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Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.

Jacques Ellul

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Jacques Ellul
Age: 82 †
Born: 1912
Born: January 6
Died: 1994
Died: May 19
French Resistance Fighter
Philosopher
Sociologist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Bordèu
Society
Links
Individual
Technological
Demands
Essential
Essentials
Demand
Mass
Link
Media
Provides

More quotes by Jacques Ellul

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Everyone has been taught that technique is an application of science.... This traditional view is radically false. It takes into account only a single category of science and only a short period of time
Jacques Ellul
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Fate operates when people give up
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Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.
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Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends.
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Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.
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Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.
Jacques Ellul
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The individual who is the servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself.
Jacques Ellul
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All human language draws its nature and value from the fact that it both comes from the Word of God and is chosen by God to manifest himself. But this relationship is secret and incomprehensible, beyond the bounds of reason and analysis.
Jacques Ellul
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The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.
Jacques Ellul
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The most favorable moment to seize a man and influence him is when he is alone in the mass. It is at this point that propaganda can be most effective.
Jacques Ellul
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It is not true that the perfection of police power is the result of the state's Machiavellianism or of some transitory influence. The whole structure of society implies it, of necessity. The more we mobilize the forces of nature, the more must we mobilize men and the more do we require order.
Jacques Ellul
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It is the multiplication of men who are exluded from working which provokes war. We ought at least to bear this in mind when we boast of the continual decrease in human participation in technical operations.
Jacques Ellul
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To the ideal of high consumption and the downgrading of spiritual values corresponds a conception of injustice that centers exclusively on the problem of consumption and equality in consumption cannot be achieved except by violence.
Jacques Ellul
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No technique is possible when men are free. Technique requires predictability and, no less, exactness of prediction. It is necessary, then, that technique prevail over the human being.
Jacques Ellul
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For the word is dialectical in itself and at the same time is integrated into the whole of existence. By this I mean that the word is intended to be lived.
Jacques Ellul
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Prayer is not a discourse. It is a form of life, the life with God. That is why it is not confined to the moment of verbal statement.
Jacques Ellul
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Almost always, it is the conviction that 'I am right' or 'my cause is the cause of justice' that triggers violence. That is, ...the moment propaganda does its work, violence is unleashed. And violence can be reduced by countering this propaganda.
Jacques Ellul
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Technical civilization has made a great error in not suppressing death, the only human reality still intact
Jacques Ellul
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For in a civilization which has lost the meaning of life, the most important thing a Christian can do is to live, and life, understood from the point of view of faith, has an extraordinary explosive force.
Jacques Ellul
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The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal - the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing...There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in a sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or radio program there.
Jacques Ellul