The Technological System [Le Système Technicien] - Jacques Ellul

7/31/2019 The Technological System [Le Systme Technicien] - Jacques Ellul

1/185

Jacques Ellul

TheTechnological

System

Translated from the Frenchby Joachim Neugroschel

1980The Continuum Publishing Corporation

815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

Originally published as Le Sytme technicien by Calmann-LvyCopyright Calmann-Lvy 1977

English translation copyright 1980 by The Continuum PublishingCorporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without thewritten permission of The Continuum Publishing Corporation. Printed in the

United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ellul, Jacques. Thetechnological system. Translation ofLe systme technicien. Bibliography. 1.Technology and civilization. 1. Title.

HM221.E4313 303.4'83 80-15344

ISBN 0-8264-9007-4


2/185


3/185


4/185


5/185


6/185


7/185


8/185


9/185


10/185


11/185


12/185


13/185


14/185

PART ONE

What Is Technology?

1

TECHNOLOGY

AS A CONCEPT

In my early studies on technology, I employed this term as a conceptwithout explaining it, thereby giving rise to countless misunderstandings.The technologies used in all possible domains, so I felt, had enoughcommon features for us to deduce a general concept. It is commonknowledge that, while nobody has ever seen "the dog," we can still findenough common traits in a spaniel, boxer, great dane, pekinese,

pincher-despite all the differences to understand one another perfectlywhen we use the word "dog. I certainly do not want to get into thequarrel of the universals. Nor will I claim that in some empyrean there isa concrete idea per se of absolute technology. But I do claim that,scientifically, I can construct a phenomenon from the features of, and theinterrelations between, the phenomena generally known as"technological" in our society. For this society, in which technology hasbecome dominant, is the first to have the concept of technology. Certainpeople now declare that "technology" does not exist, and that they know

only plural technologies. Such a notion, however, comes from a shallowsense of realism and is obviously unsystematic.Technology as a concept allows us to understand a set of

phenomena that remain invisible even where technologies are perceptiblymanifest. But while the concept may be indispensable forcomprehension, it is by no means clear and simple in itself. Nor does itimply the existence of a technological system. We will not recur to theproblem of defining technology. But we are going to examine the genesisof this concept in reference to modern reality.

* * *


15/185


16/185


17/185


18/185


19/185


20/185

discussion of these definitions in John Boli-Bennett's remarkable studyTechnization, 1973.2

See A. Sauvy's excellent critique of the model mania, Croissance zro? (1973).3

See Hamon,Acteurs et donnes de l'Histoire, vols. 1 and 2.4

Report by the Church and Society Department of the World Council of Churches,prepatory for a study of the future of man and society in a technological world,October 1969.5

In any event, to understand the concept of technology and the technologicalsystem, we cannot start with technology's effects on man or society. Sociologicalor psychological considerations will not lead us back to the concept of technology.We have to focus on the technological object itself and its interrelations, as hasbeen admirably done by Simondon, Du Mode d'existence des objets techniques(1956). The countless studies on alienation, the impact of television, workorganization, the effects of mass media on voting, urbanization, etc. can be usefulafterwards. They can then help us understand certain aspects of the technologicalsystem. But we cannot take off from them to work out the concept of technology.

We have to begin on the highest level of abstraction and then proceed to thereality. constituted by technology's relationship to man or society.


21/185


22/185


23/185


24/185


25/185


26/185


27/185


28/185


29/185


30/185


31/185


32/185


33/185


34/185


35/185


36/185


37/185


38/185


39/185


40/185


41/185

TECHNOLOGY AS A DETERMINING FACTOR 75


42/185

TECHNOLOGY AS A DETERMINING FACTOR 75

truth, to the direct experience, the more one hunts down reality withcolor, relief, etc., the more the real absence of the world looms fromtechnological perfection to technological perfection."

Technology, as a mediator and as the new environment, makesevery reality other than itself abstract, remote, and devoid of content. Inthis gigantic transformation, how can we help but attribute once again therole of determining factor to technology?

1This corresponds fairly to what Habermas calls the "preponderance" in a

society (Technik und Wissenschaft als Ideologie, 1968).2

De Lauwe's study, published in 1966, coincides quite remarkably with RaymondAron's study published in Progress and Disillusion (1969). Aron shows that thetechnological phenomenon is definitely the determining factor for thedevelopment of contradictory situations: on the one hand, the formation of newhierarchies, ruling categories; and on the other hand, the ideology of equality; onthe one hand, the socialization of the individual consciousness (with the fear that

the individual may vanish in the mass); and on the other hand, the ideology ofpersonal autonomy (with the fear that the individual may lose his identity insolitude). One could truly multiply the examples of these contradictoryphenomena resulting from technology, which Aron traces back to the dialectics ofequality, of socialization, and of universality.

Furthermore, one of the clearest and most demonstrative works about theprimacy of the technological factor over all other factors, including economicones, is P. Ferraro's, Progresso tecnico contro suiluppo economico? (1968).3

Recent studies go so far as to doubt the growth of the central government'spower, which has been dispersed to powers outside the state's jurisdiction. See,

for example, Gremion, Les Pouvoirs priphriques.

4Sec Hamon,Acteurs et donnes de l'histoire, vol. 1 (1970).

5M. de Montmollin, Les Psychopitres (1972).

6Hartung, Les Enfants de la promesse (1972).

7John Boli-Bennet, Technization (1973).

8Seymour, quoted by Montmollin.

9See also the collective work, Civilisation et humanisme (1969).


43/185


44/185


45/185


46/185


47/185


48/185


49/185


50/185


51/185


52/185


53/185


54/185


55/185


56/185


57/185


58/185


59/185


60/185


61/185


62/185


63/185


64/185


65/185


66/185


67/185

5

AUTONOMY


68/185

PART TWO

The Characteristics ofThe Technological

Phenomenon

AUTONOMY

SIMONDON has strikingly demonstrated the autonomous character oftechnology with what he calls "concretization," i.e., the existence of aconcrete schema of organizational invention that remains underlying andstable through all the ups and downs and changes of the technologicalobject. Hence, "concretization-adaptation is a process conditioning thebirth of a milieu instead of being conditioned by an already given milieu: itis conditioned by a milieu that exists only virtually before the invention. . . .But this concretizing invention produces a technogeographic milieu, whichis a condition for the functioning of the technological object: thus, the

technological object is its own condition as well as the condition for theexistence of this mixed technological and geographic milieu. Theautonomy of the technological object itself could not be betterdemonstrated than by the highly concrete examples he offers.1

The most elementary form of this autonomy is that of the machine inregard to the environment. As Ben B. Seligman (A Most NotoriousVictory, 1966) notes, the machine seems to acquire a certainindependence and function in itself. And he promptly generalizes: To besure, one may speak of an interdependence between technology and its

environment, but it is nevertheless technology that now dominates itsenvironment.An autonomous technology. This means that technology ultimately

depends only on itself, it maps its own route, it is a prime and not asecondary factor, it must be regarded as an "organism tending towardclosure and self-determination: it is an end in itself. Autonomy is the verycondition of technological development. This autonomy correspondsprecisely to what J. Baudrillard (Le Systme des objets) sees under thename offunctionalitywhen he says that


69/185


70/185


71/185


72/185


73/185


74/185


75/185


76/185


77/185


78/185


79/185


80/185


81/185


82/185


83/185


84/185


85/185


86/185


87/185


88/185


89/185


90/185


91/185


92/185


93/185


94/185


95/185


96/185


97/185


98/185


99/185


100/185


101/185


102/185


103/185


104/185


105/185


106/185


107/185


108/185


109/185


110/185


111/185


112/185


113/185


114/185


115/185


116/185


117/185


118/185


119/185


120/185


121/185


122/185


123/185


124/185


125/185


126/185

1 Nonetheless, certain authors feel that there is no longer any such thing asinnovation in the precise sense of the term, i.e., the appearance of a newand unexpected element; they hold that all technological progress resides ina combination of economic factors and scientific factors, with the result thatinnovation as a distinct entity is tending to vanish.2 On all these questions, see the remarkable study by Daumas, "L'Histoiredes techniques" in Documents pour l'histoire des techniques, VII. Incontrast, Tessier du Cros's general and "philosophical" considerations in hisL'Innovation (1971) do not help us zero in on the problem.3 See B. Levadoux, Les Nouvelles Techniques et l'limination desinstruments de travail, quoted by Beaune.4 Daumas, Histoire des techniques, vol. 1 (1962), p. x; against E. F.Schumacher, Small is Beautiful(1973).5


127/185

5 See B. de Jouvenel's studies on R and D in Sedeis and Arcadie. 6 See "Human Problems," in Spicer (ed.), Technological Change (1952).7 Good examples of peak technologies in the war in Vietnam can be found inD. Verguese, "Le Banc de'essai des guerres futures," Le Monde, October1972.8 See the section on "Self-augmentation" in Jacques Ellul, The Techno-logical Society (1964). See also Georges Friedmann, La Puissance et laSagesse (1970), chap. 1.9 George A. W. Boehm, "Des Matriaux qui n'existent pas," Analyse et

prvision (1968); Dennis Gabor, "Prevision technologique et responsabilitsociale,"Analyse et prvisi on (1968).10 M. Rodes in Cahiers du Boucau.11 See B. Charbonneau's wonderful description of refuse in the urbanizedworld (Le Jardin de Babylone). For technological studies, see M.Neiburger, "La Lutte contre la pollution de l'air," Analyse et prvi sion

(1967); and H. Rousseau, "Les Dtritus urbains," Analyse et prvi sion(1966).12 See the excellent demonstration in S. Wickham, Concentration etdimension (1966).


128/185


129/185


130/185


131/185


132/185


133/185


134/185


135/185


136/185


137/185


138/185


139/185


140/185


141/185


142/185


143/185


144/185


145/185


146/185


147/185


148/185


149/185


150/185


151/185


152/185


153/185


154/185


155/185


156/185


157/185


158/185


159/185


160/185


161/185


162/185


163/185


164/185


165/185


166/185


167/185


168/185


169/185


170/185


171/185


172/185


173/185


174/185


175/185


176/185


177/185


178/185


179/185


180/185


181/185


182/185


183/185


184/185


185/185

Date post:	05-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	impellotyrannis
View:	266 times
Download:	0 times