The Touch The Feel That determinism. It makes his writing very apocalyptical. I'm dying to read if there's anything I as an individual can do about it all, but am yet to find out. From what I've read about Ellul, I understand that he thought resisting was the only thing man can do. He was a man of faith. I am not.
The idea that technique becomes the measurement of all things hit me hard. Ellul was influenced by Marx, also a determinist, but Ellul considers technological progress not class struggle the engine of change. Since the late 17th century that is. Before that technology was kept at bay by other forces. That idea that technological 'progress' can't be reversed is very scary to me. Once the tooth paste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in as a Dutch rapper famously said. The mobile phone and the internet are cases in point.
I also found it a solid point that technology progress always has advantages as well as disadvantages, but somehow those disadvantages are always considered necessities or of less importance than the benefits. It made me think of Karl Jaspers point that giving something a word always fails to captivate what you want to label in its entirety. Don't know of that makes sense, but since I'm in (pseudo) intellectual mode, I might as well throw another thinker out there to impress, right?
What I find interesting is that a lot of technology is supposed to expand man's freedom, whereas to me it seems it is diminishing it in ways as well. I guess it depends on what one considers freedom. Infinite choice vs. the right to be left the fuck alone to put it bluntly, We have the right to be entertained, but no longer the right to think. Or maybe we do, but nobody cares because we'd rather watching and discuss the latest sensational show or videogame.
So broadly speaking Ellul taps into things I find depressing in life as I experience it already. Grist to the mill.
I started reading The Ultimate Hidden Truth, a bundle of esssay by the late David Graeber in the hope it will make me feel a bit more optimistic.
