What did Jacques Ellul mean by Technique?
With the spike in popularity of Ted Kaczynski’s The Industrial Society and its Future among meme culture, there now exists a minority who hold anti-industrial opinions. Whether held ironically or un-ironically, for the bookish type these opinions have led to a serious interest in the relevant literature. From the easily palatable Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, to the extensive historical and sociological works of Lewis Mumford, there is a book for every would-be Luddite.
Among those writers who have engaged in a critical analysis of the modern world and technology, perhaps none have as subtle and nuanced an understanding of technology as French sociologist and lay theologian Jacques Ellul. Ellul’s 500-page study of The Technological Society is a serious analysis of what Ellul sees to be the driving power in the modern world. Kaczynski’s own brother claimed that The Technological Society “became Ted’s Bible”, a sad state considering its author's high view of the real Bible.
Readers unwilling to tackle The Technological Society and searching for a digestible summary of the book will undoubtedly come across the term Technique as foundational to Ellul’s thinking. It won’t take long to discover that Technique is definitely not a substitute for Technology, but a positive definition of Technique with all its nuances is much more difficult to come by!
What is Technique?
The best place to start will be Ellul’s own words. In Note to the Reader at the start of the book, Ellul lays out what he means by Technique1.
The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past.
Here we see three key foundations to how to think about Technique:
Technique is not machines, technology, or a particular procedure.
Technique is the sum, or totality, of absolutely efficient methods arrived at rationally.
The Technique of the present is something totally new, and cannot be compared with Technique in the past.
Yet this summary misses something important for Ellul. Considering that he tried to always keep his theological and sociological works separate, it is unsurprising he did not include this in his summary of Technique. However, a fourth criteria is important to include:
Technique is one of the spiritual powers (Col. 1:16, Eph. 6:12) which controls the modern world, which people give their allegiance to and which keeps them in bondage.
As David Gill puts it in his comparison between Ellul and Francis Schaeffer, ‘What is significant and ominous today is that technique itself (rationality, artificiality, efficiency) has become universal, autonomous, and self-automated’2. One of the gods of the modern world is efficiency; it is a presupposition of the way we do things that the more efficient something is, the better it is. This becomes obvious when engaging in a discussion about Technique with those not already opposed to it.
Imagine trying to explain to a medieval, Japanese samurai that they did not need to commit ritual suicide to maintain their own and their families’ honour. In their thinking, honour is something of such value that the violent, painful loss of human life is no obstacle to its maintenance. Something similar is what happens under Technique with respect to efficiency. It is a simple matter to list the ways our desire for the best and the fastest damages ourselves and those around us: poor working conditions, ecological damage, social isolation, destruction of traditional modus vivendi, among others.
Technique can therefore be recognised as the backdrop of a culture which presupposes the value of efficiency and rational solutions above all others. Here the contrast between modern Technique and past technological progress can be made clear; in the past they had other values which they considered at least as important as efficiency.
Ellul’s Solution
Due to his hatred for modern life Kaczynski murdered three people and injured many more. Was this somehow inspired by Ellul? Certainly not. An extended quotation from David Gill will suffice to summarise the campaign Ellul portrays in his work The Presence of the Kingdom3.
Ellul’s prescription, then, is for a renewal of prayer, a vigorous proclamation of Jesus Christ and Scripture, and a determination by Christians to live in the heart of this world but of the coming of the Kingdom of God. This implies, in our era, a cultivation of “awareness” of the true spiritual as well as material forces shaping our contemporary society. It implies a vigorous work of demythologising and de-sacralising the “new demons” in the West. It implies a radical rejection of all ideologies which are destructive of the individual and freedom. It means a radical challenging of the power of the state and the ideology of technique.
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, p. xxv
David W. Gill, Jacques Ellul and Francis Schaeffer: Two Views of Western Civilisation, p. 11
ibid. p. 12