Technique, Discourse, and Consciousness (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781666744149)

This study examines the French thinker Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) and his historical, biblical, and social analyses of how technology manipulates and impoverishes modern thought, culture, and language. In the spirit of Georg Hegel and Ernst Cassirer, Ellul explores how technology begins in myths, stories, and religion, advances to tools, and then develops into data, algorithms, and abstract systems which are detached from human bodies and communities. Efficiency then becomes an absolute in all areas of human life, and the mentality of technique becomes lost in its creations. These modern symbols, posing as ultimate human goods and values, are denigrated by technique, leaving humanity awash in cliches, in groundless social media, and in blathering slogans that sustain the illusion that politics and culture have now become.

Author: David Lovekin
ISBN-10: 166674414X
ISBN-13: 9781666744149
Publisher: Wipf & Stock Publishers
Language: English
Published: 05/19/2022
Pages: 254
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.54d