Technique and Propaganda with Jacques Ellul

Queen of the Sciences

Nearly everyone thinks the world has gone off the rails, and nearly everyone has a theory why, from kids these days to the moral breakdown of the West to the internet. We return to the conversation started by French Protestant philosopher Jacques Ellul more than 80 years ago, and find him startlingly, alarmingly prescient. In this episode we consider his proposal that technique, in the sense of efficient means by technological instruments, has become our all-defining reality, and answer the question that haunted us some time back: is it propaganda all the way up and all the way down? (Yes.)

Notes:

1. Ellul, Presence in the Modern World and Propaganda

2. Plekon, Hidden Holiness, Saints As They Really Are, Living Icons

3. Related episodes: Private Public and Propagandistic, Cybertech and Personhood, Postmodernism for the Perplexed, Hannah Arendt

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