul, must be called for.

Ellul’s

proposed path for a different future

The personal acts which Ellul [10,32] refers to begin with a dialectical interaction of the rational (or Reason/Object) and the irrational (or Subject). According to Ellul [1, p. 351], mankind’s fallacy is to deny his own subjectivity, thus leading to the paradox of mankind believing his irrationalities to be purely rational: ‘‘ l’homme passe ainsi de peurs irraisonne ´ es en se ´ curite ´ s fallacieuses, sans jamais atteindre le fond du proble ` me de la civilisation moderne, n’ayant de lointains rapport avec ces magies rationnelles’’. In many ways, Ellul’s call for embracing the irrational along with the rational is exactly what Touraine [12] describes in his vision of where modernity should be. But a fundamental difference still remains between Ellul [1] and Touraine [12]: whereas the latter sees the transformational capability of Man as being almost inevitable, the former sees it only as one possibility. For Ellul, while not denying the process of human enactment, sees negative enactment (in the form of status quo) as equally possible to a transformational enactment (in the form of personal acts of change).

But let us look further at what Ellul refers to as personal acts of change. Again, it involves our ability to accept contradiction in the form interacting opposites [32]. On the one hand, it involves an intellectually laborious practice of autocritique and humility [10], with aim of leading towards ‘‘la certitude de la responsabilite ´ humaine et par la ` , une liberte ´ de choix et de decision’’ [32, p. 50] On the other hand, it also involves life lived as an ambiguity [25, pp. 231–232 taken from Ecclesiastes]:

‘‘There is a for everything a moment, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time for giving birth and a time for dying; a time for planting and a time for uprooting what has been planted; a time for knocking down and a time for building; a time for weeping and a time for laughing; a time for searching and a time for losing; a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking ’’

It is important to note that the dialectical approach adhered to by Ellul [10,25,32] is primarily in the form of co-existing contradictions as opposed to the more classic Hegelian dialectics which aims towards resolving contradictions across their synthesis (with the ultimate goal of attaining an absolute ‘Truth’). Ellul did not believe in the ultimate, ideal synthesis. It is for this reason that Ellul [25] disagreed with theologians in general for always seeking a synthesis towards a universal (and reductionist) explanation. For Ellul [33,34], dialectics implies dialogue and exchange – a dialogue whereby two opposing points of views are embraced. The point is not resolution, but rather, holding together tensions that exist in reality. And when a particular point of view is maintained, one should do so with a certain degree of caution and doubt This type of dialectics, whereby contradictions and ambiguities co-exist, can be said to be of a much more oriental nature [35]

But, according to Ellul [25,36], beyond the matter of dialectics, there are at least three inter-related hurdles that mankind must first overcome if it is to break out of its self imposed status quo: its fear of liberty, its greed and its quest for power.

‘‘Man is not so enamored of freedom as some have supposed. Freedom is not an inherent personal need. The needs of security, conformity, adaptation, happiness, economy of effort, and so forth are far more constant and profound. Man is completely prepared to sacrifice his freedom in order to satisfy these needs he fears freedom more than he desires it. . .In all spheres, then, scientific experience brings to light more and more determinations and fewer and fewer possibilities of freedom True freedom is never linked with liquidation of what can build up personality and assure it continuity. It implies, presupposes, and demands durability of the person [and] fidelity in love for it demands that the other be taken seriously Freedom-as-pretext is the basis of almost all our society [and] has inspired economic liberalism it is the freedom of the strong to crush the weak When freedom becomes a pretext, it is a pretext for surrender to the passions, which is in fact a negation of freedom. . .Self justification is an operation by which again we deny our freedom. Self-justification is man’s greatest enterprise along with the lust for power’’. [36, pp. 35 and 241–243]

‘‘This pain, affecting all of humanity (to different degrees, of course, depending on the extent to which a people has been integrated into the scientific process), expresses itself in anguish and unreasonable obsession. This pain doubles for individuals, in terms of destructive grief for what has been left undone. The pain stems from the combination of covetousness and science’s potential. Science never furnishes us with an ultimate answer, and covetousness demands that it always go farther, advancing more and more. Science does not advance on the basis of its own logic alone, but through the combination of its logic and covetousness. And human beings suffer endlessly from their insatiability Writers have considered covetousness in connection with money and power. But now it is approaching its perfection through science, which seems to place everything, even the unlimited, at our disposal. But at what price! covetousness as the root of human pain in the form of our suffering for what has been left undone’’. [25, p. 157]

W.D. Holford, A.-L. Saives / Futures

Have we now arrived at a possible bridging between Ellul and Touraine? Man is no longer controlled by an exterior technical but by a technical driven by Man’s own impulses. In other words, Ellul recognises aspects (as urges and desires) of the subject which are at the heart of the technical. On the one hand, the technical is governed by the subject’s urges. Thus, if the subject can overcome its urges, then it can finally control the technical Mankind must now face an altogether new and ambiguous dilemma in the form of: ‘we have met the enemy – the good news is that he is us – but the bad news is also that he is us’! Hence, Lovekin’s [9, p. 252] interpretation of Ellul’s ‘‘logic of technology’’ appears quite valid, when he argues Ellul sees that ‘‘technology is not external to the culture in which it appears; rather, it becomes the intention, the consciousness, of the culture’’. Hence, even though technology, as Toffler [6] and others argue, offers new choices, ‘‘technology has become choice itself’’ [9, p. 252] But contrary to Lovekin’s [9] and more recent authors such as Driscoll and Wiebe’s [37] assertions, Ellul clearly points towards a general way forward: an openness to contradiction manifesting itself in the form of self-critique and humility, coupled with our need to address our greed, our quest for coercive power and our fear of an authentic (as opposed to a pre-textual) liberty, whereby the latter echoes Edgar Morin’s proposed ‘‘construction of one’s autonomy across relationships with others’’ [38, p. 128] Yet unlike, Marcuse [39], we are not looking at a socialist movement or revolution in any massive form, lest, according to Ellul, we risk falling back into the technical trap, but rather a revolution of a personal form which involves personal yet concrete actions. It is a clear yet difficult task – and all the more credible, in light of the Leviathan-like system of La Technique

5. Ellul’s dynamic essentialism

Ellul’s primary thesis on the technical is that it is governed by the criterion of efficiency. Moreover, it is not simply a matter of efficiency but of maximum efficiency. Yet, it is interesting to note that the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines efficiency as the ‘‘effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time and money)’’ without specifying an objective But as Godelier [40] explains, while efficiency in itself is a rational operation, as soon as one attaches an objective to it, such as ‘‘maximization’’ of profit, it involves a decision on the part of an individual or collective subject having roots in a specific ideology – not rationality. Some may argue that this ideology seeks to mimic nature, claiming that nature always seeks a maximum objective in whatever process it may undertake, thus rendering the ideology ‘rational’. But Maturana and Varella’s [41] description of ‘autopoietic systems’ as being analogous to organic systems composed of various organs which in relations to its cells are neither dominant or subordinate in terms of biochemical interactions would tend to contradict this argument. And finally, Hirschmann [42] himself explains how economic rationalities and interests are in fact ‘‘passions’’. Hence, the essence of the technical can be described as maximum efficiency, which in turn, as Ellul argues, is driven by Man’s own impulses. Such an essence can have the technical transform itself into many forms of being, depending on the situation and context at hand. In this sense, there is a semblance to a dynamic essentialism as proposed by Heidegger [43], which involves a Dasein or external essence which is then constructed and reconstructed in time (history) through an environmental dialectics (the environment including both social and non-human entities and phenomena).

Furthermore, if we examine what Ellul [10,33] proposes as a future ‘way out’ for the subject, it is a form of living over actions (that is, actions which simply aim towards maximum efficiency). Such a living involves both actions deriving from one’s convictions as well as from one’s own critical reflections across non-Hegelian (or oriental) dialectics. Here too, we can draw a parallel between Ellul’s portrayal of Man’s dynamic essence and Heidegger’s Dasein. Hence, as opposed to Latour’s [44] requestioning of modernity which aims towards eliminating all forms of essentialism (via the claim that all is not only interconnected, but also hybridised and thus contains no purified state or essence – a position or thesis that has also been renewed by more recent proponents of Barad’s [45] intra-actions across agential realism and Orlikowski’s [46] sociomaterial entanglement), Ellul finds himself much more in line with Touraine’s [12] proposal for a renewed modernity which now recognises its complementary essences (such as subjectivity and reason) across a dialectical interplay. Moreover, while experience and history can re-shape our beings it is one that is grounded in a Dasein-like or external consciousness (whereby, for the subject, according to Heidegger, it is one that is grounded in care) as opposed to a Husserlian experience being purely transcendental in which consciousness is constitutive (as opposed to being external) of processes and phenomena.

5.1. Inspirations/reinforcements towards mindfulness and ambivalence

It is important to note that Heidegger [43], a ‘founding father’ of activity-based thinking, was also very much concerned with the possibility of falling into the totalising trap of La Technique. To counter-balance this, Ellul [25,33,34,36] speaks of actions originating from the ‘‘heart’’, which integrate dialectical thinking and dialogue, and whose primary aim is towards a democratic liberty. As such, we believe there is an opportunity for bridge-building with specific aspects of Heidegger’s phenomenology, as well as a parallel reinforcement of Weick’s [47] proposed use of ambivalence or balanced doubt within organisations. But before proceeding, it is perhaps important to note that Suchman [48], who founded the term ‘‘situated action’’, considers both reflexivity (in terms of making sense and determining significance) and dialogue as forms of action. Let us first consider Heidegger’s [43] threefold distinction in how the world appears to human consciousness. A first distinction is when the world appears ready-to-hand, that is when one is engaged within a practical context across spontaneous actions and responses to a given task. Or as Tsoukas [49, p. 398] succinctly explains, ‘‘the world appears readyto-hand to actors immersed in it; it possesses familiarity and transparency, calling for direct skilful handling without

deliberate thinking’’. A second distinction is when a breakdown occurs within the same familiar context leading to an unready-to-hand mode [47]. Here, problematic aspects of the situation suddenly standout to practitioners who have been momentarily thrown off balance. Deliberate acts are then taken, whereby reflective knowledge is generated ‘‘in dialogue with a developing situation at hand, by questioning the means and tactics hitherto used to carry out a stream of actions’’ [49, p. 399]. But here, practitioners still remain connected within the context at hand. It is only when actors deliberately decide to step back from the project or situation at hand and reflect on it using analyses that are general, abstract and context free that we may speak of a third distinction known as present-at-hand.

By incorporating Ellul’s [25,33] dialectical reflection (as explained in the previous section) within both unready-to-hand and present-at-hand modes of consciousness, we introduce a reflexive method which emphasizes doubt and ambivalence. As such, we introduce a certain measure of adaptability to dynamically changing and complex environments [47]. Furthermore, ‘‘to organise doubt is to engage in meaningful argumentation. Matters of controversy are deliberately sought and discussed. The intent is to curb the top-down imposition of ‘vision without argumentation’’’ [47, p. 262]. Along a similar vein, we can easily paraphrase Morin’s idea of exiting ‘‘poor thinking’’ [50, p. 72] across a dialogue in which ‘‘contradictions are at once antagonistic, conflictual and complementary’’ [38, p. 75] Maintaining a reasonable level of doubt or ambivalence towards any given position taken also conditions us towards keeping a more vigilant eye towards situations which no longer fit our current mental frameworks. Such vigilance is what Weick [47] refers to as mindfulness. If we are to believe Ashby [51] who postulated that in order to better apprehend a given environment one’s internal diversity must match the variety and complexity of the environment in question, then we can also argue that mindfulness can better help us comprehend our social environments – whereby, social and cultural environments are in themselves ‘‘teeming’’ with ambiguities and contradictions [52].

5.1.1. Towards fully embracing the dyad of Self vs. Other

As implied above, for a society to be truly ambivalent and mindful, a participative approach encouraging authentic dialogue is primordial – thus, a society which embraces Ellul’s [36] call for true liberty (in the sense of individual voices coupled with openness to others’ points of views). It is a call also echoed by Follett [53] who argues for a society which places more emphasis on distributed co-active power (or power with) as opposed to the predominance of individualistic coercive power (or power over). Of specific importance, is Ellul’s emphasis on the ‘‘constructing of one’s autonomy across relationships with others’’ [36, p. 128] This seemingly simple point lies at the core of Ellul’s conception of revolution. For as previously mentioned in Section 4, we are not looking at a movement in any monolithic sense, lest we risk falling back into the technical trap, but rather a movement of a more individually differentiated form. To fully grasp this requires us to return to Touraine’s [12] vision of an active and engaged Subject by first recognizing and embracing the Subject in its fullest sense. Or as Enriquez [14], succinctly explains, across the dual psycho-social recognition of the Subject’s individual need for Self emancipation (across self-expression and creativity) and the Subject’s collective need towards identifying with Other –thus, leading to open self-expression and debate within a climate of respect and active listening (the latter involving reasonable doubt towards one’s own position while attempting to put ‘oneself in another’s shoes’). As such, this dual recognition according to Enriquez [14], reduces the likelihood, on the one-hand, of a ‘‘massified’’ collective behaviour which, in the end, ignores individual needs (leading to ‘collective’ movements acting coercively in the ‘name of the people’), and hyper-individualistic contexts, on the other hand, in which a small self-defined minority seeks to gain the upper hand to coercively impose its will on the majority. More fundamentally, it is this type of dual recognition which can help keep our individual urges of greed and coercive power in check, which according to Ellul, are at the root of The Technical in its present form: for if we recognise the Other, there is less likelihood of letting our individual urges override all else, while if we also simultaneously recognise our Selves, there is less likelihood of us as individuals becoming muzzled by monolithic collective entities.

6. Concluding remarks

In concluding this paper, the authors, recognise that the Ellulien debate is far from over. Yet today’s technological context renders it ever more pertinent. It is worth pointing out that Ellul [25, p. 135] is not against technology and science per se, but that in its present form, advances through a combination of its own logic and man’s impulses and desires. Conversely, he is quite open to a combination of science with wisdom: ‘‘Wisdom must be based on knowledge Therefore the use of science in a quest of this kind is legitimate, so long as the phase of evaluation is included. When our modern scientists, then, following Jacques Monod, try to construct a morality for our age or a philosophy based on their science, they are not mistaken.’’

If we are to believe Ellul’s message, inaction, on the one hand, driven by our basic impulses (greed, fear, etc.) will only exacerbate the infernal cycle of the economic, in collusion with the scientific, to continue to act separately from ‘‘democratic yet accountable political spheres’’ [19, pp. 95, 114–115 and 406–407], resulting in evermore societal imbalances which create processes and technologies that ‘race ahead of knowledge’, thus creating more risks (whether social, psychological, physical or otherwise) than solutions [1,52] Our way out of the technical impasse, is across an approach which embraces tensions between complementary opposites in the form of a dialectic interplay between the subject and object, and other equally important dyads. This type of dialectic is echoed by Weick’s conception of mindfulness which involves selfexpression, self-doubt and ambivalence. Thus, across Ellul’s [36, p. 128] ‘‘constructing of one’s autonomy across relationships W.D. Holford, A.-L.

with others’’, we attain a more balanced dialectic between Self and Other leading to both individual and collective emancipation, as well as more complexified collective knowledge-approaching-wisdom [47].

Hence, Ellul’s broad dialectical approach seeks to better inform our polarities, and thus perhaps pull ourselves out of Beck’s Risk Society: whereby, as Beck [19] himself suggests, instead of having a separate instrumental science and market place working at cross purposes with mankind, we can have them inform one another in a dialectical dialogue, so as to eventually attain a socio-economic environment of truly responsible development – and as such, transform our Technical Society into a Responsible and Engaged Society

References

[1] Ellul, La Technique: Ou l’enjeu du Siecle, E ´ conomica, Paris, 1990.

[2] M. Weber, L’e ´ thique Protestante et l’esprit du Capitalisme, Plon, Paris, 1905.

[3] J. Ellul, The Technological Society, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1964 (preface Robert K. Merton, Trans. John Wilkinson).

[4] S.C. Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 1976.

[5] L. Mumford, Pentagon of Power: The Myth of the Machine, vol. 2, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1970.

[6] A. Toffler, Future Shock, Random House, New York, 1970.

[7] J. Ellul, The Technological Society, Vintage Books, New York, 1967 (preface Robert K. Merton, Trans. John Wilkinson).

[8] V. Ferkiss, Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality, Mentor Books, New York, 1970.

[9] D. Lovekin, Jacques Ellul and the logic of technology, Man and World 10 (1977) 251–272.

[10] J. Ellul, A Temps et a ` Contretemps Entretien avec M. Garrigou-Lagrange, Le Centurion, Paris, 1981.

[11] J. Ellul, Changer de Re ´ volution. L’ine ´ luctable Prole ´ tariat, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1982.

[12] A. Touraine, Critique de la Modernite, Fayard, Paris, 1992.

[13] F. Dupuy, Lost in Management. La vie Quotidienne des Entreprises au XXIe Sie ` cle, E ´ ditions du Seuil, Paris, 2011.

[14] E. Enriquez, L’Organisation en Analyse, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1992.

[15] H. Marcuse, L’Homme Unidimensionnel, Les E ´ ditions de Minuit, Paris, 1968.

[16] V. De Gaulejac, La Socie ´ te ´ malade de la Gestion, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 2005.

[17] T.C. Pauchant, I.I. Mitroff, Crisis management, in: Managing Paradox in a Chaotic World: The Case of Bhopal, HEC Montreal, Cahier de Recherche No. 90-31, 1990.

[18] U. Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA, 1992.

[19] U. Beck, La societe du Risque: Sur la voie d’une Autre Modernite, Alto Aubier, Paris, 2001.

[20] D. Vaughan, The trickle-down effect: policy decisions, risky work, and the challenger tragedy, California Management Review 39 (2) (1997) 80–102.

[21] K.E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, Reading, MA, 1979.

[22] K.E. KE Weick, Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995.

[23] P.L. Berger, T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1966.

[24] G. Morgan, Images of Organization, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1997.

[25] J. Ellul, The Reason for Being: A Meditation on Ecclesiastes, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 1990.

[26] S. Clegg, D. Courpasson, N. Phillips, Power and Organizations, Sage Publications, London, 2007.

[27] J. Ellul, The Technological Society, Jonathan Cape, London, 1965 (Trans. John Wilkinson).

[28] S. Monsma, Responsible Technology, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1986.

[29] J. Ellul, Autopsie de la Re ´ volution, 2e e ´ dition 2008, La Table Ronde, Paris, 1969.

[30] J. Ellul, L’illusion Politique, 3e e ´ dition 2004, La Table Ronde, Paris, 1965.

[31] P. Chastenet, Entretien avec Jacques Ellul, La Table Ronde, Paris, 1994.

[32] J. Ellul, Ce que je crois, Grasset, Paris, 1987.

[33] J. Ellul, Presence of the Kingdom, Helmers and Howard Publishing, Colorado Springs, 1989.

[34] J. Ellul, La parole humilie ´ e, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1981.

[35] K. Peng, S. Akutsu, A mentality theory of knowledge creation and transfer: why some smart people resist new ideas and some don’t, in: I. Nonaka, D.J. Teece (Eds.), Managing Industrial Knowledge Creation, Transfer and Utilization, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001, pp. 105–124.

[36] J. Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 1976.

[37] C. Driscoll, E. Wiebe, Technical spirituality at work: Jacques Ellul on workplace spirituality, Journal of Management Inquiry 16 (4) (2007) 333–348.

[38] E. Morin, Mes Philosophes, E ´ ditions Germina, Paris, 2011.

[39] H. Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance, Berkeley Commune, Berkeley, CA, 1970.

[40] M. Godelier, Rationalite ´ et Irrationalite ´ en E ´ conomie, Franc ¸ ois Maspero, Paris, 1966.

[41] H.R. Maturana, F.J. Varella, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland, 1980.

[42] A.O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1997.

[43] M. Heidegger, Being and Time, Harper and Row, New York, 1962.

[44] B. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993.

[45] K. Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2007.

[46] W.J. Orlikowski, Sociomaterial practices: exploring technology at work, Organization Studies 28 (9) (2007) 1435–1448.

[47] K.E. Weick, Making Sense of the Organization: The Impermanent Organization, vol. 2, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, West Sussex, UK, 2009.

[48] L.A. Suchman, Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2009.

[49] H. Tsoukas, Strategic decision making and knowledge: a heideggerian approach, in: P.C. Nutt, D.C. Wilson (Eds.), Handbook of Decision Making, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, UK, 2010, pp. 379–402.

[50] E. Morin, La Me ´ thode 6. E ´ thique, Seuil, Paris, 2004.

[51] W.R. Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London, 1956.

[52] W.D. Holford, Risk, knowledge and contradiction: an alternative and transdisciplinary review on how risk is induced, Futures 41 (7) (2009) 455–467.

[53] M.P. Follett, Creative Experience, Longman, Green, New York, 1924.