126 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
126 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
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IF YOU WISH TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS LIST FOR ANY REASON
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Today's sermon will be delivered by the immortal Jacques Ellul, grandfather of
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the Situationists and author of _The Technological Society_. According to
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Ellul, "what characterizes technical action within a particular activity is the
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search for greater *efficiency*." Technique, as Ellul defines it, is truly the
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great weakness of the tool-wielding apes. In the words of Robert Merton, ours
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is "a civilization committed to the quest for continually improved means to
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carelessly examined ends. Indeed technique transforms ends into means. . . .
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The Technical Man is fascinated by results, by the immediate consequences of
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setting standardized devices into motion." The glittering Spectacle feeds on
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this passive quality of fascination; in the Age of Absorption, we de-evolve
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into mere automatons, eyeballs with fingers. When every individual agrees that
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a single most efficient technique exists for every objective, and that these
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techniques can and should be arrived at, all is lost. How can we defeat the
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overwhelming logic of efficiency? Surely not with technique; we become what we
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resist. Only individual transformation can stem the tide; the spread of
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enlightenment becomes our greatest responsibility. John Wilkinson said of
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Ellul that "To him, to *bear witness to the fact* of the technological society
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is the most revolutionary of all acts." We share Ellul's profound conviction,
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as well as his hope, that humans may yet prove stronger than the powers they
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invoke. Dear brethren, I give you, Jacques Ellul.
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>>>>
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The term *technique*, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or
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this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society,
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*technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute
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efficiency* (for a given stage of development) in *every* field of human
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activity.
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It is said (and everyone agrees) that the machine has created an inhuman
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atmosphere. The machine, so characteristic of the nineteenth century, made an
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abrupt entrance into a society which, from the political, institutional, and
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human points of view, was not made to receive it; and man has had to put up
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with it as best he can. Men now live in conditions that are less than human.
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Consider the concentration of our great cities, the slums, the lack of space,
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of air, time, the gloomy streets and sallow lights that confuse night and day.
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Think of our dehumanized factories, our unsatisfied senses. . . . our
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estrangement from nature. Life in such an environment has no meaning.
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Consider our public transportation, in which man is less important than a
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parcel; our hospitals, in which he is only a number. Yet we call this
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progress. . . .
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It must be emphasized that, at present, technique is applied outside
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industrial life. The growth of its power today has no relation to the growing
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use of the machine. The balance seems rather to have shifted to the other
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side. It is the machine which is now entirely dependent on technique, and the
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machine represents only a small part of technique. If we were to characterize
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the relations between technique and the machine today, we could say not only
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that the machine is the result of a certain technique, but also that its social
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and economic applications are made possible by other technical advances. The
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machine is now not even the most important aspect of technique (though it is
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perhaps the most Spectacular); technique has taken over all of man's
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activities, not just his productive activity.
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From another point of view, however, the machine is deeply symptomatic: it
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represents the ideal toward which technique strives. The machine is solely,
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exclusively, technique; it is pure technique, one might say. For wherever a
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technical factor exists, it results, almost inevitably, in mechanization:
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technique transforms everything it touches into a machine.
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It is an illusion--unfortunately very widespread--to think that because we
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have broken through the prohibitions, taboos, and rites that bound primitive
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man, we have become free. We are conditioned by something new: technological
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civilization. I make no reference to a past period of history in which men
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were allegedly free, happy, and independent. The determinisms of the past no
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longer concern us; they are finished and done with. If I do refer to the past,
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it is only to emphasize that present determinants did not exist in the past,
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and men did not have to grapple with them.
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In my conception, freedom is not an immutable fact graven in nature and on
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the heart of man. It is not inherent in man or in society, and it is
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meaningless to write it into law. The mathematical, physical, biological,
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sociological, and psychological sciences reveal nothing but necessities and
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determinisms on all sides. As a matter of fact, reality is itself a
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combination of determinisms, and freedom consists in overcoming and
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transcending these determinisms. Freedom is completely without meaning unless
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it is related to necessity. . . . We must not think of the problem in terms of
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a choice between being determined and being free. We must look at it
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dialectically, and say that man is indeed determined, but that it is open to
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him to overcome necessity, and that this *act* is freedom. Freedom is not
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static but dynamic; not a vested interest, but a prize continually to be won.
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The moment man stops and resigns himself, he becomes subject to determinism.
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He is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably settled in freedom.
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In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the
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technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by
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an act of freedom, of transcending it. How is this to be done? I do not yet
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know. That is why [I] appeal to the individual's sense of responsibility. The
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first step in the quest, the first act of freedom, is to become aware of the
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necessity. The very fact that man can see, measure, and analyze the
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determinisms that press on him means that he can face them and, by so doing,
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act as a free man. If man were to say: "These are not necessities; I am free
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because of technique, or despite technique," this would prove that he is
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totally determined. However, by grasping the real nature of the technological
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phenomenon, and the extent to which it is robbing him of freedom, he confronts
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the blind mechanisms as a conscious being.
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If man--if each one of us--abdicates his responsibilities with regard to
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values; if each of us limits himself to leading a trivial existence in a
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technological civilization, with greater adaptation and increasing success as
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his sole objectives; if we do not even consider making a stand against these
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determinants, then everything *will* happen as I have described it, and the
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determinants *will* be transformed into inevitabilities. . . .
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[My] purpose is to arouse. . . . an awareness of technological necessity
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and what it means. It is a call to the sleeper to awake.
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<<<<
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-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Rev. Chris Korda The Church of Euthanasia
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