Ebook: The technological bluff

In "The Technological Bluff", Jacques Ellul exposes the illusion of the perceived benefits of technological progress. This bluff is so overpowering that it ensnares most people, regardless of their social status, political ideology or religious persuasion. Providing many examples Ellul shows how the civilized world marches to the beat of Technique - defined as all the refined methods that impose absolute efficiency in every human field of activity. Technique has perfected the assembly line approach.

Technique is subject to one particular blind rule, namely, to see every problem in the world as a technical problem. The saying "it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" applies to Technique unequivocally. In fact, upon finishing the book, I was left with the overwhelming impression that Technique has become a sledgehammer in the hands of madmen!

While on the daily basis our politicians, corporations and the media propagate the virtues of technology, the negative aspects of it are radically concealed. You will be hard pressed to find any outspoken critics of technology in mainstream media. Ellul is not shy in describing the dominant trait of our culture in religious terms; Technocracy. Most of us are at the mercy of the Technocrats, the technological experts or, if you will, the High Priests of specialized knowledge. Ellul points out that the technological progress is inherently ambivalent (not neutral!) and that it carries with it increasingly more undesirable as well as unforeseen effects.

For anyone who is familiar with the Unabomber's Manifesto (Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future", 1995) you might be surprised to find out that he based it in large part on Jacques Ellul's earlier book "The Technological Society", 1964. While Ellul still expressed some hope back then, in "The Technological Bluff", 1988, he concedes that it is now too late to reverse the trend of this indiscriminate procession of the technologically obsessed world towards the unknown.

Ellul’s most famous and best-selling book 'The Technological Society', a dense sociological and historical study of the nature and broad-ranging impact of technique/technology on human life, was praised by author Aldous Huxley for “making the case I tried to make in Brave New World.” Technological Society was followed by The Technological System and then The Technological Bluff, but even these three big volumes barely open the Ellulian analysis that includes such studies as 'The Political Illusion', 'Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes', 'Autopsy of Revolution', 'The Humiliation of the Word', 'The New Demons', and 'Betrayal of the West'. The sheer scope of Ellul’s critical perspective warrants our admiration and respect.