Jacques Ellul

Infobox_Philosopher
region = Western Philosophy
era = 20th century philosophy
color = #B0C4DE

|thumb|260px|frame
image_caption = photograph courtesy of flag.blackened.net

name = Jacques Ellul
birth = January 6, 1912
Bordeaux, France
death = May 19, 1994
Pessac, France
school_tradition = non-conformist |

Jacques Ellul (January 6 1912–May 19 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society", and about Christianity and politics, such as "Anarchy and Christianity" (1991) - arguing that anarchism and Christianity are socially following the same goal.

One of the most thoughtful philosophers to approach technology from a deterministic viewpoint, Ellul, professor at the University of Bordeaux, authored some 40 books and hundreds of articles over his lifetime, the dominant theme of which has been the threat to human freedom and Christian faith created by modern technology. His constant concern has been the emergence of a "technological tyranny" over humanity. As a philosopher and theologian, he further explored the religiosity of the technological society.

Life

Ellul was born in Bordeaux, France, and was educated at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris. In World War II he was a leader in the French resistance. For his efforts to save Jews he was awarded the title "Righteous among the Nations" by Yad Vashem in 1981. [cite web|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/PDF%20Virtual_Wall_Of_Honor/FRANCE.pdf|title=Righteous Among the Nations Recognized by Yad Vashem as of 1 January 2008 - France|publisher=Yad Vashem|date=2008-01-01|accessdate=2008-08-27|format=PDF] He was also prominent in the worldwide Ecumenical movement, although he later became sharply critical of the movement for what he felt were indiscriminate endorsements of political establishments, primarily of the Left (namely the socialist states of western Europe). However, he was no friendlier in his assessment of those of the Right, either.

Ellul studied Marx and became a prolific exegete of his theories. Ellul became a Christian at age 22. The influence of these ideologies, which are generally considered to be in opposition to one another, has alternately earned him devoted followers and vicious enemies. In large measure and especially in those of his books concerned with theological matters, Ellul restates the viewpoints held by the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth, who was a leader of the resistance against the German state church in World War II. Barth's polar dialectic of the Word of God, in which the gospel both judges and renews the world, helped to shape Ellul's theological perspective. But Ellul went beyond Barth in one particular observation: "That which desacralizes a given reality, itself in turn becomes the new sacred reality".

The sacred is then, as classically defined, the object of both hope and fear, both fascination and dread. Once nature was the all-encompassing environment and power upon which human beings were dependent in life and death, and so was experienced as sacred. The Reformation desacralized the church in the name of the Bible, and the Bible became the sacred book.

Science (through Charles Darwin's theory of evolution) and reason (higher criticism and liberal theology) desacralized the scriptures; subsequent decades have seen science, particularly those in the applied categories amenable to the aims of collective economic production (whether capitalist, socialist, or communist), elevated to the position of sacred in Western culture. Today, argued Ellul, it is the technological society that modern-day humans generally hold sacred. Ellul defined technique as "the totality of methods rationally arrived at, and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity". Thus, it is not the society of machines as such, but the society of "efficient techniques" which is the focus of Ellul's sociological analysis:

It is useless to think that a distinction can be made between technique and its use, according to Ellul, for techniques have specific social and psychological consequences independent of human desires. There can be no room for moral considerations in their use:

Philosophy

What many consider to be Ellul's most important work, The Technological Society (1964) was originally titled: La Technique: L'enjeu du siècle, "the stake of the century." In it, Ellul set forth seven characteristics of modern technology.

The characteristics of technique which serve to make efficiency a necessity are rationality, artificiality, automatism of technical choice, self-augmentation, monism, universalism, and autonomy. The rationality of technique enforces logical and mechanical organization through division of labor, the setting of production standard, etc. And it creates an artificial system which "eliminates or subordinates the natural world."

In "What I Believe", Ellul set forth his position on a number of theological and sociological fronts. Among other things, he declared himself to be a Christian Universalist, writing "that all people from the beginning of time are saved by God in Jesus Christ, that they have all been recipients of his grace no matter what they have done." [http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/did-god-create-hell.htm] Regarding technology, instead of it being subservient to humanity, "human beings have to adapt to it, and accept total change". As an example, Ellul offered the diminished value of the humanities to a technological society. As people begin to question the value of learning ancient languages and history, they question those things which, on the surface, do little to advance their financial and technical state. According to Ellul, this misplaced emphasis is one of the problems with modern education.

This, according to Ellul, produces a situation where an incredible stress is placed on information in our schools. The focus in those schools is to prepare young people to enter the world of information, able to handle computers, but knowing only the reasoning, the language, the combinations, and the connections between computers. This movement is invading the whole intellectual domain and also that of conscience.

Ellul's commitment to scrutinize technological development is expressed as such:

Political Standpoint

Ellul identified himself as a "Christian Anarchist." For him, this meant that nation-states should neither be praised nor feared, but merely ignored. To him, human government is irrelevant in that the law contained in Scripture is sufficient and exclusive. That is, being a Christian means pledging absolute allegiance to Christ, which makes other laws redundant (at their very best) or counter to the Law of God. Despite the initial attraction of some evangelicals to his thinking because of his high view of Biblical texts (i.e., generally eschewing the historical-critical method), this position eventually alienated the few followers he had among conservative Protestants. Later, he would attract a following among adherents of more ethically compatible traditions such as the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, and the house church movement.

On media and propaganda

Ellul saw the power of the media as another example of technology exerting control over human destiny. As a mechanism of change, the media are almost invariably manipulated by special interests, whether of the market or the state. Using the term propaganda to address both political and commercial communication, Ellul wrote:

In all of this, Ellul continued to place his understanding of technology and its proper role in this present society in a context that recognizes a faith in the eternal. This allowed Ellul to propose a more explicit alternative to the technology of the technician than those provided by some of his contemporaries, such as Heidegger.

To throw this wager or secular faith into the boldest possible relief, Ellul places it in dialectical contrast with Biblical faith. As a dialectical contrast to La Technique, for instance, Ellul writes Sans feu ni lieu (published in 1975, although written much earlier). Whereas technology is the attempt of human beings to create their home in this world, the Bible denies that people, the children of a Creator God, can ever be truly at home here.

Ellul adhered to the maxim "Think globally, act locally" throughout his life. He often said that he was born in Bordeaux by chance, but that it was by choice that he spent almost all his academic career there. After a long illness, he died in his house in Pessac, just a mile or two from the University of Bordeaux campus, surrounded by those closest to him. Not long before his death, the treatment for this illness illustrated to him once again one of his favourite themes - the ambivalence of technological progress.

Books

* "Étude sur l'évolution et la nature juridique du Mancipium". Bordeaux: Delmas, 1936.
* "Le fondement théologique du droit". Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1946.
** "The Theological Foundation of Law". Trans. Marguerite Wieser. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1960. London: SCM, 1961. New York: Seabury, 1969.
* "Présence au monde moderne: Problèmes de la civilisation post-chrétienne". Geneva: Roulet, 1948. Lausanne: Presses Bibliques Universitaires, 1988.
** "The Presence of the Kingdom". Trans. Olive Wyon. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1951. London: SCM, 1951. New York: Seabury, 1967. Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1989.
* "Le livre de Jonas". Paris: Cahiers Bibliques de Foi et Vie, 1952.
** "The Judgment of Jonah". Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.
* "L'homme et l'argent (Nova et vetera)". Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1954. Lausanne: Presses Bibliques Universitaires, 1979.
** "Money and Power". Trans. LaVonne Neff. Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 1984. Basingstoke, England: Marshall Pickering, 1986.
* "La technique ou l'enjeu du siècle". Paris: Armand Colin, 1954. Paris: Économica, 1990.
** "The Technological Society". Trans. John Wilkinson. New York: Knopf, 1964. London: Jonathan Cape, 1965. Rev. ed.: New York: Knopf/Vintage, 1967. with introduction by Robert K. Merton (professor of sociology, Columbia University). This may be his best-known work; Aldous Huxley brought the French edition to the attention of an English publisher, and thus brought it to English readers. Theodore Kaczynski had a copy in his cabin and said he read it five times—his "manifesto" addresses similar themes.
* "Histoire des institutions". Paris: Presses Universitaires de France; volumes 1 & 2,
* "L'Antiquité" (1955); vol. 3, Le Moyen Age (1956); vol. 4, Les XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (1956); vol. 5, Le XIXe siècle (1789–1914) (1956).
* "Propagandes". Paris: A. Colin, 1962. Paris: Économica, 1990
** "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes". Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. New York: Random House/ Vintage 1973
* "Fausse présence au monde moderne". Paris: Les Bergers et Les Mages, 1963.
** "False Presence of the Kingdom". Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. New York: Seabury, 1972.
* "Le vouloir et le faire: Recherches éthiques pour les chrétiens: Introduction (première partie)". Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1964.
** "To Will and to Do: An Ethical Research for Christians". Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. Philadelphia: Pilgrim, 1969.
* "L'illusion politique". Paris: Robert Laffont, 1965. Rev. ed.: Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1977.
** "The Political Illusion". Trans. Konrad Kellen. New York: Knopf, 1967. New York: Random House/Vintage, 1972.
* "Exégèse des nouveaux lieux communs". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1966. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1994.
** "A Critique of the New Commonplaces". Trans. Helen Weaver. New York: Knopf, 1968.
* "Politique de Dieu, politiques de l'homme". Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1966.
** "The Politics of God and the Politics of Man". Trans./ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
* "Histoire de la propagande". Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967, 1976.
* "Métamorphose du bourgeois". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1967. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1998.
* "Autopsie de la révolution". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1969.
** "Autopsy of Revolution". Trans. Patricia Wolf. New York: Knopf, 1971.
* "Contre les violents". Paris: Centurion, 1972.
** "Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective". Trans. Cecelia Gaul Kings. New York: Seabury, 1969. London: SCM Press, 1970. London: Mowbrays, 1978.
* "Sans feu ni lieu: Signification biblique de la Grande Ville". Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
** "The Meaning of the City". Trans. Dennis Pardee. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970. Carlisle, Cumbria, England: Paternoster, 1997.
* "L'impossible prière". Paris: Centurion, 1971, 1977.
** "Prayer and Modern Man". Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. New York: Seabury, 1970, 1973
* "Jeunesse délinquante: Une expérience en province". Avec Yves Charrier. Paris: Mercure de France, 1971. 2nd ed.: "Jeunesse délinquante: Des blousons noirs aux hippies". Nantes: Éditions de l'AREFPPI, 1985.
* "De la révolution aux révoltes". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1972.
* "L'espérance oubliée". Paris: Gallimard, 1972.
** "Hope in Time of Abandonment". Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. New York: Seabury, 1973.
* "Éthique de la liberté", 2 vols. Geneva: Labor et Fides, I:1973, II:1974.
** "The Ethics of Freedom". Trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976. London: Mowbrays, 1976.
* "Les nouveaux possédés". Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1973.
** "The New Demons". Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. New York: Seabury, 1975. London: Mowbrays, 1975.
* "L'Apocalypse: Architecture en mouvement". Paris: Desclée, 1975.
** "Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation". Trans. George W. Schreiner. New York: Seabury, 1977.
* "Trahison de l'Occident". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1975.
** "The Betrayal of the West". Trans. Matthew J. O'Connell. New York: Seabury,1978.
* "Le système technicien". Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1977.
** "The Technological System". Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. New York: Continuum, 1980.
* "L'idéologie marxiste chrétienne". Paris: Centurion, 1979.
** "Jesus and Marx: From Gospel to Ideology". Trans. Joyce Main Hanks. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
* "L'empire du non-sens: L'art et la société technicienne". Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 1980.
* "La foi au prix du doute: "Encore quarante jours . . ." Paris: Hachette, 1980.
** "Living Faith: Belief and Doubt in a Perilous World". Trans. Peter Heinegg. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983.
* "La Parole humiliée". Paris: Seuil, 1981.
** "The Humiliation of the Word". Trans. Joyce Main Hanks. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
* "Changer de révolution: L'inéluctable prolétariat". Paris: Seuil, 1982.
* "Les combats de la liberté". (Tome 3, L'Ethique de la Liberté) Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1984. Paris: Centurion, 1984.
* "La subversion du christianisme". Paris: Seuil, 1984, 1994. réédition en 2001, La Table Ronde;
** "The Subversion of Christianity". Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986.
* "Conférence sur l'Apocalypse de Jean". Nantes: AREFPPI, 1985.
* "Un chrétien pour Israël". Monaco: Éditions du Rocher, 1986.
* "Ce que je crois". Paris: Grasset and Fasquelle, 1987.
** "What I Believe". Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
* "La Genèse aujourd'hui". Avec François Tosquelles. Ligné: AREFPPI, 1987.
* "La raison d'être: Méditation sur l'Ecclésiaste". Paris: Seuil, 1987
** "Reason for Being: A Meditation on Ecclesiastes". Trans. Joyce Main Hanks. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
* "Anarchie et christianisme". Lyon: Atelier de Création Libertaire, 1988. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1998
** "Anarchy and Christianity". Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.
* "Le bluff technologique". Paris: Hachette, 1988.
** "The Technological Bluff". Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
* "Ce Dieu injuste . . .?: Théologie chrétienne pour le peuple d'Israël". Paris: Arléa, 1991, 1999.
* "Si tu es le Fils de Dieu: Souffrances et tentations de Jésus". Paris: Centurion, 1991.
* "Déviances et déviants dans notre société intolérante". Toulouse: Érés, 1992.
* "Silences: Poèmes". Bordeaux: Opales, 1995.
* "Oratorio: Les quatre cavaliers de l'Apocalypse". Bordeaux: Opales, 1997.
* "Sources and Trajectories: Eight Early Articles by Jacques Ellul that Set the Stage". Trans./ed. Marva J. Dawn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Interviews

* "A temps et à contretemps: Entretiens avec Madeleine Garrigou-Lagrange". Paris: Centurion, 1981.
* "In Season, Out of Season: An Introduction to the Thought of Jacques Ellul: Interviews by Madeleine Garrigou-Lagrange." Trans. Lani K. Niles. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982.
* "Perspectives on Our Age: Jacques Ellul Speaks on His Life and Work". Ed. Willem H. Vanderburg. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel. Toronto: CBC, 1981. New York: Seabury, 1981. Concord, Ontario: House of Anansi, 1997.
* " _fr. L'homme à lui-même: Correspondance". Avec Didier Nordon. Paris: Félin, 1992.
* "Entretiens avec Jacques Ellul". Patrick Chastenet. Paris: Table Ronde, 1994.
* "Jacques Ellul on Religion, Technology, and Politics: Conversations with Patrick Troude-Chastenet". Trans. Joan Mendès France. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
* "Jacques Ellul on Politics, Technology, and Christianity: Conversations with Patrick Troude-Chastenet". Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2005.

ee also

* Christian anarchism
* Indoctrination
* "Koyaanisqatsi" - The film
* Propaganda
*Randal Marlin
*Non-conformists of the 1930s

External links

* [http://www.ellul.org/ijes.htm International Jacques Ellul Society]
* [http://www.jacques-ellul.org/ Association Internationale Jacques Ellul]
* [http://www.wheaton.edu/learnres/ARCSC/collects/sc16/ Wheaton College Library's Jacques Ellul page] (with biographical information and listings of their holdings of rare Ellul manuscripts)
* [http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/ellul.php Jacques Ellul works on Jesus Radicals]
* [http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/ellul/index.html Jacques Ellul at Anarchist Archive]
* [http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=1506 A Politics of God and a Politics of Man]

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