This was an absolutely fantastic introduction to Ellul. Ellul, along with Ivan Illich, C. S. Lewis and Tolkien helped form my views on technology skepticism.
This is so great. So many insights. I'm mindblowed this hardwired growth is what evolution under constant pressure does like creation of first dual cell organism or trees appearing it's everytime a qualitative change with many branches of new possibilities while changing conditions of environment itself forcing reshuffling of everything in it towards some other balance it adds unpredictability (you don't know which new options will be discovered when first and which variety wins but race is not local but global so only one species most successful one is promoted) while the first shock of it happening already sends waves destabilising system and because we are aware of the change happening or rather many changes happening and predicting even more happening but to a different degree depending on our closeness to core of change we feel the pressure comming and need to adapt faster and feeling race speeding up so we start being focused on adapting for feeling only the basic feeling of grasping situation at hand but not considering starting a family of fear of not keeping up anymore this is such a vicious cycle and because of rushing we all are even more agreeing to accepting any new fasion or standard new winning horse without thinking who really decided it being top option to choose we truly become ants following other ants signaling left self aligning with route without any thought of deciding ourselves 😂 lemmings is the only comparison i can see here
Great video Chad! I've had a passing interest in Ellul for a long time but after this introductory video I think I'll be able to give The Technological Society a shot
Thx. I was undecided about him for years as well, but I realized after reading him that the main reason he is not given as much recognition as he deserves is because of his controversial stances on technology and religion rather than the quality of his work.
Ellul had a pretty unique view of Christianity but is probably best described as a Protestant in the vein of Karl Barth which he combined with his anarchist political sensibilities. I think the point you make in your later comments about analytic philosophy being itself a form of technique is barking up the right tree. I would go even further and say that most of what we think of as 'thought' is itself technique developed through the accumulation process in the realm of thought.
Bhuddism is one of the oldest religions and a dhamic religion. Bhuddism came out of Hinduism which had its techniques (its Dhamma, it's Way) like acesitism, or praying to Gods, blood rites, meditation, fasting, plants, etc). The buddha taught that there are other dhammas, (other Phenomenas, or Techniques) but that the buddha's dhamma (Way, phenomena, technique) is the good one, the one which leads to nirvana. (NIRVANA meaning the ending of all phenomena, ways, or techniques.) The bhuddas dhamma is said to be a raft which crosses one over to the other side, at which point, you can discard it. Really, the budhhas technique is the abandonment of technique by using one final technique (called the middle way and eight fold path; Right meditation, right concentration, right mindfulness, right action, right speech, right livelihood, right view, right effort.) Ellul explains in Tecnological Society how budhism rejected technique (meditation being the practice which totally rejects technique, since you have to be mindful to practice it, therefore you can't be technical.
This is an outstanding book, with concepts fundamental to understanding modern society, difficult as it is to wade through. I would couple it with Christopher Lasch's 1979 book "The Culture of Narcissism" as another visionary work which applies even more today than when it was written.
I fully agree, check out the two more recent and more thorough videos I did covering the first two chapters of the book, with the other chapters following soon.
@@chadahaagphilosophychannel7329 Will do! I just started another extraordinary book you might wish to cover, "The Fourth Political Theory" by Alexander Dugin. He is attempting to answer the question of what now, after the victory of liberalism (theory 1) over communism (theory 2) and fascism (theory 3), a victory which has ushered in a neo-liberal post-modern world dominated by technique and hyper-individualism. Dugin also posits that we're now in a period of "post-history", in which the notions of history itself, or of historical progress, no longer have any meaning and that history has become irrelevant. Wow, shocking to any student of history like myself, but sadly quite true.
@@TheSonicfrog Dugin is a warmongering, occultist, trojan horse connected to global mafia see Jeremy Rothe-Kushel and Greg McCarron's podcast - The Antedote'. Jean Gebser is much better for understanding our critical moment, and no, history is not entirely irrelevant.
@@unseenseer It's the tactics of censorship to launch ad-hominen attacks against an author. Having gotten further into his book there is plenty with which I disagree, but I could say exactly the same thing about Marx and Freud, who nonetheless made many valuable contributions with their analysis. And no, history is not entirely irrelevant, but I do agree that as a source of guidance as in lessons learned, history has largely become irrelevant in the neo-liberal post-modern west.
Have not read his book but I would question it from the point of view of recording and calculating systems. Our cybernetic encapsulation has a long prehistory to these systems. Pascal being noteworthy invented a calculator. Pascal's calculator invented in 1642 reduced laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father's work as the supervisor of taxes in Rouen.
I have defined Ted and Ellul to my friendsa year ago,, they don't understand,it's hard to define, your on to something, let's do a podcast, lol. That's what the world needs another podcast.
Have you read Elluls book propaganda? I've almost finished reading it and I think that book is significant as it greatly aids in understanding his ideas in the technological society. It helped me better understand what he was getting at in that point. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
Actually I just got that book but I havent quite had time yet to read it- I like to devote my full attention to Ellul when I read his works. I plan to do a series on that book soon tho and I'll look forward to addressing your comment much better when I do so. Thx
McLuhan described humans as no longer „at the wheel“ back in the 50s. He said they were like bees sort of pollinating the different flowers of technology. btw you pronounce Zerzan like he is French or something? He is American and I’m pretty sure he would record a podcast with you if you reached out. Since he is a primitivist he goes back a little further in time and human history with his critique though.
Huge fan, read this book because of being exposed to your channel! Would you ever consider doing some cross analysis of ellul and the HBO show westworld?
Thanks a lot, glad you found this useful. I would be interested to attempt a cross analysis but I admit I've never seen the show you mention here. I actually haven't had a television for years but I will see if I can find it online.
To answer the question of why Europe took off in the 18th century onward I think part of it has to do with the deep meme of infinite singularity which began with the Semites. The stuff in the East was Pantheist and still rooted in eternal recurrence as opposed to infinite singularity. The East has now appropriated the infinite singularity models and are arguably ahead of the curve compared to the West which is declining for various reasons(The depletion of it's old memes for instance). Eastern epistemic ontology is being selected for in new node to node technocratic ways. The Chinese are ahead of the curve with things like social credit(which is pretty awful if you have any anarchic sensibilities).
you want to watch that Chinese chick mouth pieces for West talking about how competition in China is much more savage bringing new innovations faster than in west because of this great rats cannibalism racing 😂 it came first to my mind reading your comment
Thank you for your summary. I object to your discounting of Weber's thesis and to the issue of the breakdown of Roman social organization. Surely you are aware of the Catholic Church. One of the astounding changes in Europe occurred with the emergence of Charlemagne and the regulation of the European marriage system where incest to 8 degrees of relatedness was prohibited! The impact of this edict and its implementation by every local priest who controlled who could marry is perhaps ,underestimated but it was surely related to the Protestant Reformation. Luther married in 1544 which suggests a strong opinion about sexuality during the medieval period and the values around purity and celibacy! What we need to understand are the remnants of Roman social organization that are surviving modernity, namely real estate and property ownership. I also object to your characterization of higher education as a scam and ripoff. For profit colleges have proven to be corrupt for the majority of students enrolling, and those who do not complete are burdened with a debt without any credential. Although too many students, if not most, do not take their courses seriously and fail to do the reading and to write critically, perhaps not even developing their reading comprehension duration or level after 4 years and into graduate school, there is no doubt about the impact of the credential. College degrees leads to certificates, licensure and jobs at a significantly higher level of income than the High School diploma. In fact, the PhD is a serious ticket to leadership positions and very high salaries. The professions today still command authority; the government is essentially the bailiwick of law schools! The critical issue is why so many students either do not study or quickly forget to continue their studying once out of college or university. 1/3 of Americans have a college degree, this is basically the bureaucracy and management! If you have a serious critique of curriculum, grading, and publication practices in colleges, won't you review a tome on this problem.
Stanislaw Lem was writing about future of technology predicting many devices of future but himself never wanted to learn how to use computer writing books on his old writing machine 😂
Read ur peak oil philosophy. Wouldn’t it be better name “energetic philosophy”? All mankind’s existence has depended on energy. There was a ontology before oil and one after oil. “Peak oil” is a transient condition. Wouldn’t it be helpful In constructing a post oil philosophy if peak oil was seen a temporary condition?
Ben Shapiro sounds very different here. I'm sure this guy does very well in the new debate format 😂 I appreciate the effort and the content...and the fact I can slow it down, lol.
that story was about replacing morality and trison Adam payed for Eve giving away his rib/blood money to other clan along custom but she instead of taking his clan morality laws customs as supposed to convinced him to milk two cows and for this was punishment of banishment from clan it was ancient times identity politics and tribal rules stories in Bible predate it's creation and monotheism you were born with clan with it's patron deity you inherited your god with your bloodline and you obeyed clan patriarch who divided fruits of your clan tree between descendants devil was the promoter of more truths, of multikulti politics and diversity 😂 later when Jesus came he promoted again one three for Israel what changed into one tree for all clans on earth unpredictably and since one size doesn't fit all it started corrupting itself to fit them all
Some things: - What is your take on programmers in general and their impact on other people loosing jobs. Programmers do what they can to go ahead in this world, as most people. They are heavily utilizing the technology and pushing it forward. Often to the detriment of the fellow man. Often with positive impact on people. Some of them say that the automation with AI won't touch them much, because their job can't be automated away. - What about UBI? I have a vid about this topic: "Universal Basic Income: The Good, The Blind, and The Beautiful" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zbX6lHCkGHI.html. It would be interesting to know your perspective on it. What do you think the impact of it would be in the future. - Please don't make the Kaczynski book in the style of the previous one that has these overly long sentences :p
Thanks for the comment. I'll check out your video on UBI. My first thoughts on the subject are that it will not be a sustainable movement for the far future, as it basically is just the energy of fossil fuels moved around into different forms. As for your other question, I think that a job that by definition is designed to automate other people's jobs out of existence will definitely meet the same fate itself. I can grant that the computers of the near future will be smart enough to program themselves. At any rate, the media's claim that automation is not a big deal because, supposedly, everyone can just learn to join in the industry is an example of the kind of Counter Sense I mention in my book: a job that is meant to lose jobs cannot become the job of every person, that would defeat its purpose.
@@chadahaagphilosophychannel7329actually programmers are caught in the same religious disputes others are caught in like everyone using react not being able to escape it after technology wins as most used and then you can't introduce anything better only improve the broken thing shortcomings in contexts of expanded cases of using it in big part of progress there comes from open source culture as for profits companies look for free sources of income without any investing the same way wokeness if promoted the same way open source is encouraged.... free labour done by people with opposite phylosophy to corporate fueling corporate growth shows how libertarianism is a useful idiot in so many ways programmers slowly become ants but another possibility was described by Schwab as only one global freelancers market driving cost of coding service minimised totally causing cannibalisation of this occupation leaving only mathematicians like state with specialised branches and only nontrivial problems to solve so selection by IQ measure
