Word: ellul
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Perhaps the central ailment of the age is a more personal matter, one that relates to the general advancement of knowledge, but that takes its effect silently in individuals. Jacques Ellul criticized the modern idea of work as compared with the ancient because, he said, work with machines puts people at a distance from their labors and thus evokes a feeling of absence instead of presence. Arnold, too, focused on the absence of things. It is a peculiarly desolating experience to look upon something new that one despises or has no feeling for and to recall with pleasure whatever...
Serious observers have long worried about the capacity of modern technical civilization to manipulate mass society partly by exposing and trivializing personal values that were once held secret and sacred. Twenty-six years ago, in fact, French Sociologist Jacques Ellul, in The Technological Society, forecast: "Our deepest instincts and our most secret passions will be analyzed, published, and exploited." The great is of secrets is, finally, more than amazing. It is also a bit ominous. -By Frank Trippett