The Betrayal of the West Quotes

“The torture that is commonplace today is not the result of chance or of a regression to barbarian times or of a particular regime or of an accidental turn down the wrong road. It is the strictly logical consequence of this denial of the individual, in which the West has denied itself, body and soul, to the profit of the collectivity, of objectivity, of technique. For, even if there be no more soul, there is still this final service the condemned man must render to society: he must survive, for the social good, in the form of the tiny secret he yielded up before being swallowed by death.”
― Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West

“Reason has turned into narrow-minded rationalism, while claiming simply to pursue its own logical end but that really means: to go to extremes. Again, an odd reversal. Reason that is essentially linked to moderation would beget the immoderation of all-devouring, exclusive, authoritarian, ill-tempered, inquisitorial rationalism! Reason that is essentially linked to clarity would plunge men, by way of scientism, into a confused world of primordial beliefs. Convulsive extremes have replaced moderation and measure. As though a secret curse were at work, everything the West invented and set in motion has been perverted from its true nature. 'Ve have here moved far beyond class struggles and sociological interpretations. The fact is that the West aimed at too high a perfection and attained power instead. That is its ultimate tragedy.”
― Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West

“When freedom claims to be unconditional, when men deny the value of reason and plunge into the delights of the senses, and when the means of action pile up, then there is no way of preventing collective suicide but a dictatorship. The only things that can prevent the growth of fascisms are reason and the acceptance of strict personal self-control, and a concern for strict and clearcut conduct, for permanent self-criticism, for internal coherence, and for uncompromisingly critical rational discourse. These procedures are by no means the product of a muscular voluntarism of the extreme right, nor defense mechanisms employed by a shifty bourgeoisie in behalf of its selfish interests.”
― Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West

“Reason and self-control- inventions of
the West- are the highest form of man's self-discovery. Never before or elsewhere has man so completely realized his own potentialities or reached such a summit or been so fulfilled. But at the same time never has there been so great a danger of a two-fold collapse. One failure would be to retreat and regress because it seems impossible to live under such tension and to meet the demands of self-control (this is the collapse to which the flabbiness of our neo-leftists will lead). The other would be to succumb to the madness induced by rationalized power (this is the demon that drives a technicized society). The West has created the best and produced the worst, because man cannot permanently maintain so difficult and demanding a balance.”
― Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West