The Only Question
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I’ve finally finished my read through of The Technological Society. I’m planning to post 3-4 more times about it as I continue to sort through some of the threads it’s left behind in my mind, but for now I want simply to pose a question that Ellul poses at the very end of the book. Some might go so far as to say that, when it comes to how we grapple with technology, technique, and the future, it’s the only question.
“Enclosed within his artificial creation, man finds that there is ‘no exit’’; that he cannot pierce the shell of technology to find again the ancient milieu to which he was adapted for hundreds of thousands of years.
The new milieu has its own specific laws which are not the laws of organic or inorganic matter. Man is still ignorant of these laws. It nevertheless begins to appear with crushing finality that a new necessity is taking over from the old. It is easy to boast of victory over ancient oppression, but what if victory has been gained at the price of an even greater subjection to the forces of the artificial necessity of the technical society which has come to dominate our lives?”
I’ll have some thoughts on this quote in a subsequent post, but for now I want merely to suggest that if these words don’t send some semblance of a shiver of recognition and dread down your spine, you’ve already been captured by the spirit of the age.