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Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it.

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
Brings
Sacred
Takes
Science
Light
Enslaves
Everything
Believed
Men
Technique
Possession

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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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.
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Philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.
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The individual who is the servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself.
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In sum, thought and reflection have been rendered thoroughly pointless by the circumstances in which modern men and women live and act.
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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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Thinking has become a superfluous exercise... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.
Jacques Ellul
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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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Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge.
Jacques Ellul
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The will of the world is always a will to death, a will to suicide. We must not accept this suicide, and we must so act that it cannot take place.
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
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Fate operates when people give up
Jacques Ellul
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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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Propaganda begins when dialogue ends.
Jacques Ellul
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(Propaganda) proceeds by psychological manipulations, character modifications, by creation of stereotypes useful when the time comes - The two great routes that this sub-propaganda takes are the conditioned reflex and the myth
Jacques Ellul
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Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity.
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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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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Am I a pessimist? Not at all. I am convinced that the history of the human race, no matter how tragic, will ultimately lead to the Kingdom of God. I am convinced that all the works of humankind will be reintegrated in the work of God, and that each of us, no matter how sinful, will ultimately be saved.
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