PS- I definately dropped Jacques Ellul's name so many times in hopes that at the very least you would read his wikipedia article.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Technological Society
We now have a local Colorado phone number. My mind can not wrap around how this works or how it is even possible. Therefore I lump it into a category called "technology." I don't think about this category ever but I thought about it tonight. I now have an ipod, a cell phone, a digital camera, a digital video camera, a vonage phone, and a digital voice recorder. Have I become a techno-junkie? Jacques Ellul (an obscure French philosopher/theologian and also a hero of mine) argued that people in the present age would turn "technology" into the Sacred. For now I will have to let Ellul down, and join in, because talking via vonage phone with family and friends has restored my soul. Here is a picture of my German friend, Simon, making our vonage phone work and pondering how it all fits into what Ellul calls "The Technological Society."
PS- I definately dropped Jacques Ellul's name so many times in hopes that at the very least you would read his wikipedia article.
PS- I definately dropped Jacques Ellul's name so many times in hopes that at the very least you would read his wikipedia article.
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Haha, I'll read up on Jacques and report back!
ReplyDeleteYES! I would say your new phoning capabilities are part of the technological society because it, as well with any new technology has changed society, and your individual life. Consider if you and your family were living overseas just 20 years ago. Your only form of communication with friends and family abroad would be written letters, a form that has now become archaic and useless. Thus, by your ability to interact with people abroad daily at any time you want and through various mediums: sight, sound and text, you can see that the immensity of the globe has been reduced to a village. Indeed we live in a time different then generations before us, in some ways its good and in some ways its horrific. I lean towards horrific...though I am glad that the strain distance puts on relationships can be lessened through these new inventions. Check out Marshall McLuhan, who followed in Ellul's line of thought but put it more simply and focused a bit more on media theory. He has a book called 'The Gutenberg Galaxy' (about the effects of the printing press) in which he claims that things such as capitalism, individualism, democracy, and protestantism would not have been possible had it not been for print technology...also there is some audio of his stuff available on ubuweb.com
ReplyDeleteP.S. most of the lyrics I've written lately make vague references to both Ellul's Meaning of the City and Technological Society...gooooddd stufffff!
haha...well said seth...well said indeed. I am glad people are taking the ellul bait. I'll have to check out McLuhan.
ReplyDeleteOn another note...in our technological society it is possible for the USA to sell 300 F-16 fighter planes to Morocco. Also because of the emphasis on efficiency within the technological society 30% of the construction of these planes will take place in Morocco. But I still love my iPod.
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