The Technological Society

by Jacques Ellul

Technique has progressively mastered all the elements of civilization. We have already pointed this out with regard to man’s economic and intellectual activities. But man himself is overpowered by technique and becomes its object The technique which takes man for its object thus becomes the center of society; this extraordinary event (which seems to surprise no one) is often designated as technical civilization. The terminology is exact and we must fully grasp its importance. Technical civilization means that our civilization is constructed by technique (makes a part of civilization only what belongs to technique), for technique (in that everything in this civilization must serve a technical end), and is exclusively technique (in that it excludes whatever is not technique or reduces it to technical form).