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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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Jacques Ellul
Age: 82 †
Born: 1912
Born: January 6
Died: 1994
Died: May 19
French Resistance Fighter
Philosopher
Sociologist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Bordèu
Human
Prevail
Humans
Predictions
Men
Technique
Requires
Necessary
Possible
Exactness
Free
Predictability
Less
Prediction

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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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And an apprenticeship to whatever gadgetry is useful in a technical world
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Propaganda begins when dialogue ends.
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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.
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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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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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The Holy Spirit alone can do this, the Holy Spirit alone can establish this link with one's neighbor.
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Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.
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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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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.
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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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The individual who is the servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself.
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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.
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Fate operates when people give up
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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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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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Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it.
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Thinking has become a superfluous exercise... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.
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Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.
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I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies man throughout his history.
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