By Jacques Ellul
A penetrating research of our technical civilization and of the impact of an more and more standardized tradition at the way forward for man.
"Jacques EIlul is a French sociologist, a Catholic layman energetic within the ecumenical move, a pace-setter of the French resistance within the warfare, and—one is tempted so as to add, after analyzing his book—a nice guy. definitely he has written a powerful publication. ... the interpretation by means of John Wilkinson is excellent.
"With enormous calm and maddening thoroughness he is going via one human task after one other and indicates the way it has been technicized—rendered efficient—and lowered within the process...." — Paul Pickrel, Harper's
"The Technological Society is likely one of the most vital books of the second one half the 20 th century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that expertise, which we proceed to conceptualize because the servant of guy, will overthrow every little thing that stops the interior good judgment of its improvement, together with humanity itself—unless we take the mandatory steps to maneuver human society out of our surroundings that 'technique' is developing to fulfill its personal needs." — Robert Theobald, The Nation
"...The influence is a contained highbrow explosion, a heated reputation of a sad problem that has overtaken modern society." — Scott Buchanan, George Washington legislations assessment
Read Online or Download The Technological Society PDF
Similar social theory books
Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance
Jam-packed with new examples and fabric, this moment version presents a completely updated exploration of the genesis, dynamics, and dying of ethical panics and their affects at the societies during which they ensue. * filled with up to date and up to date examples together with terrorism, the 9-11 assault at the global exchange Towers, institution shootings, flag burning, and the early-2000s resurgence of the “sex slave” scare* encompasses a new bankruptcy at the media, at the moment considered as a massive section of the ethical panic* Devotes a bankruptcy to addressing criticisms of the 1st version in addition to the ethical panics notion itself* Written via fashioned specialists within the box* Designed to slot either self-contained classes on ethical panics and wider classes on deviance
Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach (Expanded Edition)
In lecturers as Cultural staff, Freire speaks on to academics in regards to the classes discovered from a life of adventure as an educator and social theorist. Freire’s phrases problem all who educate to mirror seriously at the that means of the act of educating in addition to the which means of studying.
Freedom in the Anthropocene: Twentieth-Century Helplessness in the Face of Climate Change
Whereas it's transparent that the Holocene/Anthropocene transition marks the unparalleled transformation of human societies, students haven't been in a position to account for what this transition involves, the way it may well provide upward thrust to our present ecological problem, and the way we would plausibly stream past it. with out such an figuring out, we're left with an insufficient research that creates the situation for ill-informed coverage judgements and a self-sustaining cycle of unsuccessful makes an attempt to ameliorate societally triggered environmental degradation.
"One of the broadest, such a lot complete, tricky and extremely theoretical works in social thought. Social idea and philosophy may possibly by no means be an identical back. " (Philosophy and Social feedback)
- The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future
- Class in Education: Knowledge, Pedagogy, Subjectivity
- Revisiting Normativity with Deleuze (Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy)
- The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self
- Marxism and Literary Criticism (2nd Edition) (Routledge Classics)
Extra resources for The Technological Society
Example text
Capitalism did not create our world; the machine did. Pain stakin g studies designed to prove the con trary have buried the obvious beneath tons of p rint And. if we do not wish to play the demagogue , we must point out the guil ty party. Ihe machine is an tisoci al, says Lewis Mumford. � The machine took i ts pl ace in a social milieu that was not made for it, and for that reason created the in human society in which we live. Capitalism was therefore only one aspect of the d ee p disorder of the nineteenth century.
This technique differs from the others in its object and goal. But its problems are the same as those of all other technical activities. ll) The technique of organization concerns the great masses and applies not only to commercial or industrial affairs of magnitude (coming, consequently, under the jurisdiction of the economic) but also to states and io administration and police power. This organi zational technique is also applied to warfare and insures the power of an army at least as much as its weapons.
The relation between science and techni qu e becomes e ven less clear when we consider the newer fields, which have no boundaries. Where does biological technique begin and where does it end? In modem psychology and SOCiology, what can we call tech niqu e, since in the appli cation of thes e sciences everyth ing i s techniqu e? But it is not application which characterizes techn ique, for, with out t echnique ( previous or concomitant ) , science has no way of e xis tin g If we di sown technique, we abandon the domain of s cien ce .