Continued from Part 3

Another site with information on Jacques Ellul:
www.ellul.org: The International Jacques Ellul Society (partnered with L’Association Internationale Jacques Ellul)

“Jacques Ellul (1912 – 1994)
Technology critic. . . Historian. . . Sociologist
Theologian of Hope. . . Ethicist. . .Activist”

Site includes Bibliography of Jacques Ellul’s Books

Also there is A Short Biography of Jacques Ellul:

I could be enthusiastic about some of what Ellul says. But it’s better to gain some insights from him about the system rather than worship him. It’s also better to be objective and even skeptical about celebrity philosophers, because we know from The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters that many famous Cold War intellectuals received funding from the Establishment.

Besides ecology, and his political philosophy which I would have to investigate further (I agree with some of what I’ve read), here are some points in the biography that raise concerns for me:

“Jacques Ellul adhered to the maxim “Think globally, act locally” throughout his life.”

“…his cosmopolitan roots produced a deep dislike of any nationalistic feeling.”

The Technological Society, the first volume of his trilogy on the subject, appeared in France in 1954. This book was discovered and promoted by Aldous Huxley, the English author of Brave New World, and brought him fame in American universities ten years later …

I think the point of Aldous Huxley’s work (brother of Julian at the UN) was an Establishment agenda of promoting the ideas he was warning about in Brave New World and to get people ready for them.

Also, an anti-technology message could be misused by the Establishment to help us adapt to deindustrialization and the resulting loss of wealth.

See:

• Aldous Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution, Berkeley: Part1 Part2
• Aldous Huxley’s letter to George Orwell comparing predictions in Brave New World and 1984
• Mike Wallace interview with Aldous Huxley

Part 5
Series Contents