[D66] The Technological Bluff

[R.O.]

encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR...

M. Ellul's view of technology is that once it is let out of the 
laboratory, technology cannot be turned off. Technology begets more 
technology. The modern world, therefore, is one in which more technology 
is inevitable. Fixing or remediating the impact of a technology like 
water pollution requires--you guessed it--more technology.

https://monoskop.org/images/5/50/Ellul_Jacques_The_Technological_Bluff.pdf
https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/689766

The Technological Bluff by Jacques EllulReview by: Paul J. 
JohnsonScience, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring, 
1991), pp. 258-260Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/689766 .Accessed: 21/06/2014 21:19

The Technological Bluff, by Jacques Ellul. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. 
Eerdmans, 1990, x + 406 pp., $24.95 (cloth). "Had I not yoyoed away my 
time in school reading Herodotus, Saint-Simon, Rilke, and Owen Wister, 
seeking answers to the mystery of personality and the riddle of history, 
I would not have failed to become an intelligent and informed buyer of 
goods and services. It's as simple as that." Thus Candace, in Donald 
Barthleme's (1974)

Book Reviews 259 "Down the Line with the Annual," explains to her 
husband, who forgives her as she is "racked ... by irritation of the 
lungs from overuse of hair sprays" and "unpleasant drying and crusting 
of the lips from overuse of indelible lipsticks" (p. 3) and her failure 
at washing her new washable tennis balls in her new, and defective, 
washing machine. In capsule here is the theme of Ellul's work on 
technology: the multifarious ways accelerating technology causes us 
first to regret and then to forget those deep concerns and responses 
definitive of being human for two-and-a-half millennia, and forces us, 
ever more willingly, to adapt ourselves to whatever technological change 
produces and simultaneously exposes us to unanticipated and unsuspected 
risks. In The Technological Society (which took four years to reach 
print, as in the first years of the fifties publishers did not believe 
there would be any interest in a book on technology!) and in The 
Technological System and countless papers, Ellul's focus generally has 
been "la technique," the ensemble of rationally ordered means and its 
autonomous dynamic. This is his first book on technology in the strict 
sense of the word, discourse about technique. The range is wide, from 
discussions of what we might call the epistemology of technology (what 
it is possible to know about it or, more accurately, what we cannot 
know'hbout it), through the way the coded language technologists speak 
enhances their status as the new aristocracy, to the sheer propa- ganda 
for technological change with which we are constantly bombarded. As 
always, we are treated to Ellul's typical combination of subtly nuanced 
discussions and curmudgeonly blunt, if well-supported, judgments. The 
technological bluff is the way technique (not technicians) manages to 
neutral- ize any sense of conflict in or discontent with technological 
change. It does this by sur- rounding us with a reassuring ordinariness, 
with a sense that, despite the overwhelm- ing powers unleashed, the new 
techniques are ever more familiar, warm, personal, individualizing, and 
freeing. Thus increasingly, society as a whole is rendered incap- able 
of questioning whether we are continually mistaking speed, change, and 
move- ment for progress. We are made to feel secure, even while we are 
inexorably sur- rounded by unforeseeable dangers inherent in the 
increasing complexity of techniques. This outflanking and neutralizing 
of people and societies "is effected by the en- ticement of the 
individual into permanent sociotechnical discourse." This is brought 
about, Ellul shows, in part deliberately, by enthusiasts for this or 
that technological change or for some ideal of technological perfection, 
and in part spontaneously, by people who wish to succeed and who see 
technological adeptness as the only way to do so. An increasingly large 
group of people are "so fascinated by the kaleidoscope of techniques 
invading their universe that they do not know and cannot want anything 
other than to adapt to them fully." Ellul ultimately focuses on these 
"fascinated people" and on the techniques of their fascination. A major 
element in the technological bluff is the continual obscuring of reality 
and its replacement by fantasy. Any thoughtful reader can easily supply 
numerous kinds of instances that Ellul does not get to, even in this 
large book. For example, I have before me a catalog from a company that 
specializes in high-tech, mostly useless, gadgets. Ads scream out: 
"Unleash your creativity!" "Expand your brain power by 64K!" and "Party 
machine makes you a music video star!" How do I unleash mcreativity? By 
pushing one key on an electronic keyboard that instantly forms a melody 
around the note, complete with harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment. 
Similarly, I increase my brain power with a hand-held data base for 
recording names, addresses, and telephone numbers. And I become a music 
video star by use of the newest karaoke machine that shows music videos 
complete with the words on the screen "to keep you on the beat" and with 
digital echo control to add "depth and richness" to your voice and a 
"voice enhancer to smooth out gaps in your [emphasis added] 
performance." Why should I try to develop my creative powers or my 
memory or my voice, or for that matter, learn mathematics when I am told 
continually that a machine will provide me with those same powers 
instantly and without the work re- quired for self-development? As Ellul 
points out, we are constantly fed the illusion of increasing personal 
power while, as a matter of fact, we become weaker, less capable, more 
dependent, and stupefied. Another technique of seduction is the 
continual association of technology with nature, from which we are 
increasingly isolated, and with huge sums of money that most of us want 
but do not have. My catalog again- a razor ad announces a "platinum 
edition of the $200 million dollar shave!" and a machine that allows you 
to "experi- ence a natural [emphasis in original] way to fall asleep to 
the calming sounds of the surf." The ideal life we are presented with, 
as Ellul says, is watching television on the beach. Part of the problem 
is that this goes on so continually that we hardly notice or react to 
the absurdity of the distortions and outright lies. Fantasy becomes our 
normal environment, and we are stripped of critical awareness. Deception 
in advertising is, of course, but one small thread in the varied web of 
technological bluff that Ellul unravels as he explores the ways in which 
we are being molded into conformity with a new paradigm of humanity. 
There are many who undoubtedly see Ellul as nothing more than a 
crotchety Jeremiah or worse, a frantic Chicken Little. I would suggest a 
different comparison. I would suggest he is our Socrates. Like Socrates 
he encourages us to pause in our mad pursuit of what we take to be the 
good and concern ourselves with what we are becoming, with the true 
good, with the proper state of our souls. Ellul is a rare bird. Who else 
today has his capacity for work, his ability to range so widely with 
reasonable competence, and his passion for our spiritual welfare? Such 
gadflies are never comfortable to live with. But as Socrates said of 
himself before the Athenians killed him, "When I am gone, you will not 
soon find another like me." We should treasure Ellul while he is still 
with us and consider carefully his warnings. -Paul J. Johnson California 
State University, San Bernardino Reference Barthleme, Donald. 1974. 
Guilty pleasures. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuxtown.net/pipermail/d66/attachments/20200809/60f22ef3/attachment-0001.html>