Chapter 9. 9 The Technological System

Human Techniques

In Ellul’s theory of the technological system, education and other “human techniques” (propaganda, advertising, counselling, spectator sports, and entertainment) are essential for its maintenance and expansion. Human techniques shape public perceptions and behaviours to meet the system’s demands. These techniques involve direct persuasion and the subtle shaping of desires, needs, and expectations to fit the structures and dynamics of the system. The changing nature of higher education, with its growing emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and its de-emphasis on critical thinking, is a compelling example (see Chapter 5). Another is advertising, which does not just sell products but also creates a culture of consumerism, aligning individual desires with the logic of mass production and consumption inherent in the technological system.

Ellul also asserts that the massive development of technique in the modern era creates new needs in the individual and society. Leisure activities, movies, sports, television shows, and other types of entertainment provide individuals with an escape from the system’s demands. Many of these entertainments reinforce the dominant values of the system, portraying technological development as inherently positive and downplaying negative consequences. Such entertainments and consumables are “thoroughly indispensable in making up for the uninteresting work, the deculturation caused by specialization, the nervous tension due to the excessive speed of all operations, the acceleration of progress requiring difficult readjustment” (1980, p. 62). In sum, entertainments serve as compensations; they function to adapt individuals to the technological system, to equip them “to live and work efficiently within this universe” (1980, p. 313).

Propaganda is a relatively new human technique developed and employed by organizations to attain organizational goals more efficiently by directly influencing the thoughts and behaviours of individuals. Equally compelling, it dictates which issues are important and worthy of discussion, shaping the frames within which individuals think and act. Using communication technology and social science findings and methods, government, voluntary, and private organizations attempt to shape public opinion and behaviour and, through these manipulations, public policy. Depending on organizational goals, propaganda can be a technique to manufacture consent and foster conformity and integration of individuals into the social order, or it can manipulate perceptions of individuals to oppose or change that order. In either case, the technique is used by formal organizations to align public attitudes and behaviours with the goals of the organization wielding the technique.

Propaganda often consolidates the control of those who benefit most from the technological system (those at the top of dominant formal organizations)—promoting ideologies and maintaining social order by influencing how the individual perceives reality. These techniques often justify and legitimize the technological system and its continuing expansion, presenting technical advances as inherently beneficial and downplaying negative consequences. Thus, propaganda contributes to the self-perpetuating nature of the system by creating public support for ongoing development even when the development contradicts established science as well as physical evidence of harm. Ellul argues that individuals are often unaware of the forces of propaganda shaping their attitudes and beliefs, which reflects the broader theme of the loss of autonomy within a technologically driven society. Human techniques are crucial mechanisms that sustain and propagate the technological system and homogenize culture worldwide. Ellul argues that the growth of technique leads to a homogenization of culture, in which the uniqueness of human experiences is eroded, and human character is reshaped consistent with the needs of an evolving technological society.

It is mere escapism to claim that human character is the result of many influences—tribal, familial, social currents in communities and among peers—so why worry about the effects of technique? Ellul answers that just because individuals are subject to many different influences is not a reason to subject them to yet others. However, more importantly, “there is a difference between the spontaneous and lightly coercive influence of an individualistic social group and the calculated, precise, and efficient influence of techniques” (1964, p. 393). Ellul asserts that those who hold that propaganda does not threaten human freedom and democracy have too much faith in the “inalienable value of the individual” (1965, p. 256). By claiming that propaganda is harmless, they leave themselves open to its influence, and their will to resist it is greatly diminished. People must be made “aware of their frailty and their vulnerability” (1965, p. 257), and that propaganda is a serious weapon against their freedom of thought and action. Only by acknowledging its power can resistance be devised and maintained.

Human techniques are interrelated; therefore, one cannot measure the effects of one apart from those of the others. One must also recognize that techniques are part of an economic-political system; they originate and are developed within it, and the system determines their applications. Human techniques are the integrating mechanism of a technological society, replacing traditional institutions that previously performed this function, such as family, religious institutions, and community. With their mechanical/electronic foundations and bureaucratic hierarchies, technical societies form a framework that applies human techniques to coordinate their populations.

Human techniques thus have no existence apart from this milieu. They are developed collectively to condition, coordinate, and manipulate human thought and behaviour. They are continually refined to meet the needs of efficient productivity. Without “unremitting productivity,” Ellul writes, the resources necessary for their refinement and application would not exist (1964, p. 394). Productivity promotes technique just as technique promotes productivity. Human techniques and their continued refinement to become more efficient and productive are integral to a technological society.

Moreover, in the 70 years since Ellul first wrote about technique, there have been tremendous advances in psychology and the social sciences; psychological theories and methods are far more potent now than they were in the mid-20th century. There have also been considerable advances in physical technologies and organizational techniques. Biologists have mapped and can now manipulate the human genome; electronic media have proliferated as many carry the internet in their pockets. Surveillance and big data mining are ubiquitous, propaganda is more highly developed and targeted to individual tastes, and numerous mind-altering drugs have been developed to make living in technological societies more palatable for many.

Human Character

Whereas most social theorists focus on adapting machines to humans, Ellul contends that the opposite occurs just as often. He argues that they are in a co-evolutionary relationship, techniques adapting to already adapted individuals, thus becoming progressively more manageable as the two by degrees fit together hand and glove. Ellul points to the “fixation” of workers on their work, using the assembly line as an example, admittedly an extreme case of the worker’s repetitive motion, boredom, and hierarchical control from above. Ellul writes about how human beings are unsuited to this type of work.

Nevertheless, they discipline themselves to the inhuman conditions because they have no other choice but to make a living. One can make a similar argument regarding the inhuman conditions of caretakers for the elderly or any helping profession in which workers must give care and empathy to strangers eight hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year. In the past, such care was given to family members where bonds often existed, and the care was often for the short term. No wonder “burnout” rates among such workers are so high in many helping professions.

Workers in such fields often say that they are satisfied when asked, but Ellul has a different interpretation. Psychological studies reveal that the workers have adapted by becoming numb, not by taking initiative at work or any responsibility for the job. He does admit that this might not apply to all workers, but he believes that it does represent the tendency among jobs in a technological society (1964, p. 396). In his conception, humans are highly adaptable and have exhibited this adaptability throughout history and across societies. However, personal adaptability is limited, Ellul writes, and one can imagine conditions in which some individuals could not live or, to do so, would have to lose their very humanity. Think of ordinary soldiers in wartime or sweatshops in many industrializing nations. There are reports of sweatshops, particularly in industries such as garment and electronics manufacturing, in which nets or safety barriers have been installed to prevent workers from jumping off buildings because of extreme working conditions, stress, and mistreatment. Although Ellul is confident that many people will adjust to the requirements of a technological society, for adaptation characterizes humans, it might not be possible for all of those who live in a world increasingly dominated by technique. There might be no place for those who cannot integrate into the complexities of ever more technical societies.

Up to this point, Ellul argues, adaptation has been a product of hit and miss, inefficient socialization, education, and training processes and interactions between humans and material conditions that do little to promote success. Nevertheless, over time, human adaptation will be much more firmly based on the human sciences in a thoroughly technical society. In addition, more sophisticated techniques (physical and organizational) will be explicitly designed to adapt the individual to the technical realities of social life. Ellul claims to have little conception of what this new individual will be like, and even today’s technicians have only an inkling. However, he asserts, we can foresee what people will gain and what they will lose in this new technological society.

The primary loss that Ellul details is the human disassociation of thought from action produced by techniques. By design, for reasons of efficiency and standardization, modern work processes separate thought from action. Decisions are made by the front office; lower bureaucratic offices or front-line workers execute those decisions. Most front-line workers have limited control over their actions at work; they exercise control over their actions and express their personalities only during leisure times. The ideal state on the job is a dreamlike sleep, completely disassociating the psyche from mechanical bodily action. (Faculty often see this disassociated state in the classroom, especially among young men.) However (echoing Marx), Ellul believes that work is an “expression of life” (1964, p. 399). It has served throughout human history as an expression of personality and accomplishment. Nevertheless, making industrial-bureaucratic labour fulfill such needs is counter to standardization and efficiency. To force workers to disassociate while at work is to mangle their personalities, to close them off from meaningful parts of life.

To expect that leisure can fulfill the masses is to expect too much of the modern leisure industry. “Only see what leisure has made of the bourgeois classes of society!” Ellul exclaims (1964, p. 399). Far from being a break from work, leisure has been invaded by techniques, technical amusements, and sports. By design, modern leisure conforms to the needs of technical society, reinforcing productivity and efficiency goals. It is no freer from technique than labour itself (1964, p. 401). Ellul concludes his thoughts on leisure by saying that it is idealistic for anyone to think that leisure can compensate for the meaninglessness of modern work and naive to think that it can take on the function of providing the whole meaning of life. Leisure can be more meaningful, but so can work and human nature. “But if we are going in for all these conditionals, paradise could also find a place on earth” (1964, p. 402).

By disassociating during work and leisure, many individuals escape “into illusion and unconsciousness,” and others escape into action, real or otherwise, Ellul argues (1964, p. 402). He gives the example of a person who becomes a political activist. Such rebellion might give the activist feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction. However, it, too, is merely another technical activity that enables people to adapt to technical society. Therefore, Ellul’s thesis is that the unconscious plays “an ever more important role in the conduct of human life.” Furthermore, it is to the unconscious that human techniques make their “fundamental appeal” (1964, p. 403).

Technological society is evolving toward mass society, and techniques such as sociological propaganda have developed to help individuals adapt to this new social form. In a thought experiment, Ellul suggests that, if technique were to strengthen today’s men and women in 19th-century individualism, then the results would be a misfit between institutional structures and widespread individual tendencies. However, he asserts, there is no possibility that such technical disjunction can ever happen; it is, after all, a system. If it did happen, then it would lead to an unacceptable disruption of efficient production processes and even more individual disorders such as mental illness, depression, drug abuse, and unemployment.

“Human techniques must therefore act to adapt man to the mass” (Ellul, 1964, pp. 405–406). They contribute to the evolution of human beings to a “normal type” who will work, play, and thrive in mass society. The process by which technique arrives at these types is usually involuntary, an unconscious process in which success causes technique to reinforce and amplify the changes. As an illustration of the process, Ellul points to advertising techniques. The overt purpose of an advertisement is to sell a product to a consumer, but its other social function is to sell a way of life. Advertisements push the objects for sale as being indispensable for modern life: that is, up to date with current trends, involved with all aspects of leisure and freedom, yet part of the technological world of science and progress.

One of the other vital functions of advertising is to create new needs, things, and services that modern people cannot live without. Ellul points out, however, that they are not arbitrary but correspond to the “ideal of life” that people can easily accept as part of modern consumer society. Advertising promotes a way of life that appeals to comfort and status prized by all modern people “and refers to a world in which there are no spiritual values to form and inform life” (1964, p. 407). America’s consumer society did not come about by chance. There was a long-term conditioning process through advertisements beginning in the early part of the 20th century. Rather than appealing to the rationality of the consumer, ads began to use psychological and empirically validated tools to manipulate the consumer.

Given the nature of technique itself, adapting individuals to the needs of modern organizations evolves into a measured and planned process managed by technicians. As Ellul details, governments and political parties have picked up on manipulative techniques and used them effectively in undertaking political campaigns and governing diverse societies. With the consequent rise of the internet and social media, as well as the proliferation of consulting firms for government and capitalist organizations, the tools have spread further to local governments, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, interest groups, domestic and international terrorists, and groups seeing conspiracies in all the wrong places. Ellul asserts that one can get a general feel for the new human type that propaganda creates by studying the American way of life (1964, pp. 407–408). This is even more true today than when he wrote it 60 years ago.

Another way of fostering mass society occurs on a more conscious level, according to Ellul. This massification promotes group integration and unity (1964, p. 408). Humans are social animals; in social groups, we gain identity, protection from others, and direction in life. Group integration is necessary for the individual to experience some equilibrium and tranquility. Many consciously integrate into social groups as psychological adaptation to technological society. Techniques that build group identification and morale reinforce this natural tendency to develop commitment to achieve organizational goals. Such psychological collectivization is necessary to move people more efficiently to action. Calling forth images of family and community, and having the organization take on communal functions such as daycare, medical services, workout facilities, and the like, are part of this technique of engendering seemingly spontaneous solidarity with the organization’s overall goal. By interweaving humanistic goals with organizational goals of efficiency and productivity, Ellul argues, the purpose is to enable people to thrive in an alien, technical culture (1964, p. 409).

Furthermore, the psychological conditioning and manipulation of masses of people require their strong identification with groups, for it is in the collective that individuals are more susceptible to suggestion. Most important in this regard are technical groups focused on specific functions, such as the military, political parties, educational institutions, and corporate organizations. Group integration and unanimity are essential for efficient psychological manipulation; thus, such technical groups are among the most potent weapons in the propagandists’ arsenal (Ellul, 1964, p. 410). These psychosocial methods aim to unify the group around core ideas or personalities and minimize fragmentation and disagreement.

Socio-Cultural Evolution

Ellul identifies several motive forces behind the development and proliferation of techniques. The primary force that he identifies, of course, is rationalization, the drive for ever greater efficiency. Societies increasingly favour methods that maximize productivity and minimize waste; such methods are likely to be propagated throughout the system and, through cultural contact, spread to other social systems. Enough has been written about this that it has become a mantra. However, it is a powerful social force.

Ellul also recognizes that technique has developed specific characteristics only now coming to the forefront of public consciousness and debate with the development of general artificial intelligence. With the accumulation of techniques throughout human existence, societies have developed a collective body of information, understanding, and skills. This collective body—combined with cultural norms and values, historical awareness, and shared experiences—comprises the knowledge base of a society. Given the size of this knowledge base, Ellul suggests, techniques have become autonomous, evolving in accordance with their own logic without being guided by human desires or goals. In addition, they are becoming more monistic: that is, physical technology, organization, and mindset are interacting more often and developing at an accelerating rate.

In other words, the real technological work is done in areas in which it is possible, with methods that are possible. Now, what makes an operation possible? Previously existing material, method, organization, resources, competences, know-how—this combination allows not only performing the exact task for which all that was done, but also trying a new step along the technological route. It is precisely the use of acquired instruments that not only permits but even provokes technological development. The technician gets the idea of applying a certain procedure that was hitherto confined to some domain or other—of employing a certain chemical product in an original composition with another—of treating the organization of an army the way people have been treating an industrial ensemble, etc. In other words, technology progresses only in terms of and because of prior technological results. There is a sort of pressure astern, forcing advancement. It is the pressure exerted by the mass of ideas, tools, machines, organizations, ideologies, manual or intellectual training, all of which is technology. There is no call toward a goal; there is constraint by an engine placed in the back and not tolerating any halt for the machine. In this self-generation of technology, we must obviously recall that technology is ambivalent, causing new problems the instant it solves old ones, and that it grows by itself through the problems that it raises. (Ellul, 1980, pp. 272–273)

Civilizations rise and fall, but the knowledge base—the accumulation of technical skills and information—continues to grow.

Finally, Ellul asserts that the forces favouring the development of technique can be advanced or hindered by the political-economic context of a society. Groups and organizations within the social structure can promote certain technologies and organizational structures to achieve specific ends. Alternatively, they can hinder the employment of available techniques counter to their interests. American corporate elites, for example, have successfully blocked or seriously hindered developments in health care, defence, climate change study and mitigation, and a host of other areas. Conversely, they have promoted technical developments in computer technology, space exploration, agriculture, and military logistics and equipment.

The power of organizations varies with the resources that they command. Developments in the human techniques of education, propaganda, and media, in particular, have increased the power and influence of formal organizations over individuals. However, social institutions are in a constant state of flux. For example, the relationship between governments and capitalist organizations has shifted as corporations have grown in size, wealth, and political power. Economic competitors change the playing field, disruptive technologies develop, and new interest groups are formed as societies face political, economic, and social crises. Since the mid-19th century, a new organizational development speaks to interests other than economics. Social movement organizations include non-economic goals such as civil rights, environmental protection, consumer rights, and other forms of social justice in their causes. These organizations have had only marginal success, but their history is short, and their potential is great.

Overall, Ellul stresses, the evolution of technique has been a complex interplay of these forces, fundamentally changing social structures and the character of and relationship between individuals and society. The growth of technique began slowly in prehistory with the adoption of language and simple tools. It accelerated as small innovations provided conditions for further advances, reaching critical mass around 1500 CE with the Industrial Revolution (1964, pp. 42–60). Over time, the same forces have pushed innovation to the breakneck speed of the 21st century. Ellul’s view of social evolution reduces human autonomy to a minimum; technical development is almost outside human control except for the temporary interests of organizations. His image of the social system is that of a cloud of techniques—technology, organization, and mindset—in which the various elements interact to produce further innovations, with no discernible direction or order except ongoing action to achieve greater efficiency and productivity over time.

There is another major force behind the evolution of technique that Ellul minimizes but that holds great explanatory power. He downplays the role of physical technology in the evolutionary process, perhaps because many others emphasize it. For example, in criticizing Lewis Mumford’s assertion that the force behind the evolution of technique was the various modes of exploiting energy, Ellul calls such assertions “incomprehensible unless technique is restricted to the machine. . . . [T]he change is not in the use of a natural force but in the application of technique to all spheres of life” (1964, p. 42). But the physical technologies and social practices used to exploit energy sources are the application of technique in an essential sphere of life. A society’s physical relationship with its environment—its ecology—must be seen as a significant factor in developing technique and thus socio-cultural evolution (Elwell, 2013, pp. 32–33). A society’s ecology is constantly in flux because of natural processes and the impacts of its physical techniques on the environment. The relations that society has with its environment, both physical and social (relations with other societies), are ever-changing. Changing environmental constraints of resources stimulate changes in physical technologies and social practices that determine the amounts and types of resources required for survival. Such technologies and practices include the extraction of energy and raw materials, the fashioning of these resources for human use, and those resources that determine the size and characteristics of a population. In other words, physical technologies and goal-oriented social practices that adapt the system to its ever-changing social and physical environments are central to its survival.

Since prehistory, social evolution has been characterized by the escalating expenditure of energy to draw more significant amounts of natural resources out of the environment; increased productivity of energy, goods, and services; and accelerating population growth (Harris, 1979, p. 67). All three evolutionary characteristics have resulted from innovations in physical technique, which have intensified the harvesting of the Earth’s energy and resources and converted them into accelerating production and reproduction. This evolutionary force has gradually intensified as the knowledge base of social systems has grown exponentially and the impacts of social systems on global environments have increased. Consequently, humans have largely escaped the vagaries of nature—the want of food, clothing, and shelter—but are now subjected to the ever greater demands and constraints of a technical society.

The process of intensification starts very slowly, moves in fits, but increases over time. However, the evolutionary direction has always been toward the Holy Grail of ever greater productivity and efficiency in the exploitation of environments. The techniques of exploitation strongly influence a society’s social structure, favouring organizations and practices that promote growth and inhibit any widespread social practice viewed as counterproductive.

Although they are analogous, Ellul’s theory of technique has the advantage over Weber’s rationalization because it explicitly encompasses physical technologies, organization, and goal-oriented procedures and behaviours. Ellul describes how these components rationalize and interact with one another and their growing impact on the entire socio-cultural system. He describes the force of “technological autonomy” as fuelling this evolutionary movement; the function of technique is to select the most efficient means to an end. Thus, rational thought processes enable humans to manipulate their physical and social environments through technique ever more effectively. Integrating infrastructural-environmental relationships into Ellul’s theory of technical evolution adds a potent force that, unlike his hypothesis of technical autonomy and monism, provides a motive force for technical development from early humans through to today.

Future Technical Societies

Ellul’s analysis suggests that the convergence of “systems or complexes of techniques” will necessarily lead to more centralized and authoritarian forms of society unless human agency intervenes. “Always and in all circumstances, technique has historically gone along with centralization and the concentration of power.” Totalitarian societies are logical extensions of a fully developed technological society (Ellul, 1990, p. 270). Ellul asserts that human thought and behaviour will eventually be bound by an interdependent system of techniques (technologies, organization, and rationality) (1964, p. 391). This convergence will be spontaneous, a product of the evolution of technique in its well-worn path toward greater efficiency and productivity. Overall, Ellul suggests, technique imposes a form of instrumental rationality that values means over ends, focusing on efficiency and results over ethical and humanistic concerns.

As technique advances, it leads to increased specialization and a more detailed division of labour, thus creating the conditions for a more stratified workforce. Different roles are valued based on technical demands and competencies, often resulting in gross power, status, and wealth disparities. Complex technological systems spread over vast geographical areas require standardization; a detailed division of labour demands extensive bureaucratic mechanisms to function smoothly. Advances in surveillance, data collection, and management technology give those at the top of these hierarchies the power and authority to monitor and control populations through various human techniques. In addition, the chaos and destruction of the natural environment caused by the employment of physical technologies—climate change, habitat destruction, sea level rise, species extinction, and pollution of land, air, and water—will necessitate further controls. Finally, the chaos and destruction caused by the employment of disruptive physical and organizational technologies—job loss, growing income and wealth inequality, homelessness, and terrorism—will be the impetus for yet further controls.

This process of intensification—an increase in the size, complexity, and interrelationships of physical technologies and practices—leads to the growth of secondary organizations to coordinate and control these activities and the increased population levels. As these bureaucratic organizations expand, there is a consequent decline in the number of functions performed by primary groups, along with a decline in their influence on the individual and society. The growth of physical and organizational techniques leads to a goal-oriented mindset, the rational thought processes interconnecting the system. Finally, there are the feedback loops, the rational mindset devising organizational strategies and physical innovations to improve efficiencies and organizations developing new technologies and strategies to preserve and extend their power and control.

The growth of technique in modern societies has led to their standardization and a reduction in diversity since it imposes conformity in products, services, and lifestyles. Individual autonomy diminishes as people become more dependent on the technological system. Power and authority become ever more enlarged and centralized as the complexity and interdependence of the system necessitate coordination, administration, and control. The power of these centralized systems over individuals is further magnified by the growth of techniques, particularly advances in communication, surveillance, data management, education, and propaganda. With this enlargement and centralization of power, governments and private organizations have used these techniques to tighten their grip on their populations. In more democratic societies, it has undermined checks on the concentration of power and placed decision making into fewer hands. Ellul’s analysis indicates that the inherent logic of technological systems contributes to the emergence of more centralized and authoritarian forms of government to manage these complex systems. This march toward authoritarianism can be seen in many traditional democracies worldwide.

As technique develops and allows us to modify additional limits imposed by the environment, as well as our physical and mental limitations, we become more subjected to the artificial necessities of technique. As we have seen, the demands of technological society on many people can be harsh and implacable, though less physically menacing than nature. Ellul fears that the long-term social evolutionary process will unify material, organizational, and psychological techniques, and humanity will be fully integrated into the social order. Today most people experience a dual reality: one part of the day is given over thoroughly, body and mind, to the “monster” that is technological society; the other part of the day is reserved for the self, inner life, and family. The division is complicated and causes great suffering in many individuals, but it does grant them some limited freedoms. Nevertheless, as technique continues to invade every aspect of life, this “cleavage of personality” is becoming harder to bear since many, especially the elderly, still have attachments to the traditions and values of the past (Ellul, 1964, p. 410).

This cleavage, according to Ellul, is readily apparent and felt by the psychotechnicians—psychologists, sociologists, propagandists, and teachers. They have humanistic values and want to restore the lost unity that technical advances have caused. Unfortunately, he writes, they can only reach this goal through technological means. The human sciences are used to round “up those elements of the human personality that are still free and forcing (‘reintegrating’) them into the expanding technical order of things” (1964, p. 411). People, therefore, are subjected to overt and covert techniques to integrate their thoughts and actions further. These techniques restore unity to individuals but at the expense of losing their individuality. Eventually, this process leads to the complete integration of the individual into the social whole.

Ellul asks us to consider—as an example of the process—policing as it existed at the mid-point of the 20th century and how it is likely to evolve. Historically, policing was “inquisitorial and brutal,” operating as it pleased with little oversight, carrying out arrests arbitrarily. Many citizens lived in fear. However, Ellul writes, it is evolving toward near-total surveillance and keeping dossiers on all citizens. He writes that overt action will not be needed when this technique is sufficiently advanced, and the terror will steadily disappear. “The police exist only to protect ‘good citizens.’ They no longer carry out raids, and nothing is mysterious about them; therefore, they do not feel oppressive. Police work has become ‘scientific’” (1964, p. 413).

Ellul writes of physical files and dossiers, but technical progress since his writing has surpassed them, thus giving police access to electronic records of an individual’s movements geographically, biologically, and economically. Cameras throughout society that read licence plates or use facial recognition to track individuals are becoming common. A parallel development is even further advanced through surveillance and data mining of computer activity, with individuals giving up their privacy and reams of personal information to corporations and governments for the convenience of shopping, cruising the web, and receiving their preferred brands of propaganda online. No one can evade constant monitoring, and eventually no one will want to. Machine, organizational, and human techniques will be developed to such a degree that they become invisible to the individual and thus ever easier to bear (1964, p. 413).

Ellul claims that technical society must immerse most individuals into the organizational social order or risk collapse. People are capricious and unpredictable when left to their own devices and chaotic social institutions. These “faults” can be corrected, made to respond to stimuli-response situations, and moulded in thought and behaviour. Moreover, that is the path that social evolution has taken, at least after 1500 CE, though the roots of the process might predate human history. At one time, Ellul writes, the goal of technique was thought to be production and consumption, leading to ease and comfort. The “ideal type was capitalist Switzerland or socialist Sweden” (1964, p. 421). However, with the two World Wars, the Cold War, and mutually assured destruction (a real thing in the 1960s and still today), it became apparent that the real goal of technique is power. Is there any way out of the trajectory that technological society is on? Ellul asks rhetorically. Yes, he answers, but there is little possibility that either scientists or other technicians (e.g., lawyers, physicians, politicians, or professors) will guide us there; they see problems between humans and machines or organizations as merely technical issues that can only be addressed by technical solutions that promote further adaptation (1964, p. 414).

Before the Second World War, Ellul says, technological development—physical, organizational, and human—was at a comfortable pace, growth was orderly, and people and techniques had some time to adapt. However, technological development accelerated during and after the war, especially among the great powers. With this increased tempo, Ellul asserts, an American myth was born (much like the Nazi and Communist Party myths of old, all of which have similar religious traits): a belief in national power, control, and exceptionalism. Ellul states that, unlike the previous myths, the American myth was still in a spontaneous phase in 1964: that is, not yet fully organized and technically developed. Since his writing, change has been faster than ever. Ecstatic phenomena increase because of the growth and proliferation of techniques; Ellul ties them directly to the pace of change. The tempo of technical development is critical; when it increases, the mystique follows. He posits that, the more restrictive the outlets, the more exaggerated the ecstatic phenomena.

“Technique fully satisfies the mystic will to possess and dominate,” Ellul (1964, p. 423) argues. In addition, by alienating the individual from the self, technique promotes individual identification with something outside the self. Whether it be a father figure, a movie star, a television personality, or a political creed, people are drawn to a charismatic quality, which lends a certain intensity and excitement to a technological society. At the same time, ecstasy takes on a mechanical character, increasingly organized, mechanized, and exploited through technique (p. 423). Ellul concludes that ecstasy integrates anarchic and antisocial individuals into the technical system, and they are progressively deployed in every technical society. “Technique diffuses the revolt of the few and thus appeases the need of the millions for revolt” (p. 425).

Ellul foresees a time when there will be more complete knowledge of human physiology, psychology, and sociology. There will be a better understanding of the forces acting on and within people and how to apply this knowledge in coordinating and manipulating their thoughts and behaviours. In the 1960s, Ellul warned that our spontaneous activities would soon be subjected to observation and analysis in all of their aspects and that our behaviours, thoughts, and emotions were being “systematized, schematized, and tabulated,” and such activities could well lead to “the complete conditioning of human behavior” (1964, p. 395). This will be a future in which humans merge with their technologies and become little more than programmed robots: humanity fully integrated into the complex social order.

The human character, Ellul argues, was already modified by a technical society barely a century old; he predicts that people will continue to adapt to the technique as the technique itself adapts to them and that such alterations of human character will become easier over time. He does not believe that technological society is in imminent danger of becoming transformed into a technological dystopia. However, that is a future possibility that might not be as remote as some believe (1964, p. 395). He asserts that there is a probability that human society will eventually become identical to the technical system unless human agency intervenes.

Ellul asserts that societies are increasingly shaped by the demands of technique, which is deeply integrated into the fabric of modern life and exerts a powerful influence on human affairs:

But there is always something unpredictable, incoherent, and irreducible in the social body. A society is made up of multiple systems, multiple types, multiple patterns, on different levels. Saying that technology is the determining factor of this society does not mean it is the only factor! Above all, society is made up of people, and the system, in its abstraction, seems to ignore that. It is only at an extreme point that we can view the society and the [technological] system as one and the same. But nobody can seriously maintain that this extreme has been reached. (1980, p. 18)

Ellul posits a time when technological society will achieve the near-perfect integration of human motivation and character, a vision shared by many who have studied human society with an eye on the evolution of technique (see Huxley, 1958 Mumford, 1970/1964, 1967/1966; Postman, 1992; and Seidenberg, 1950, 1961):

It will not be a universal concentration camp, for it will be guilty of no atrocity. It will not seem insane, for everything will be ordered, and the stains of human passion will be lost amid the chromium gleam. We shall have nothing more to lose, and nothing to win. Our deepest instincts and our most secret passions will be analyzed, published, and exploited. We shall be rewarded with everything our hearts ever desired. And the supreme luxury of the society of technical necessity will be to grant the bonus of useless revolt and of an acquiescent smile. (Ellul, 1964, p. 427)

Ellul is not saying that this is our inevitable future; rather, it is the evolutionary path that we are on, and we must turn away from it if we wish to preserve our humanity. Nevertheless, he cannot identify a moderating or countertrend to the social evolutionary process of growing rationalization.

Social Movements and Individual Transcendence

Many critics claim that Ellul underestimates human agency and the possibilities for society to control and shape technological development according to human values and traditions; this underestimation leads to charges of pessimism and technological determinism regarding the future. However, his work is more nuanced; he aims to raise awareness of and thus action on the potential consequences of letting technique develop without critical oversight (1964, p. xxx). Ellul describes technique as a social force that can determine collective and individual thought and behaviour. It is not that modern individuals are “more determined today than in the past,” only that the forces that condition their lives are increasingly those of technique (1964, p. xxviii). These forces are mounting; they operate in increasingly broad areas of social life and are more calculated, coordinated, and promulgated by the formal organizations that dominate modern societies.

Ellul’s model of social movements in The Technological Society (1964) is the labour movement. For Ellul, labour unions highlighted that such movements become bureaucratic in organization with the goal of integrating individuals into the existing technical system. The idealized myth was that the proletariat would be revolutionary and work to overthrow the “primacy of the economy” over humanity. Instead, the labour movement concentrated almost entirely on human technical production and consumption, thus becoming an integral part of the economic order itself (p. 220; see also pp. 357–358). Ellul views the labour movement as a means for workers to blow off steam, defanging some of the revolutionary instincts of its members so that they could be more effectively managed. However, the labour movement did better the working conditions and compensation packages of many workers, integrating human values into an economic system solely focused on amassing capital. Its success in the United States was evident from the resistance of corporate elites to the establishment of unions (the country has the bloodiest labour history of any advanced industrial nation) and their progressive weakening at the behest of these elites since the 1980s.

Going further, and most cynically, Ellul likens all social movements to mere burlesque—play acting, with technique controlling the stage. All of the movements to secure peace and social justice—pacifism, communism, environmentalism, anarchism—are merely relief valves to let the marks release some steam. “They all fall into the same pattern and fulfill the same function” of integrating people into the system (1964, p. 426). Some movements might be more authentic than others at expressing human revolt, and others might have some success in refashioning the aggressive instincts of their followers, thus better integrating them into the technological system.

Although some observers see possibilities for systemic change in outbursts of passion and violence, Ellul asserts that these forces are allowed as safety valves, tightly encircled and localized, causing no harm to the technical system itself. According to him, movements based on sex, a passion for nature, the humanities, or even social and political action are acceptable. They can allow some people to adapt to or fine-tune the system for greater efficacy. Nevertheless, such movements cannot change the system’s heart—they cannot successfully challenge technique. “They question nothing, menace nobody. Behemoth can rest easy” (1964, p. 416). The passions for life are turned into amusements, confined within strict limits set by technological society. Ellul quotes the great law of Goebbels regarding technical society: “You are at liberty to seek your salvation as you understand it, provided you do nothing to change the social order” (1964, p. 420).

Ellul writes that authors can criticize their cultures and advocate crazed solutions to perceived problems (e.g., anarchism to defang technical society). The idea here is that criticism and rebellion are necessary for technological society as long as they do not seriously threaten the system. Furthermore, the published word comes into play, for Ellul marks books and reading as ready-made for the most radical ideas and critiques. However, readers of books are not partisans of authors; they are not a genuine community since there is a technical “screen” between them. There are so many “cultural modalities” that a reader can choose from (and hundreds more produced by the day), and the reader is like a butterfly, sampling a variety of flowers: “A few printed pages out of the deluge of printed matter will never make the butterfly a revolutionary” (1964, p. 424). Again, Ellul speaks in eloquent absolutes. It is perhaps more accurate to say that such printed matter alone will not make a revolutionary movement.

However, his perspective on social movements broadened in the late 1960s. In Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on His Life and Work (1981, p. 56), Ellul points out that the student unrest (he calls it the “hippy movement”) in many technological societies caused him to revise some of his thinking and become more hopeful about the future. “I was, I might say, more pessimistic before 1968 than after. I used to think that we were so trapped in the technological system that we had no further resources to draw on. And then 1968 brought an explosion which opened certain paths, and which showed that we were not truly conditioned.”

It is surprising that it took the revolts of 1968 for Ellul truly to consider the potential countervailing force that social movements pose to technocracy. Social movements focused on human rights and social justice were little known in history. They first came about in the early 19th century, developing with technological advances in communication and transportation. Movements such as the abolition of slavery in Europe and North America and the rise of labour in response to the worst abuses of capitalism had great success. Their organizational techniques and strategies gradually spread to other causes.

The latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century saw the rise of the women’s suffrage movement and social movements promoting minority rights. By the mid-20th century, social movements became far more numerous. Ongoing labour disputes in America were common throughout the first half of the century. The civil rights movements in Gandhi’s India (1930s and 1940s) and in Black America (1950s and 1960s) formed the pattern for a wide variety of modern social movements to follow from the late 1960s to today: antiwar, women’s rights, environmentalism, LGBTQ+, Occupy Wallstreet, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and many others. Many of these movements forced substantial social changes in technological societies, moderating some of the worst exploitation and abuse of people and the environment, although the long-term viability of their reforms is open to question.

Since Ellul’s writings, resistance to the furtherance of technique has intensified with the spread of the environmental movement and related movements for social justice. Such organizations engage in demonstrations, lobby governments, and produce propaganda for their causes, such as the recent First Nations protests against technical development on their spiritual lands in North America and Australia. Similar issues involving the development of nuclear power plants or waste facilities, strip mining, and deforestation often require state intervention and corporate public relations to push technical development to fruition. Still, when social opposition is organized and well-funded, it is effective in stopping some developments and getting national governments to begin to focus on social justice and environmental issues.

Of course, there are powerful institutions that counter these popular social movements, institutions that are organized, well-funded, and focused on preserving their power and wealth. These pro-development interests are joined by reactionary movements (many sponsored by elite organizations, a form of political astroturfing) aimed at stopping or reversing government regulations on industries, advocating technical growth, and minimizing the perceptions of havoc that technique is causing in the natural and social environments.

However, one must admit that the movements for social justice and the counter-movements sponsored by elite interests are technical organizations. Their power comes from technique in all of its forms: physical technology (particularly in communications), organization (bureaucracy and office machinery), and human techniques (education, public relations, and propaganda). The demands of social justice movements are often for government protection against the ravages of capitalism, redistribution of income and wealth, economic regulation, more inclusive planning and investment to address climate change and environmental destruction, universal medical care, programs to develop alternative energies, and social services to address inequalities. In other words, national and international social movements continue the evolutionary pattern set from the beginning of modernity; they further technique (physical technology, organization, and rationalization), albeit in the name of social justice rather than the aggrandizement of elites. Perhaps for this reason, Ellul was not a vociferous advocate and insisted that they remain small and active on a local (human) level.

However, humanists (and others) might respond that such popular global movements are necessary in countering a worldwide trend toward technocracy. They can successfully address some of the gross inequalities within and between societies, promote less cruelty to our fellow human beings, bring capitalism under some human control, and advance environmental restoration and stability—even if they do not address our addiction to technique itself. Although it is doubtful that such movements will create a social utopia, they might be able to inject enough humanism into our social systems to avoid the dystopia that many foresee. Economic and political elites fuel one major force against these social justice movements. The goals of corporate elites often open the floodgates to exploitation: techniques that favour capital over labour, markets, and ecology. Government elites favour the concentration and enlargement of their power. Ever more effective human techniques assist both.

Suppose that popular social justice movements ultimately fail or only make modest reforms. In that case, the elites who control major social organizations will continue to dominate our societies, capturing most of the benefits of technique for themselves and their progeny and leaving the vast majority of people with the costs: that is, if they do not destroy the environment first to satisfy their greed for wealth and power. In time (and, if valid, a very long time), self-government and all semblance of human freedom will disappear. If social justice movements succeed or partially succeed, then the process has been forestalled; we preserve some freedom for ourselves and our children, which might permanently affect the course of social evolution in our society. The actions of social movement organizations toward freedom and justice are the only social forces capable of altering the social evolutionary trend.

On the individual level, Ellul advocates not getting rid of technology but “transcending” it. However, he admits that he does not yet know how to do that (1964, p. xxxiii). However, how he led his life might offer some clues. Ellul demonstrated a commitment to truth and social justice in both his writings and his actions. He participated in the French Resistance against the fascism of Hitler’s Germany and in several social movements promoting economic justice and a more inclusive democracy both before and after the war. He was active in local groups pressing for environmental justice. He served on the National Council of the French Reformed Church for 15 years, advocating that the church become more active in promoting social justice. In other areas of action, he worked directly with adolescents in his community for years and was a champion of social programs to prevent delinquency rather than use the hammer of criminal justice to punish it. In sum, Ellul practised a life consistent with his writings.

In Technopoly, Neil Postman (1992) gives additional thought to how the individual can transcend technique. He was a communication theorist much influenced by Ellul. Like Ellul, Postman does not offer social programs or reforms to limit the expansion of technique. However, he does offer some ideas on how to transcend the technical juggernaut personally: “Be a loving resistant fighter” (p. 183). The loving part of the resistance is his plea not to give in to the hopelessness and despair around us but to hold on to the traditions, narratives, values, and symbols of democracy and freedom:

A resistance fighter understands that technology must never be accepted as part of the natural order of things, that every technology—from an IQ test to an automobile to a television set to a computer—is a product of a particular economic and political context and carries with it a program, an agenda, and a philosophy that may or may not be life-enhancing and that therefore require scrutiny, criticism, and control. In short, a technological resistance fighter maintains an epistemological and psychic distance from any technology, so that it always appears somewhat strange, never inevitable, never natural. (pp. 184–185)

Postman advocates taking actions such as refusing to accept efficiency as the holy grail, taking the bonds of family members and friends seriously, and holding honour, loyalty, and truth as important values in life. Resistance fighters refuse to let polls, sheer numbers, or the “social sciences” substitute for judgment, common sense, or truth. They respect traditions, values, emotions, religiosity, and the difference between the sacred and the profane.

To add to Postman’s (1992) list, individuals should carefully consider their life’s work and choose a living for the satisfaction that it gives them and their communities. They must insist that the companies for which they work or from which they buy serve all stakeholders (employees, consumers, the community, sustainability, and the environment), not just stockholders. Individuals should severely limit social media (something new since Postman wrote, or he would surely have included it). They should not get addicted to entertainment and spectator sports—they should practise moderation in all things. Such individuals integrate the humanities and the arts into their lives as much as possible. They find meaning in life and live for it. They seek several news sources; educate themselves on social, economic, and political issues; and act in their enlightened self-interests: that is, in the interests of all. Finally, they should take social action, democracy, and individual freedom seriously, for they are under constant attack.