#ellul

[bocadosdefilosofia]

«El técnico no tiene ideología, y menos aún filosofía o sistema. Conoce métodos que aplica con satisfacción porque proporcionan resultados inmediatos. Prevé los resultados que busca. No se trata de fines, sino de resultados. Y después, desde aquí, da un gran salto a lo desconocido, y más allá de lo desconocido encuentra la explicación de todo, la respuesta a todas las objeciones: el mito del Hombre.

Por otra parte, el técnico no cree en ese mito, o cree poco profundamente. No tiene tiempo para profundizar en tales cuestiones. Es una convicción ya hecha y muy cómoda. Es una respuesta apta para todo, cuando se habla de la técnica.

Cierto que no se trata de una justificación consciente: ¿para qué ? El técnico no se siente culpable en modo alguno. ¡Son tan evidentes sus buenas intenciones, y tan indiscutibles los resultados de su técnica! No; el técnico no tiene necesidad de justificarse; pero si alguna vez tuviese la menor duda sobre su tarea, la respuesta sería clara, al mismo tiempo que horrible: no hay nada que decir, puesto que este hombre para el que trabaja el técnico, es también tú mismo. ¿Este Hombre? La Humanidad, la Especie, el Proletariado, la Raza, el Hombre eterno, el Hombre criatura, todos los sistemas se sintetizan, en definitiva, en esta abstracción.»

Jacques Ellul: La edad de la técnica. Ediciones Octaedro, págs. 392-393. Barcelona, 2003.

TGO

@bocadosdefilosofia

@dias-de-la-ira-1

[dooareyastudy]

Here is what I read in June!

Bernanos was a lucky find, and Sous le soleil de Satan quickly became one of my favorites books ever. Ellul I read to prepare for a seminar during which I had to present some aspects of his philosophy. And Kurz is me falling deeper into the Wertkritik rabbit hole. 

[weil-weil-lautre]

Modern man worships 'facts'--that is, he accepts 'facts' as the ultimate reality. He is convinced that what is, is good. He believes that facts in themselves provide evidence and proof, and he willingly subordinates values to them; he obeys what he believes to be necessity, which he somehow connects with the idea of progress. This stereotyped ideological attitude inevitably results in a confusion between judgments of probability and judgments of value. Because fact is the sole criterion, it must be good. Consequently, it is assumed that anyone who states a fact (even without passing judgment on it) is, therefore, in favor of it. Anyone who asserts (simply stating a judgment of probability) that the Communists will win some elections is immediately considered pro-Communist; anyone who says that all human activity is increasingly dominated by technology is viewed as a 'technocrat'; and so on.

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda, xv

[parshapoem]

Ki Tavo

I’m settled here another year’s fruits given to the priests, grain in the storehouse I am blessed

It wasn’t always so my father was a wanderer, my mother gave birth in the fields, we cried we cried out so

Who will I be this year? blessed with my basket and my kneading bowl? blessed in comings and goings? Or cursed with strange rulers and a land of dust. God knows.

[gregor-samsung]

Se, come affermava Platone, anche i muri delle città educano i cittadini, a cosa possono educare i muri delle nostre città e delle nostre periferie? Mi pare che possano semplicemente educare a essere consumatori e utenti frustrati nella migliore delle ipotesi, o "piccoli selvaggi" ribelli nella peggiore. Un'urbanizzazione, il più delle volte brutta e senz'anima, e una pubblicità aggressiva e onnipresente non contribuiranno a costruire personalità forti e indipendenti capaci di resistere alla manipolazione mediatica e alla propaganda politica che ne è divenuta un sottoprodotto. Stando all'analisi di Jacques Ellul, l'eccesso di informazione, la "sovrinformazione", diventa disinformazione e, unita alla pubblicità commerciale e politica, si trasforma in propaganda e manipolazione. Si tratta di una vera e propria opera di intossicazione. Ivan Illich considerava la creazione di bisogni attraverso la pubblicità come una "reificazione" alienante: "Avere sete significa avere bisogno di Coca-Cola! Questa sorta di reificazione è il risultato della manipolazione dei bisogni umani attraverso grandi organizzazioni che sono riuscite a dominare l'immaginario dei potenziali consumatori".

Serge Latouche, La scommessa della decrescita, Feltrinelli, 2009; p.106

[weil-weil-lautre]

The Betrayal by Technology A Portrait of Jacques Ellul

[prayersforpigeons]

its strange in retrospect how for years my only experience of jaques ellul — before i read him — was from indigenous anarchists riffing on or utilizing his work; so much of his central problem is his apologism for european colonialism, & his christian moralism. his technical revolution & eclipse of morality only makes sense if one thinks european imperial cultures only went "off track' in the 1700s*, & that empires acting to expand & maintain their power are acting without a value system instead of acting from a value system one is opposed to. the increasing efficiency of military technology, surveillance technology, etc etc is not "efficiency for efficiency's sake without regard for a moral code" unless one is such a moral realist that an opposed value system is indistuingishable from nihilism (not exclusive to christians, tho a common error among them)

[drac0redivivus]

"Radicalism on the stage or on the screen serves to absorb tensions and to maintain stablity, which also stabilizes society. Revolution knows no preparation; in fact, the more extreme, outlandish, and offensive art is, the more demobilizing are its effects on the real problems of society. Those who might otherwise be seriously concerned with the function of revolution settle for these onanistic ejaculations, for febrile art. Energies are dissipated in wan enterprises, intellectual and emotional dis-location, a sense of guilt, the wild enthusiasm associated with those orgies, and in illusory problems to which attention is diverted: all these are products of revolutionary art, which succeeds in destroying revolutionary consciousness and does not pave the way for a single thing. When a genuine revolution arrives, such as that of 1917, this art has no place and no function (except occasionally a propagandistic one); it must fall back into line and be silent. Blok, a dedicated revolutionist, became aware of that fact and wondered: "Has revolution lost its own way?" (1917) and concluded: "Lif has lost its meaning.... Fleas have overrun the universe"