The technological society requires men to be content with what they are required to like; for those who are not content, it provides distractions—escape into absorption with technically dominated media of popular culture and communication. And the process is a natural one: every part of a technical civilization responds to the social needs generated by technique itself. Progress then consists in progressive de-humanization—a busy, pointless, and, in the end, suicidal submission to technique. The essential point, according to Ellul, is that technique produces all this without plan; no one wills
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