Jacques Ellul- Prophetic or Apocalyptic Theologian of Technology?*

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218 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER some doubt over the choice of the most efficient means to an end." Weber gives rather precise and unambiguous meaning to the term while recognizing the applicability would be wide-ranging. Ellul's conception is looser and less neutral than Weber's concept. The "Note to the Reader" in his Technological Society introduces Ellul's special view of his subject. The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past e The first obvious difference between Weber and Ellul comes not from the terms `technology' and 'technique'-problems of etymology are discussed below-but from the totality of means to an action (Weber) and totality of all social means (Ellul). This difference is especially noticeable in conjunction with Weber's attempt to define for all contexts and Ellul's claim that each context is somehow without common measure with other contexts, thus leading to a new definition of `technique' for our "technological society." (One suspects a difference in purposes guiding their respective techniques of definition, and that Ellul's elusiveness may be the most efficient means to his end.) Ellul's definition and his opined novelty of the characteristics he isolates provide a summation not only of the book it introduces, but also of his many works on the overall theme of technology. Not only does `technique' refer to the totality of efficient, rational human, innovations, Ellul also treats _ this totality as a holistic phenomenon. The definition's defining characteristics identify what technique is; the treatment introduces an accompanying characteristic of a Weltanschauung that is potentially an insidious and pernicious determinant of social action. The accompanying characteristic is what Ellul sees as a new force to be reckoned with by societies. Indeed, "technique," in Ellul's summary interview responses, is "the fundamental element of society" displacing Marx's 19th century economic determinism (175-176). The collection of individual techniques is not the force that 7. Weber, 101. 8. Trans. John Wilkinson (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), xxv. This book was originally published in French in 1954.
ELLUL-THEOLOGIAN OF TECHNOLOGY 219 dominates man according to Ellul. Together, techniques are a reservoir of means that independently could be treated under Weber's definition. What he attempts to show under promises of being neutral toward his subject is that the totality of techniques has the additional characteristics of totality as such; that is, technique has become so dominant as to impose a structure on all human action, including politics.° "Nothing can lay claim to action; it is acted upon by technological process. Nothing can regard itself as autonomous; it is the technological system that is autonomous ...."1° This mode of analysis transforms the accompanying characteristic of Ellul's definition-totality-into the defining characteristic (no surprise at all if seen in the context of all of his books) which in turn does permit him to raise some very serious questions about technique for political theorists, but the tautological trickery of incorporating an accompanying characteristic into the definition prevents anyone from answering the questions from within the structure of his arguments. Thus Ellul's statements do not permit specification of technique as a concept (which can be treated definitionally and placed into testable hypotheses about its consequences) separate from the theoretical claims themselves. The merging of the thing and its consequences leads to an holistic view. That Ellul merges concept and theory is best shown by example: Technique is not an isolated fact in society (as the term technology would lead us to believe) but it is related to every factor in the life of modern man; it affects social facts as well as all others. Thus technique itself is a sociological phenomenon, and it is in this light that we shall study it." This interest in how technique relates to individual and social action is the central one for many political theorists. What Ellul may miss by his failure to distinguish definitional and theoretical differences is the guidance from classical and modern theorists he so often labels as empty. The rise of classical philosophy was to a great extent based on the refusal of Socrates to ignore the impact of science and artifact upon man. The Socratic turn, so well isolated in Francis 9. On the very negative political implications seen by Ellul, see both The Political Illusion, trans. Konrad Kellen (New York: Vintage Books, 1972) and Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Komer (New York: Vintage Books, 1973). 10. Technological System, 12. 11. Technological Society, xxvi.
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Jacques Ellul- Prophetic or Apocalyptic Theologian of Technology?*

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