Chapter 5. 5 Human Techniques

Mass Society

According to Ellul, the massification of society is an ongoing process, and many individuals struggle to maintain their traditional values. At the same time, they increasingly clash with the norms and values of society at large. The parallels between Jacques Ellul’s process of massification and Max Weber’s process of rationalization are remarkable. According to Weber, there are four primary motivators of human behaviour: (1) goal-oriented rational behaviour (formal rationality); (2) value-oriented behaviour; (3) traditional action; and (4) affective or emotional action. Weber posited that changes in the social structure (caused by population growth, economic development, secularization, and resulting bureaucratization) promoted goal-oriented rationality at the expense of other human motivations (Weber, 1964/1978).

Ellul’s concepts of technique and rational social organizations mirror Weber’s concepts of bureaucracy, which promote formal rationality and emphasize empiricism, calculability, and predictability. The significant difference is that Ellul locates the stress between traditional secularized Christian ideology and modern technique. Weber considered this stress to be rooted in human nature itself. In his conception, humanity was historically motivated by a mix of traditions, values, emotions, and rationality. The modern world, or technique, has emphasized formal rational behaviour at the expense of other values, emotions, and traditions, thus alienating individuals from their full humanity.

The rise of secondary organizations and their co-optation of functions performed by the extended family, community, and friendship networks are undeniable. From the cradle to the grave, secondary organizations are now the settings in which we are born, receive daycare in our first four or five years, and are educated for at least 13 years through primary and secondary schooling. After this foundational education, we might follow several different tracks: trade school (or technical education), military service, full-time employment, college, or professional school. Secondary organizations, rather than family or community ties, provide loans, emergency aid, welfare, assistance to the elderly, health care, and eventually the service for and disposal of our remains. These massive structures (secondary organizations) were developed over the past century for technical and economic reasons. Technically, these secondary organizations can muster the resources and expertise to provide these services efficiently. Traditional primary groups often did not have the monetary resources, technical equipment, or expertise to perform these tasks efficiently. Economically, these services are profitable to corporations (often under government contract or monetary support) and provide jobs to millions in industry and government. They are not the result of a political doctrine or social movement; they are the world into which we are born and must act (Ellul, 1964, p. 334; see also Weber, 1958/1904, pp. 186–187).

The purpose of the new human techniques is to help individuals adapt or, in Ellul’s words, assist in their mutation to reshape both heart and brain. Suppose integration into the social environment through normal means proves to be impossible. In such cases, Ellul adds, social engineers (technicians) will uproot individuals and place them in another milieu to facilitate their achieving equilibrium with the collectivity—the state of perfect adaptation in which their values, outlooks, and difficulties reflect those of the group itself. The individual becomes not just part of a group but also an element of the group (1964, p. 334). According to Ellul, these other milieus are re-education centres, parts of the new technical reality in authoritarian countries, and he predicts that such centres, perhaps under other names, will become the future reality of democracies as well (1964, pp. 102–103, 271–272).

The merging of the individual into the group is essential for the further development of human techniques. An important part of this massification is conditioning the individual to respond to mass media psychological manipulations and calls to action. This conditioning is vital to the success of methods of education and propaganda, both of which serve to “massify” individuals and move them in directions desired by the socio-cultural system. Again, this change in the conditioning of humans in democratic societies is not the result of political theory or some would-be dictator’s machinations. Ellul writes that the cause is “much more profound, at once human and inhuman.” It is human because we have been conditioned to desire it, welcome it, and further its development. It is inhuman because it is caused by the self-augmentation of technique—physical technology, organization, and rationalization (1964, p. 335).

Ellul’s thesis regarding the indispensability of human technique in modern society is threefold: (1) modernity has modified the physical and human environments as evidenced by the declining importance of primary groups; (2) secondary bureaucratic organizations have been enlarged and centralized; and (3) there have been “superhuman demands” on individuals, causing “fundamental discord” with their social environment. As a result of these trends, social structures have evolved to condition individuals and encourage their adjustment to these new social realities (1964, p. 335).

Human Techniques

Ellul doubts that technical humanism is a viable concept. Current techniques might benefit humans in terms of efficiency and productivity, but there is no guarantee that they will serve them in the future. There are no fundamental reasons for technique to subordinate itself—its power and reach—to the interests of humans as individuals or the whole society. Because of this, technique has the power to do great harm (1964, p. 340). Indeed, he adds, technique has been at the forefront of brutally exploiting humans and the environment as well as contributing to humanity’s most significant achievements; it mixes the bad with the good.

Traditional leadership was often based on art, inspired by traditions, religious or philosophical values, love of country, or hatred of oppression by others. Often intuitively, sometimes as a result of reason or knowledge gained from others, some individuals develop leadership skills to influence the hearts, minds, and acts of others. However, intuition and art are no longer enough. The ability to influence individuals to act has to be determined systematically to deal with modern problems more effectively, many of which are caused by techniques themselves (Ellul, 1964, p. 340). According to Ellul, a successful technique for influencing the actions of people must meet three criteria: (1) it must be general to everybody in every area of life; (2) it must be objective, a function of society itself, not dependent on the personality or values of the individual employing the technique; and (3) it must be permanent; psychic action must be brought to bear on individuals from the beginning of their existence to the end of their days. Human techniques aim to understand the mechanisms of human behaviour with the goal of managing or manipulating them with precision (1964, p. 341).

The transition of leadership from art to technique is demonstrated first by the technician’s mindset. Technicians who use human techniques are not interested in the broader social sciences; they are interested only in data deemed helpful in their work—whether in public relations, as career counsellors, or as propagandists. For most human technicians, calculability is highly valued, hence the reliance on mathematics and statistics in creating and refining their techniques (Ellul, 1964, p. 341). Again, this is consistent with Weberian theory. The third sign that art has given way to technique in influencing human behaviour is reliance on experimentation and, because of the limitations of experimenting on humans, quasi-experiments such as surveys, focus groups, and interviews. These empirical checks on the efficacy and precision of techniques are also valuable for refining techniques over time.

There is a multiplicity of human techniques in the modern world, so many in fact that Ellul declines to enumerate them, claiming that to do so would fill a whole library (1964, p. 343). Human techniques focus on the adult and the child, the employed and the unemployed, line managers, and executives. Some techniques concern both mind and body, and others focus on motivations and commitments. Technicians base their techniques on the social and behavioural sciences, observation, logic, and reason. They apply these findings in diverse fields such as education, advertising, management, public relations, and psychological counselling. Ellul summarizes several of these fields to illustrate the basic themes and principles of applying techniques in human affairs.

Education

Ellul begins his discussion of educational techniques by describing the traditional educational experience of students in France before the 1950s, much of which would pass for American education in the same era (and beyond). He describes dark and institutional schools where students saw their teachers as enemies and dispensers of corporal punishment, excessive homework, and incomprehensible and boring lectures. The textbooks were dense with writing and devoid of illustrations, and bullies stole lunch money or tormented students sitting in front of them. The competition for grades and class positions was relentless. Many students saw schoolwork as a burden and the school itself as a hostile place. Life was simpler then (1964, p. 344). According to Ellul, all of this was overthrown by a series of techniques called “progressive education.”

Progressive education is student centred, with the happiness and comfort of the child as its end. The emphasis is on learning as fun, developing all of the child’s faculties, stressing physical, manual, and intellectual abilities rather than cramming children’s heads with rote memorization of dates and other facts. The educational process is supposed to be devoid of force, and the teacher must meet the child’s needs to individualize instruction wherever possible. Such instruction is not focused on the intellect alone but encourages children to discover facts and make generalizations about what they observe. Ellul asserts that progressive education is a rigorous technique that demands much from the technicians (teachers) who employ it. Like all human techniques, it is not a mechanical procedure and much depends on the personal characteristics of the technicians to pull it off. Ellul adds that this reliance on the individual is especially true since the progressive educational technique is in its infancy. He notes the difficulties in transitioning to the new system from the old system: an antiquated examination system in France, large class sizes, and the training and recruitment of qualified teachers. However, he believes that these obstacles will disappear over time.

There is little doubt that children educated in this way will enjoy a much-improved educational environment and be better positioned to develop their full potential. However, progressive education is not just for the child’s benefit. It is also structured to benefit the technical society. Ellul recognizes the critical importance of education of the young in socializing them to the modern social order. He believes that once this is understood no expense or sacrifice will be too great for a society to fund and fully implement this type of education. In this connection, he emphasizes the importance that totalitarian regimes place on educating children in their systems. He predicts that the new education in which technique is given free rein in the socialization of children will become a key principle in democratic societies (1964, p. 346).

Ellul (1964) cites Dr. Maria Montessori in her speech to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which he believes is emblematic of liberal education. Montessori spoke of the necessity for children to understand life and its needs and to know that the “fundamental reason for all existence” is “the search for happiness” (p. 345). To reach these goals, the child should know what must be done for the good of humanity, and understand the necessity of peace among nations, which she asserted is dependent more on education than on politics. “Education must become a truly humane science to guide all men to judge the present situation correctly” (p. 346). The Montessori method of education, still popular in many circles today, involves children in self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play. Children make choices in their learning, and teachers offer activities to guide the learning process. Montessori education frees the child from school, community, and family bonds. However, according to Ellul, it consists of pervasive surveillance of children, precise regulation of their activities, spiritual indoctrination, and teaching them the joy of collaboration with others. It is a technique designed to integrate the child into the existing social order (p. 347).

State-supported primary education becomes a technical and social force, developed, continually sharpened through logic, experiment, and observation, and directed at the child to achieve a specific social end. That end encourages the child to adapt and conform to society’s needs and to integrate into the social body with as little friction as possible. Primary education is a technical tool used to mould children to take their places in society, and its main purpose is social adaptation. Although advocates talk a good deal about the higher aims of this education, its main goal is not the child as an individual “but the child in and for society.” Ellul adds that it is not the ideal society of truth, beauty, and justice that the child is being prepared for “but society as it is” (1964, p. 348).

As a society becomes more totalitarian, Ellul argues, it becomes more difficult for the individual to adapt to its dictates; education systems have therefore evolved to secure greater conformity by students. In the earlier industrial era, this conformity required extreme self-discipline, regimentation, rote memorization, and obedience to authority. In our technological society, there is a need to broaden children’s outlook and develop their social personality and satisfaction with the status quo. Ellul has no doubt that this approach makes the child more balanced and “happier,” but there is a social cost. Much like the drugs that serve to accommodate people to intolerable conditions of work and life, the new educational techniques are designed to help children adapt to the current social reality. It is a technique of submission; children are socialized to meet societal expectations and to become part of the social order. They are encouraged to strive for the rewards that society offers them: careers, marriage, success, and consumption. They are taught that they live in a world of change and that they must adapt to it (1964, pp. 348–349).

The argument that preparing the young for their roles in society is what education has always done is beside Ellul’s point. Educational techniques now prepare the young throughout their development based on applied social science, logic, observation, and reason. Also, the goal of education has changed since the early industrial era. Then the goals, aside from basic reading and writing skills, were regimentation, rote memorization, self-discipline, clock-oriented deadlines, and obedience to authority—goals congruent with early industrialism. The keyword for Ellul in his discussions of human techniques is adaptation; all human techniques are designed to enable individuals to adapt to whatever social changes society throws their way. In a technocratic society, material technology, private and government bureaucracy, and rationalization are proliferating at an unprecedented rate—social change is the only constant. Current educational practices strive to prepare the child for this world of hyper-change. Ellul compares them with the Napoleonic system of education, which the state formed to produce the administrators and managers needed by it and the economy; now this model of producing conformity among children to meet the needs of the socio-cultural system has become global. These are not humanistic goals. They are technical goals.

Higher Education

As far back as 1950s France, Ellul notes, there were complaints that higher education was not producing enough technicians to meet industrial needs. He quotes Le Monde in 1952 as saying that “there are too many half-baked intellectuals and not enough technicians” (1964, p. 348). Increasingly, higher education instruction is oriented toward the practical and the applied, and this career orientation is especially true in hyper-industrial American society.

Traditionally, higher education in the United States was seldom as bureaucratically organized as corporate or government institutions. American university organization was based on European traditions in which universities were organized around academic disciplines. Moreover, these traditional universities depended on educated professionals who used their numbers and expertise to demand a voice in university governance, which often superseded bureaucratic order in an administration; many of these administrators were former professors coming up through the ranks themselves. This professor orientation began to wane in the latter half of the 20th century as universities gradually transformed into corporate-like institutions producing technicians, managers, and executives to meet the needs of a technological society.

Before getting to the educational functions of American universities, I will explore how social forces external to the institutions caused them to adopt more technical procedures to increase their productivity and efficiency. The baby boom in the United States added approximately 4.25 million new babies every year between 1946 and 1964 (Patterson, 1996). First primary schools and then secondary schools had to scramble to muster the resources to educate the growing horde. The boomer generation began enrolling in universities and colleges in the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, causing massive pressures to expand physical plants and staff. With the decline in the birth rate after the boom, these institutions became desperate for students. Also, beginning in the early 1980s, many state-supported universities could no longer expect significant increases in funding and had to rely increasingly on enrolment to fund their activities (The Urban Institute, 2021). In response, they rationalized their business organization by controlling instructional costs, tightening the coordination of faculty members, and increasing the use of part-time workers (low-paid adjuncts and graduate students). Universities responded further by cutting programs with few majors (mainly in the humanities and arts), raising tuition and fees (a process made easier with federal student loan programs subsidizing parents and students), and investing in educational programs, services, and social amenities designed to attract students.

Modern universities in the United States monitor faculty performance through student performance (assessment), student opinion surveys, and observation of professors in the classroom and online. Administrators use these assessments to award merit, tenure, and promotion (instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor). The intensification in monitoring faculty members is partly the result of the reliance of educational institutions on attracting and retaining students—it pays to have professors who are popular with students, helping to retain students through the years and to graduate a high percentage of them (all measures of quality used by administrators, accrediting agencies, as well as state and federal governments). The change in monitoring professors is also a result of the increase in educational administrators and the general tightening of the coordination, monitoring, and control of workers to ensure continued efficiency and productivity throughout American society.

It seems that, unless administrators monitor professors, the former cannot assume that the latter will perform at their best. Most recently, the tenure process has come under increasing attack among state legislators and others pushing for a “post-tenure” review process to weed out those who no longer perform; others favour the scrapping of tenure altogether. There has also been an increase in resources devoted to responding to federal and state “requests” for data to ensure “accountability.” David Riesman (1980), a sociologist and an advocate of educational reform through his work with the Carnegie Foundation, suggests that governments do this in the name of consumer protection. The apparent belief is that, if left to their own devices, colleges and universities would become degree mills, selling credentials to those who can afford them.

A second characteristic of the rationalization of higher education is the standardization of course content. This standardization began with the widespread use of textbooks but has extended to the demands of program accrediting boards, state licensing agencies, and state-appointed boards of regents. Universities often undertake standardization to promote quality and comparability within them—so that sequenced classes can be based on the certainty that prerequisite course material is covered. Some universities require a standard textbook for multiple-section courses to control costs and relieve some burdens on university bookstores. In some programs, the university’s control extends to what is covered in each class session. This is consistent with coordination from the top and ensures that minimum classroom standards are met. There is also a move in many states to mandate the standardization of classes across universities to ease student transfers between them or to control costs by centralizing course creation (goals, texts, and coverage) and approval while avoiding redundant efforts by different campuses around the state.

A third marker of the increasing rationalization in American universities is the growth of the power and influence of central administration. As the numbers of students, programs, and physical plants grow, the division of labour increases, the administration enlarges, and its authority is enhanced. Riesman (1980) indicates that in the past most university presidents came from the ranks of professors, with doctorates from various disciplines. However, the proportion of presidents who served as faculty members has declined since then. That proportion dropped from 31% in 2006 to about 19% in 2016 (American Council on Education, 2017). More than 20% of college presidents are hired from outside higher education itself (often politicians or successful businesspeople), and some 41% of all American university presidents hold a doctorate in education and started their university employment as administrators. A specialized technical degree in educational administration (or some related higher education field) is becoming the credential needed for higher academic administration.

Moreover, perhaps because of these changes, there is a tendency for centralized administration to manipulate or ignore traditional “shared governance” by the faculty regarding university policy and even the academic curriculum to meet the goals of the institution more efficiently. A corporate model based on an administrative hierarchy and bureaucratic procedures is taking hold. A university can be far more efficient without debate, discussion, or compromise. The increasing rationalization of American universities is also evident from the increasing emphasis that their presidents place on financial matters. Of current university presidents, 65% state that financial matters—budgeting and fundraising—occupy most of their time (American Council on Education, 2017).

Another indicator of the rationalization of American higher education is the rise of contingency workers or adjunct instructors. According to the American Association of University Professors, 73% of higher education faculty in the United States are not tenured or on a tenure track. The highest percentage of contingent faculty are at two-year community colleges, where tenured positions are often less than 20% of the faculty. “While a little less than 50 percent of faculty positions at master’s and baccalaureate institutions are part-time, more than 65 percent of positions at two-year institutions are” (AAUP, 2018).

Another technique used to extend teaching efficiency is to increase class sizes. It is common practice to hold class sessions in large auditoriums where faculty, often with the aid of graduate students, teach hundreds of students per course. In the process, they produce hundreds of credit hours and thus revenue for the institution. To accommodate such numbers, professors (technicians) rely on machine-graded multiple-choice tests, audiovisual equipment, the internet, prepared educational supplements (often extensive materials that come with textbook adoption), and deliberately inexpensive graduate student labour.

Technique integration into higher education is further evident from the rise of “alternative delivery systems,” in other words web-based classes that can extend the reach of professors through the internet, computer classrooms, and labs. Professors who create online courses can continue to teach them even after death since the courses can be administered through adjunct instructors or graduate students (Tamara, 2021). There are now thousands of online degrees offered by American institutions, both private and public, undergraduate, graduate, and professional; there are even several universities that only offer online degrees with very few full-time faculty. Other course delivery systems include televised courses, DVD courses, and closed-circuit TV courses that wire them from one campus to others in the region. One of the newer innovations is teaching a course using computer conference software. These cost-cutting trends—adjuncts, temporary faculty, web technology, and larger classes—increase the efficiency of education and the university’s productivity as defined by the accrediting process.

Like that of a corporation, a university’s health is measured by growth in market share or, in today’s climate, at least in maintaining its existing share. The rationalization of higher education is also evident from its attempts to maintain or increase student numbers through marketing a proliferation of professional and semi-professional degrees. This proliferation is accompanied by the precipitous decline of the liberal arts as viable majors, particularly in the arts and humanities—the bulk of the traditional disciplines that used to define university education itself.

Another way to increase the university’s clientele is by marketing to “non-traditional” students (age 25+). Many older students must “retool” to stay employed in the ever-changing economy or seek advancement. This marketing strategy is part of the university’s more significant career focus. In 2025, over 24 percent of all college students were 25 years of age or older (Welding & Bryant, 2025). A recent innovation is the development of micro-credential programs, which can be recognized by digital badges, awarded to students who complete courses in specified skills (say, forensic accounting) as credentials for employment.

Universities also attempt to increase the number of international students through programs that bring them from their home countries to American campuses or satellite campuses overseas. Again, this is an attempt to expand the number of students in the institution. Many observers have written of universities overselling foreign markets to the detriment of students (Riesman, 1980, pp. 218–224). “During the 2019–2020 school year, approximately 1,075,496 foreign-born students were enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities, representing 4.6% of the total U.S. student population. Students come to the U.S. from roughly 200 countries, though more than half are from China and India” (International Students and Graduates in the United States, 2022).

A significant increase in resources is devoted to marketing the university to students to maintain or grow their numbers. Moreover, the costs of student marketing are rising. Riesman (1980) points out that the escalation of marketing strategy was based on the irrational belief that other institutions would not follow the same strategies to increase their enrolment. Those that did would cancel any temporary gains in the number of students and render the recruitment process far more expensive. Riesman then gives a classic example of how an extreme focus on a goal can often undermine the institution itself: “Each director of admissions thinks his or her stratagem is unique, failing to realize that a hundred others, no less hungry and intelligent, will think of the identical devices” (p. 113). Students must bear the high-stakes costs of recruiting them—increased tuition, larger class sizes, inadequate library or computer support, and poor maintenance of university facilities. Although spending on university marketing is hard to track since it is spread over several departments, one estimate by Kantor was that in 2018 it was about $2 billion (Marcus, 2021).

Another symptom of widening the pool of potential students is the spread of remedial education. “Every year, millions of new college students arrive on campus lacking the necessary academic skills to perform at the college level. Postsecondary institutions address this problem with extensive remedial programs designed to strengthen students’ basic skills. In 2011–12, about one-third of all first- and second-year bachelor’s degree students—29 percent of those at public 4-year institutions and 41 percent of those at public 2-year institutions—reported having taken remedial courses” (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2016). “As many as 60 percent of entering college freshmen are placed into remedial education courses to develop skills that they should have learned in high school, at a cost of more than $1 billion annually” (Jimenez et al., 2016). Manno (1995, p. 48) asks “can it be true that large numbers of students unable to do serious college-level work in reading, writing, and mathematics are able to do serious college-level work in history or business?” Open admissions, he claims, send the wrong message to high schools and their students. No admission standards in college, he says, lead to no exit standards in high schools.

Riesman (1980) relates the decline in standards to university-student market relationships. With institutions competing frantically with each other for students, “faculty members and administrators will hesitate to make demands on students in the form of rigorous academic requirements for fear of losing ‘FTE’s—full-time equivalent students” (p. xiv). The erosion of the core curriculum—the number and quality of courses often designated as “general education” or “distribution requirements” aimed at educating the whole person (the remains of a traditional liberal arts focus)—is evidence of this decline in standards and rigour. Riesman again relates the decline of the core to the student market, to the student as consumer, “since any requirement is likely to turn away prospects” (p. 108).

Evidence of educational decline comes out in report after report. James Williams (2019), in The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly, writes about the commodification and decline of academic standards in American higher education over the past 50 years. He, too, attributes much of the problem to the need to attract students and the consequent watering down of course content and grade inflation to boost retention and graduation rates. Much of higher education has become a business, with regional universities and community colleges competing with flagship institutions and each other for students. Including the well-financed privates, the not-so-well-financed privates, the massive online universities, and the diploma mills, it might well be the most competitive market in the United States.

College majors do not just teach a list of skills and general factual knowledge. More importantly, they socialize students into the discipline’s values, ideologies, and interests (this is true of any discipline, though I would argue that the liberal arts tend to instill broader values and ideologies than professional fields). For far too many students, the liberal arts and humanities in their general education courses are viewed as non-essential, tolerated (to varying degrees), and subordinate to their occupationally focused majors. Many universities have abandoned their general education programs or have cafeteria-style distribution requirements that allow students to select courses that directly support their professional degrees, such as micro- and macroeconomics for business majors to meet their social science requirements or psychology for nursing and other health-related professions. On the off chance that humanities and social studies professors get to instruct such students, many already have a personal stake in the status quo; they are junior doctors, businesspeople, and social workers. This early commitment to the status quo makes students much less flexible and less willing to experiment with new ideas; it also goes a long way toward explaining why undergraduates no longer have a unique subculture.

Another factor behind the decline of general standards and the core curriculum is the “dis-integration” (in Durkheim’s sense) of broadly subscribed cultural norms, values, and ideologies in American society. This weakening of the collective conscience, combined with the increase in specialization at universities, has led to multiple disciplines and “special” interests in campus debates about university standards. In addition, several academic movements—postmodernism in particular—have been hostile to the Western humanistic and scientific tradition. Some postmodernists emphasize themes such as subjectivism and relativism, rejecting notions of objectivity, truth, and validity of the scientific enterprise. Such postmodernists claim that everything is rooted in observers, their class, race, and resulting ideology (see Harris, 1995, for an extended discussion). Consequently, getting professors to agree on what should constitute a common core is challenging. Getting them to agree on what every student should know is difficult.

Riesman (1980) attempted to look at the consequences of this competition for headcounts, finding that it affects far-ranging areas of the university and society. One indicator of this vigorous recruitment of students is the growth in the percentage of high school graduates (aged 18 to 24 years) who attend college. This number has gone from approximately 34% in 1986 to 62% in 2021. Among recent high school graduates aged 16 to 24, college enrolment rates for men and women were 55% and 69% respectively. Although the pool of 18 to 24 year olds is declining, and the competition among colleges for students is fierce, universities must continually widen their nets. They have adapted to serve this broader demographic to meet the needs of students and an advanced technical society more effectively.

In response to the market (and often parents), institutions of higher learning have increasingly focused on occupational training for students. According to My Degree Guide (2023), American universities’ five most popular majors are business related (Business Administration #1, Accounting #2, Marketing #6, Computer Science #10, and Finance #11). Most remaining majors are also career oriented (Nursing #3, Psychology #4, Education #7, Elementary Education #8, and Criminal Justice #12). Just two are from the traditional liberal arts, Communications (#5, now often seen as a “business light” degree or as preparation for entry into media) and English #9. Interestingly, Biology was the only science to make the top 25 list (#13).

In marketing career-oriented majors, colleges are responding to actual economic conditions. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the employment rate in 2021 was higher for 25 to 34 year olds at higher levels of educational attainment. Those with bachelor’s degrees or higher had the highest rates of employment (86%), regardless of gender, compared with those with some college education (75%), those who completed high school (68%), or those who had not completed high school (53%) (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2022). People go to college because the labour market favours college education, and they have higher employment rates and earn more than those with a high school education or less.

According to some estimates, 65% of all jobs in the American economy require some postsecondary education or training; 35% require at least a baccalaureate degree (Carnevale Vale et al., 2014). Major occupations that require college-level applicants are growing faster than the overall jobs in the economy. Part of this is the result of the changing nature of the economy. However, part of it is also the result of the educational upgrading for many existing jobs (called “credentialization”) and does not represent a meaningful change in responsibility or compensation.

Many of the fastest-growing jobs available for college graduates are in the “professional-specialty occupations” classification of the US Census Bureau, such as engineer, registered nurse, teacher, counsellor, and social worker. The second largest category is “executive, administrative and managerial occupations.” These two broad groups account for over two-thirds of college-level employment in the United States (Mittelhauser, 1998). People go to college for the credentials to qualify for employment in these areas, as evident in yearly surveys of first-year American students “Just over half (51 percent) of students say they enrolled in higher education for higher earning potential, 45 percent are looking to access better job benefits and 40 percent say their field of study requires a degree. Around two in five students (39 percent) say they’re looking to explore potential career opportunities” (Inside Higher Education, 2024).

This personal vocational focus is supplemented and encouraged (some would say created) by a political system that promotes higher education as a means of workforce development and little else. In addition, the corporate system demands that higher education (and thus governments, parents, and students) subsidize many of its training costs. University systems and technical schools follow these corporate and government priorities, rapidly becoming worker training centres for corporations and the nation-state—selecting, sorting, and training future workers for the technological society. A recent development in many states across the United States is the 90–credit hour bachelor’s degree touted because it reduces the time to graduate from four to three years. Typically cut are foundational courses considered non-essential for the major and elective courses, and there is a more rigorous focus on core competencies required for the major. The development of such degrees is promoted for their efficiency (saving time and money for students and parents), exclusive focus on workforce needs, and reduction of the costs of higher education for states.

There has also been growth in the number and power of professional and occupational accrediting boards, which often dictate specific courses and contents to faculty. Significant personnel and money resources must be expended to gain and maintain these accreditations. This trend is a mix of standardization to ensure minimum quality and “relevance” of the educational program for student consumers. It is also the result of self-interest by occupational groups to raise standards and restrict access to various professions.

All of these changes (and more) can be related to increasing rationalization, a consequent increase in the division of labour, and the growing function of colleges and universities in training technicians. However, we must still detail the effects of these changes on the educational “product” and society itself. Professors complain about students in campus offices and hallways during professional meetings (where most of the actual discussion takes place). We complain about students who are not conversant with their culture and often hostile toward the arts, humanities, and social studies. We complain of students who are indifferent toward politics and the governance of their society, students whose only interest (and value) seems to be pursuing a comfortable career. Some of this talk, no doubt, is a look back (with heavy doses of nostalgia) to the days when we were undergraduates going through the “most exciting time of our lives.” Nevertheless, by catering to student desires through watered-down core requirements and an emphasis on vocational education, the university does not always give students what they need.

However, there is another side to the issue of declining standards and excessive career focus. A complete answer to the question “why?” should discuss the types of workers needed by technocratic societies. That those on top of the dominant bureaucratic hierarchies need a broad traditional liberal arts curriculum could be argued. Tim Askew, writing in Inc. Newsletter, estimates that over a third of the chief executive officers of the top Fortune 500 companies have liberal arts degrees. He asserts that they and other corporate leaders with such degrees have the intellectual flexibility and critical thinking skills to further their organizations’ goals. “They know how to tap into the non-quantitative intuitions that constitute the foundation of creative business and creative life for that matter. They know how to bring love, meaning, and passion, as well as immediate profit, to entrepreneurship and long-term corporate health” (2018, para. 7). In an advanced technological society, that need might be as high as 15% to 20% of all corporate and government positions, a figure that our best private and public colleges can supply.

However, it is difficult to make the same argument for the millions of technical specialists, semi-professionals, and middle managers produced annually by private and public universities. Suppose we assume that most of these students are destined to serve in the middle levels of bureaucracy or, at best, as professionals dependent on public or private bureaucracies to practise their skills. In that case, it might be that the old liberal arts disciplines run counter to these bureaucratic needs. Critical thinking (which could be defined in terms of Weber’s concept of substantive rationality—the ability to exercise goal-oriented rationality within a holistic context of traditions, emotions, and values) is not in high demand in such positions. To have middle-level managers or government accountants competent in critical thinking (as opposed to problem solving in their specialties), constantly asking “why?” or “should we?” instead of executing decisions from on high, would impede the efficient operation of the organizations. Apart from leadership at the top of the hierarchy, bureaucracies value technical expertise since it leads to efficient operations in attaining organizational goals. Nevertheless, such a narrowing is counter to traditional views of education. More importantly, it is counter to the needs of a liberal-democratic social order.

The Technique of Work

Ellul’s dissertation on work begins with techniques to adapt the worker to the job’s requirements. This complex includes vocational guidance, the organization of labour, and the physical and psychological tools that can aid the individual to perform with optimum efficiency and thus benefit the overall organization. Ellul reports that work techniques at the beginning of the industrial era gave little attention to humans tending to machines. Then, under the “scientific management” system of Frederick Winslow Taylor, workers’ productivity was increased through disciplined movements, production lines, and detailed divisions of labour. Under this regime, the exploitation of workers was markedly increased, and their happiness and well-being were generally ignored.

Then, over time, managers began recognizing the human factor in production and became concerned with optimizing results rather than focusing on maximum exploitation. Human technicians realized that psychology and happiness affect productivity and that they had to adapt work to the emotional and psychological needs of workers (Ellul, 1964, p. 350). Workers will not give their commitment and skill to a job unless they believe that they are integral parts of the process and that the economic system is in line with their interests. Compensation alone does not motivate workers to give their best efforts; improvements in work conditions are also insufficient. Although such attributes are essential as a foundation, such as hygiene and safety, the key to motivation is psychological. Much work in the modern world is routine and boring. Both blue- and white-collar jobs follow rational procedures set from above, with little or no room for initiative or thought. The worker is often bored, disassociating the mind from the body. The solution is integrating workers into the workplace, promoting friendship and community within their division, and instilling pride and social meaning in their work.

The specific techniques of integrating the workforce vary by country and enterprise. They can include reorganizing a manufacturing plant, sponsoring company social events (family picnics, beer busts for the younger tech industries), and company sports teams. Other techniques include removing cubicles and opening office spaces, inviting workers’ participation in advisory boards, providing a gym at the corporate location, and even granting a seat on the board of directors (these human techniques are widespread on college campuses as well). The human relations office oversees all of this activity directed at workers.

In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, tool and die makers designed machines for efficiency, with workers who had to tend to them being an afterthought. It was not until the early 20th century that machines were designed with workers in mind. Concern with efficiency and productivity was the drive behind the reduction in physical fatigue and the increased attention to safety (Ellul, 1964, p. 351). As a result, industrial machinery became further adapted to workers’ physical needs by progressively eliminating causes of fatigue such as physical exertion, constant standing, and sensory overload. However, reducing physical exertion also decreases mental concentration, leading to boredom and decreased productivity. According to Ellul, all of the efforts at adapting workers to an industrial world have merits, but they also have limits.

Nevertheless, one must admit, the adaptations were made not for workers’ benefit but to maximize productivity as efficiently as machine technology and techniques of worker manipulation will allow. Each technique is part of a system. Expanding productivity increases consumer goods and services, parts of the culture that keeps workers committed to their employers.

A second technique in coordinating and controlling the workforce is to use psychological counsellors as “safety valves” to address employee discontent. Again, Ellul points out that these counsellors are not there for workers’ benefit, for they do not counsel personal problems, encourage life changes, or solve serious problems. Their function is to listen to complaints. It is well known, he says, that expressing suffering brings some relief and that keeping things inside can lead to rebellion or unrest as well as loss of productivity. If workers communicate their feelings to those around them, then doing so can lead to unrest or revolt. The counsellor on duty is there to relieve steam and little more. Any relief of the suffering caused by technique, Ellul says, “is secondary” (1964, p. 353). Management’s concern is technical development, which calls for humans’ continuing adaptability to it.

The problem for human technique is to integrate the individual into the group. According to Ellul, it aims to rationalize “employee-employer relations” and ensure maximum productivity with efficiency in using human and material resources (1964, pp. 353–354). Based on an industrial model, the human relations system is developing along industrial lines, with strong ties among corporations, governments, foundations, and educational institutions.

Citing W. E. Moore, Ellul claims that there are four significant characteristics of human relations. The first is that human relations concerns are centred on the job; human relationships are central to being human, and human relations as a technique are only concerned with those relationships related to technical activities. The second characteristic is that human relations are considered universal. There is no room for arbitrary groupings such as race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference unless they concern production. The third is rationality, and the fourth is impersonality. Combined, they refer to the fact that relations should be conducted rationally; emotions, personal prejudices, likes, and dislikes should not play any role in the organization. These are all characteristics of Weber’s typology of bureaucracy associated with the rationalization process.

Ellul explains that two human relations theorists, Jerome F. Scott and R. P. Lynton (1953), lend support to Moore’s characterization. Going further, they state that our complex technical society is destroying all foundations of traditional community. People must be encouraged to enter and sustain human relations in a technocracy. They add that this is necessary for both the individual’s and the corporation’s progress (Ellul, 1964, p. 355). They further urge human relations to encourage these relationships and organize employees into small groups mutually responsible to one another but directed toward overall institutional productivity.

Ellul concludes that technicians developed human relations techniques to help the individual adapt to technical civilization, to force the worker to accept the status quo, and to accept “slavery” to the organization. The purpose of human relations is to support community and happiness among colleagues and work groups (which Durkheim recommended to replace some of the bonds lost with the passing of traditional societies). These techniques, Ellul states, are “fakeries and shams” provided to avoid conflicts in a technical environment (1964, p. 356). (C. Wright Mills reached a similar conclusion in the 1951 book White Collar.) Furthermore, the relationships that we form are not simple counterweights to technique (physical technology, organization, and rationalization) but extensions of work techniques into our personal lives and relations with others. Ellul likens them to “lubricating oil” for organizational machinery but not a means by which humans can recover spontaneity, social bonds, or a sense of worth. Instead, they are simulations of primary connections, “a delusion which desiccates the individual’s desire for anything better” (1964, p. 356). Although they undoubtedly add to the comfort and happiness of individuals, they are oriented toward manipulation and compulsion. Technical production is the goal. Moreover, this is true of socialist and capitalist societies, democracies and dictatorships. The specific techniques might differ, but the ends remain the same.

Such manipulation and compulsion are not done by evil men and women, Ellul asserts; rather, they result from the necessity of addressing the social problems caused by technical development. The technical complex consists of mechanical, organizational, and psychological techniques. The technicians in this complex are prone to view human beings as just another object to be manipulated and controlled in accordance with the organization’s needs. The complex determines the character of the men and women, boys and girls, who inhabit modern society. These techniques permit people to thrive and achieve happiness, and they are subject to additional and more effective techniques as development continues. The more substantial this development, Ellul claims, the greater the need for additional technical countermeasures and the more sizable the role of technique in modern life (1964, pp. 356–357).

Ellul reluctantly dismisses labour unions as a countervailing force opposed to technique, noting that they have long been another form of technical administration. Unions are part of the universal need to organize to have any real impact on our technological society. They have served to eliminate some of the worst abuses of capitalism—at least they did in American society until their power was curtailed in the 1980s. Nevertheless, they are not a “revolutionary force,” according to Ellul, because they have become part of the basic structure of technical societies (1964, p. 358). Although they have great educational value and not inconsiderable political power, and they have gone a long way toward improving the lot of workers, they are technical organizations that encourage the integration of workers into technological society.

Vocational Guidance

Before going into the most pervasive of all human techniques, propaganda, Ellul briefly looks at vocational guidance, a technique designed to identify an individual’s aptitudes, interests, intelligence, and other characteristics and match them with occupations in the labour force. At the time of his writing (1964), Ellul called this a new technique that claimed to match people with their most suitable vocations, which they could perform well and in which they could find meaning and happiness. Although this technique was in its infancy, Ellul was aware that its claims fell short of its reality, but in The Technological Society he does not want to focus on that shortfall. Whether there are natural aptitudes is debatable, but that is for another day, and other writers, as is the debate over whether such aptitudes, if they exist, can be measured. Ellul wishes to focus on the inseparability of vocational guidance from other economic and political techniques. He writes that it is no accident that the technique “discovers” aptitudes that fit careers needed by a technical society (1964, p. 359). He then gives several examples from 1930s France, in which vocational guidance diverted young people away from overcrowded trades, such as mechanical or textile work, and into trades needed by the economy, such as in metallurgy and agriculture.

Servicing a technical society’s needs does not mean that vocational guidance is a sham. It does mean that such guidance is a part of the overall human technique of preparing the young for their roles in the technical economic structure, in which their aptitudes and, more importantly, social needs are determinant factors. Ellul notes that it can be no other way, for an economy tailored strictly to individual aptitudes would be impossible (1964, p. 359). Today any young person who decides on a career would be foolish not to consider the economy’s future needs, about which the American government has published for years and now provides free online in The Occupational Outlook Handbook (2022).

Ellul asserts that the rational roots of occupational guidance can be observed by looking at the field’s early pioneers. One such book by Frank Parsons, Choosing a Vocation (1909), regarded as the founder of the vocational guidance movement in America, details the importance of a good fit between aptitudes and careers for both the individual and industry:

No step in life, unless it be the choice of a husband or wife, is more important than the choice of a vocation. The wise selection of the business, profession, trade, or occupation to which one’s life is to be devoted and the development of full efficiency in the chosen field are matters of the deepest moment to young men and the public. These vital problems should be solved in a careful, scientific way, with due regard to each person’s aptitudes, abilities, ambitions, resources, and limitations, and the relations of these elements to the conditions of success in different industries. If a boy takes up a line of work to which he is adapted, he will achieve far greater success than if he drifts into an industry for which he is not fitted. An occupation out of harmony with the worker’s aptitudes and capacities means inefficiency, unenthusiastic and perhaps distasteful labor, and low pay; while an occupation in harmony with the nature of the man means enthusiasm, love of work, and high economic values, superior product, efficient service, and good pay. (p. 3)

It is fantasy, Ellul says, to believe that vocational guidance is strictly a service to individuals. In the context of other human techniques, it is simply a means of sorting people into careers that suit the individual and the technical economy. It is “a mechanism of adaptation” that encourages people to take up careers in which they will be most efficient and useful to the social order (1964, p. 362). Although not mandatory in France at the time of his writing, Ellul cites recent growth figures, nearly making it universal there. In the United States, vocational counselling has been integrated into secondary education through school counsellors. Unfortunately, many high school counsellors are also responsible for employing other behavioural techniques to address a vast array of student problems—personal, academic, and social. In its pure technical form, the occupational guidance technique is perhaps most evident on technical school, college, and university campuses.

Sports

The American form of sports is an industry that has spread to other technological societies. Ellul points out that the best athletes come from the proletariat since machine work develops speed and precision. It is more likely that, like entertainment, sports are one of the few open avenues of upward mobility left to someone born to the poor and working classes. More importantly, sports are a technique. Sport is based on efforts to attain the perfection of bodily or mechanical action efficiently. The goal is speed, jumping ability, having the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball coming across the plate at about 150 kph, or kicking a ball through several defenders and past a goalie. It is physical precision, Ellul notes, a “mechanization of actions” accompanied by whole industries producing sporting goods, high school and college sports, sports stadiums, statisticians, parking lots, concession stands, bars, betting, local and network broadcasting rights, and a population seeking escape and eager to watch every move (1964, p. 383).

Constant training and discipline replace spontaneity; techniques designed to produce an efficient athlete with a will to win become the overriding goal. This training goes beyond the few specialists in professional sports. It spreads to the broader population beginning in elementary school, with the goals of promoting the child’s physical health (productivity) and training the next generation of high school, college, and professional athletes (Ellul, 1964, p. 383). With the rise of spectator sports—an industry strongly associated with technological society—this sports mentality became a significant part of the entertainment/distraction industry.

Ellul (1964, p. 384) asserts that sports pave the way for a “totalitarian frame of mind.” Team spirit, discipline, and winning become paramount. Sports encourage athletes to focus all of their efforts on efficient performance to technical specifications. Ellul notes that technical sports originated in the United States, that “most conformist of all countries,” and that they have been taken up wholeheartedly by dictatorships of all stripes. Today sport is an essential component of all technological societies—democratic or totalitarian—and part of the worship of technique. As most coaches point out, sports build character and encourage discipline and competitive spirit. Ellul finds that sports promote the norms and values of technical societies, the same spirit necessary for success in school, the military, work, and life.

Medical Science

Ellul is outdated regarding the medical contributions to human manipulation and population pacification. After a quick review of various medical techniques of his day aimed at modifying behaviour—truth serums, nutritional supplements, lobotomies, hormone treatments—he concludes that such interventions are unproven or, at best, only of secondary importance. However, he posits that medical techniques could prove to be effective in the future, though he is far from certain.

There are widespread fears that the state might use such techniques, but Ellul considers these fears to be overblown. The state might use them in exceptional circumstances—to obtain confessions at show trials or modify the thought and behaviour of a deviant—but the state can have no interest in the wholesale degrading of human beings. The state, he says, needs whole, strong, fully functioning people and prefers those with enough intellect to master technical life. Therefore, Ellul writes, the state requires a means to integrate “whole beings” into the socio-cultural system without doing considerable damage to them regarding their potential for efficiency and productivity (1964, p. 386). The technical solution to that problem is the development of ever more effective propaganda and the means to distribute it.

Ellul fails to mention the potential of widespread use of psychoactive and performance-enhancing drugs among the citizens of technological societies or the extent of mental health counselling that enables people to tolerate the intolerable or to perform better in their work or play. In 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2020), 19% of American adults received mental health treatments, almost 16% received prescription drugs for their symptoms, and almost 10% received mental health counselling from a professional.

Finally, there is the wide use of illegal drugs outside official channels that many use for recreation or in attempts to cope with life, distracting many from their feelings of depression, meaninglessness, fear, and anxiety. According to the CDC (2021), in 2019 in the United States, 13% of those 12 years of age or older admitted to illegal drug use at least once in the past month. An additional 1.9% took a psychotherapeutic drug for non-medical reasons. The number of drug overdose deaths in 2019 was 91,799 or 27.9 overdose deaths per 100,000 population (many of the overdose deaths result from opioid use). The widespread use of psychoactive drugs by a sizable portion of the population illustrates that modern society is still not meeting many human needs. Medical science and the market (legal and illegal) have provided many coping mechanisms for people to relieve the stress of modern living as well as technology to enhance our performance at work and play. Further development of techniques to coordinate, control, amuse, and distract human populations will no doubt continue.

The use of legal drugs to ease the trials and tribulations of living is also prevalent in modern life. The average American adult consumes about 135 mg (about the weight of five grains of rice) of caffeine daily or one and a half cups of coffee—many cannot face the day without their coffee. However, of course, there are many other sources of the drug, including soda, tea, and increasingly popular energy drinks (which contain about 170 mg for a 473 ml serving) (Harvard, 2020). Alcohol use and abuse are also common among the adult population. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, almost 55% of respondents reported that they drank alcohol in the past month. Of those 18 years of age and older, almost 30% of men and 22% of women reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month, and 6% (8.3% of men, 4.5% of women) reported that they were heavy alcohol users in the past month (National Institute of Health, 2022).

Performance-enhancing drugs in sports at all levels are becoming increasingly common, and the various regulatory bodies report rates ranging from 5% to 31% of all athletes, depending on the sport itself. The most common drugs include anabolic androgenic steroids, which strengthen muscle and reduce body fat, and human growth hormone. Other types of performance-enhancing drugs include stimulants such as amphetamines to reduce fatigue and increase alertness (also used by many non-athletes to get through their work). “In the current cutthroat era of sports, where the second winner is viewed as the first loser, the spirit of ‘fighting well’ is lost completely. Winning no longer involves winning the medal and the pride but the multimillion-dollar deals that come with it in the form of endorsements, appearances, and contracts. Considering this reality, the athletes are ready to sacrifice their integrity and take a risk to gain the competitive edge and enhance their performance” (Malve, 2018, para. 1). The problem has become severe enough that the World Anti-Doping Agency was established in 1999 to monitor the situation and to promote testing and regulations against the practice. The agency comprises sports medicine experts, pharmacists, geneticists, physiologists, physicians, and laboratory scientists (Malve, 2018). It represents, of course, yet another step in advancing technique.

Amusements

According to Ellul, amusements and diversions are similar in function to the material components of propaganda—films, radio, newspapers, and the like. The difference is that, where propaganda attempts to influence and lead, amusements aim to distract and entertain. Propaganda meets the organizer’s or propagandist’s needs; amusements meet the needs of the masses. Ellul believes that amusement is a need because life in a technological society is relatively empty of meaning. At work, some eight hours a day, there is constant pressure to perform fruitless and meaningless tasks at the behest of others. Bureaucratic hierarchies of education, the military, work, the government, and leisure essentially organize personal life. War, natural disasters, accidents, and other threats to life and limb fill television and internet news (pictures make the news, and the news is meant to sell commercials). Nothing makes sense; the individual has no control, and everything ends in death (1964, p. 376). Jacques Ellul, like Max Weber, can sometimes become quite pessimistic. The images that he draws of life in a technocracy are extreme. Most would argue that a technological society offers many benefits, but his point is that there are definite real costs of technique. Those costs are also disproportionately borne by some, and the benefits disproportionately go to those who control the major organizations of society.

Amusements have the power to distract the masses from grim realities by creating an artificial world of laughter, drama, thrills, sex, and mystery. Individuals can lose themselves in fantasy for hours, imagine themselves the hero, laugh and cry, kill the bad guy, and briefly believe that it all means something (Ellul, 1964, p. 377). The whole setting of the movie theatre—dim lights, attention focused on a colourful screen, attractive actors, and scripted dialogue—creates a reality that has great psychological force in integrating the individuals in the audience into the world depicted on the screen. Recent developments in flatscreen TVs, their increasing size, sound bars, and subwoofers, recreate the theatrical setting in the home. It is now common, Ellul notes, for people to escape their realities and forget their problems by watching images on a screen and imagining “a life of freedom that they will never live in fact” (1964, p. 377).

Many observers argue that such escapist fare has always been present and allows people to flee boring lives, famine, war, and persecution. However, Ellul asserts that now it is attractively packaged and technically sophisticated. It is a mass phenomenon serving millions who seek freedom, spontaneity, and life. Just as the modern state needs a force promoting social cohesion among occupationally diverse populations and thus exploits propaganda, so too does it need diversional techniques that provide escapes. Ellul is struck by a technical society that “provides the antidote while it distills the poison” (1964, p. 377).

Well before television became ubiquitous in France, Ellul wrote of its destructive effects on family and community life. Some critics argue that television can bring families together by asserting that parents and children are more likely to stay together within the home while enjoying a favourite program. Ellul counters that this would centre family life on the television, obviating the need for conversation. With hypnotic attention to the program, they become unaware of each other, and thus it becomes easier to bear stale relationships and avoid conflicts. Television becomes yet another means of escape from the self and others. With television, family members no longer must interact with each other. Ellul writes that they do not have “to be conscious of the fact that family relations are impossible” (1964, p. 378).

Estimates are that some 82% of American homes have two or more TV sets, so families do not even have to be in the same room or watch the same show. Ellul asserts that radio and television are mechanical devices that isolate individuals. Through these means, they can escape the anguish of empty, meaningless lives. Such devices comfort and reassure us through their fascinating “hoaxes.” Ellul writes that television, because it casts visual and audio signals, is the technology “which is most destructive of personality and of human relations” (1964, p. 380). However, of course, he was writing before the development of the internet, personal computers, and cell phones. The sheer volume and variety of entertainment available today boggle the mind.

The goal of amusements is to cloud the individual’s consciousness. Both art and science have contributed to these amusements, particularly in films and television, but not chiefly in the service of education or culture. Their far more extensive contribution is to the technical enterprise of distraction, of pulling individuals into fantasy worlds. Ellul adds that, as techniques of propaganda become more developed and widespread, amusements will also become ever more efficient mediums of propaganda.