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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
Light
Enslaves
Everything
Believed
Men
Technique
Possession
Brings
Sacred
Takes
Science

More quotes by 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.
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And an apprenticeship to whatever gadgetry is useful in a technical world
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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.
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It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale.
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We have to admit that there is an immeasurable distance between all that we read in the Bible and the practice of the Church and of Christians.
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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.
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The Holy Spirit alone can do this, the Holy Spirit alone can establish this link with one's neighbor.
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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
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The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read.
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Human life as a whole is not inundated by technique. It has room for activities that are not rationally or systematically ordered. But the collision between spontaneous activities and technique is catastrophic for the spontaneous activities.
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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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Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.
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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
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Thinking has become a superfluous exercise... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.
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Because of the myth of progress, it is much easier to sell a man an electric razor than a straight-edged one.
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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.
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Freedom is completely without meaning unless it is related to necessity, unless it represents victory over necessity.
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Technical civilization has made a great error in not suppressing death, the only human reality still intact
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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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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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