My first article was a book overview of The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. It truly has been one of my favorite books and I see it as the best explanation as to why modern society makes us feel so ill. I want to cover this subject a little more in this article. I recommend you read my book overview before you read this article.
People have come up with many different explanations as to why things have become the way they are. Why are some poor and others rich? Why is everyone so depressed? Why are our states crumbling? Explanations vary from corporate greed, to poison in our food, social justice, etc. And in many cases, these are all correct but they are only secondary explanations, they say nothing about why there is poison in our food in the first place. You can chalk it all up to capitalism but it isn't like things were much better in the Soviet Union. The answer you are looking for is Technique.
Ellul doesn’t give a direct definition of technique so I’ll try my best to provide one. In a sentence: Technique is an all-consuming autonomous and decentralized force that seeks ultimate efficiency at any cost. So what does this mean? Let's start with “autonomous” and “decentralized”; what I mean here is that there is no central authority to technique. Technique isn’t managed by the government or a corporation, these entities might fulfill technique but they don't decide what technique is. When Frito-Lay installs new machinery or implements a new seed oil it isn't because they want to, they need to. This is what is meant by all-consuming, no entity is above technique, technique rules over all entities. The government has no ability to control technique; can you remember the last time the government meaningfully stopped some sort of bio-medical endeavor on ethical grounds? Maybe they’re evil and don’t want to but more likely that they are unable to. Doing so will block the path of ultimate efficiency. In this way, technique takes over the liberal order that enabled it in the first place. Technique should not be misinterpreted for the machine or what we might call “technology”. These are both parts of technique but not what technique is. Human Resources are parts of technique as much as the machine is, as are laws, mathematics, universities, schools, etc.
I want to reiterate that technique in our definition is a new phenomenon. Some might say that technique has always existed in all traditions but the technique we observe today is not the technique of the pre-industrial past. I’ll allow Ellul to explain:
“It is true that in all civilizations technique has existed as tradition, that is, by the transmission of inherited processes that slowly ripen and are even more slowly modified; that evolve under the pressure of circumstances along with the body social; that create automatisms which become hereditary and are integrated into each new form of technique. But how can anyone fail to see that none of this holds true today? Technique has become autonomous; it has fashioned an omnivorous world which obeys its own laws and which has renounced all tradition. Technique no longer rests on tradition, but rather on previous technical procedures; and its evolution is too rapid, too upsetting, to integrate the older traditions.” -Jacques Ellul
A friend of mine posted a good tweet about how in the modern globalized world everyone eats the same "lowest-common-denominator comparative advantage slop”. In an authentic world, diets would vary from region to region and this is how it was for the longest part of human history. In the search for maximum efficiency, it was discovered that it is most efficient to feed everyone the same corn and soy derivatives. Everything unique about places and nations is consumed by technique.
The technique of the past was constructed and regulated by the tradition it was in. This is why Japanese carpentry differed from Middle Eastern carpentry which differed from European carpentry. Today there is only one all-powerful technique. Building mechanics are the same throughout the world. The Japanese skyscraper is identical to the Arab skyscraper.
I hope I have explained technique well enough, If I haven’t you might want to consider reading Ellul’s book or ask questions in the comments.
I started thinking about technique again because of a conversation my church held regarding mental health. The thesis of the lovely lady who led this discussion was something along the lines of “If you’re having mental health issues you should seek credentialed help and most likely start taking medication." This seems to be the conclusion many have come to. In response, I asked her if it's really a good idea to fix a problem caused by technique with more technique (I didn’t quite say it that autistic). What I mean is, most people's mental health issues seemed to be caused by their miserable jobs, their awful diets, hours of mass entertainment consumption, and so on, these are all techniques. And so are anti-depressants and therapists. It's analogous to getting too high and taking a shot of Jack Daniel’s to bring yourself back down. Maybe just lay off the weed? Anyway, after my question, a young lady responded by saying that her issues aren't caused by too much Netflix or soymilk but by her struggles with family and relationships and things of that nature. This made me realize that people can’t see how far and indirect the effects of technique are. Sure you have family issues but everyone throughout history has. Yet undoubtedly, we live in a time of mental crisis. So what sets your predicament apart from those of the past?
Humans can tolerate a variety of abuses and injustices; they are simply a natural part of life. However, the tolerance isn’t unlimited. What sets apart the modern man from the man of the past is the cruel amount of abuse he must endure. You could tolerate familial issues with ease, but can you tolerate familial issues along with a poisonous diet, monotonous labor, abused body, spiritual poverty, and poor living conditions? Moreover, technique destroys the single most important coping mechanism man has in the face of abuse; God. Technique worships nothing and respects nothing; its end goal is to bring everything to light. The popularity of modern materialistic and hedonistic atheism is a direct consequence of the technical milieu. Most people can only see a few feet in front of them. They take Pepsi for what it claims to be, a refreshing sweet drink and not a slow-acting poison. Technique places all its fruits on the lowest branch where it is seen and accessible. Man is convinced that technique is all there is because it is all he sees. The fruits of technique are readily available; air conditioning, heating, bottled water, stable food source, etc. Why look further up the tree when there are so many low-hanging fruits? But the fruit at the top are the most nutritious and ripe, they've received the most sunlight. God exists at the top of this tree but you really have to tilt your head to see this, like looking up at a great sequoia. The neck strain is too much in the technical milieu.
Nothing then belongs to the spiritual or God, the technical individual knows there is no God. To fill the God-shaped hole, man makes god out of technique. Technique is a mysterious force, one basks at the magic of Bluetooth and pain killers patiently waiting for the mystery that will come along next. But this mystery is ultimately unfulfilling because of how shallow it is.
If you don’t believe that technique is the ultimate reason behind modern misery and instead believe that the secondary factors like Capitalism or Socialism are the ultimate reasons perhaps I can convince you by showing that technique is the premise behind both of these ideologies. Technique is ultimately driven by what Ellul calls "special interests" to find the one best way to do something but this special interest isn’t particular to any one institution. For the capitalist, it might be the special interest to produce a profit. But the same method that is used by the capitalist is used by the state in its effort to find the one best industrial and political technique. After the state and the capitalist, the bourgeoisie were the next to adapt technique. If the goal of communism is for the proletariat to seize the means of production then that means they sieze the technique. With the technique in hand, the goal then is to liberate man. The Marxist puts the well-being of the technique above the well-being of the individual. What capitalists did better than Marxists is convince the working class that their wellbeing is the same as the wellbeing of technique. Yet at the core of both these ideologies is the search for the one best way to do something.
Many Marxists still claim that the goal of Marxism is the suppression of technique, again I defer to Ellul:
“However, this self-interest of the bourgeoisie was not enough to carry the whole of society along with it— witness the popular reactions against technical progress. As late as 1848, one of the demands of the workers was the suppression of machinery. This is easily understood. The standard of living had not risen, men still suffered from the loss of equilibrium in their lives brought about by a too rapid injection of technique, and they had not yet felt the intoxication of the results. The peasants and the workers bore all the hardships of technical advance without sharing in the triumphs. For this reason, there was a reaction against technique, and society was split. The power of the state, the money of the bourgeoisie were for it; the masses were against”
It may be obvious why many Marxist would think that their ideology is anti-technique. However, Marx claimed that technique was liberating. It wasn't the technique's fault but rather the master's fault. All that had to be done is to hand the technique to the workers. Marx was wrong, it was the technique's fault.
Now back to misery. As I mentioned the politician is helpless in trying to stop technique on any grounds. If there is a more efficient way to do something in the technical milieu then it necessarily has to be done. A surgical operation which was at one point not possible but now exists is not a subject to choice. It simply must be employed with virtually no consideration of its ethics. Consider this in action for reproductive procedures. With nearly no objection we employ procedures like in vitro fertilization, birth control pills, vasectomies, and so on. Nobody stops to make decisions on these matters. Do you want a child? Are you unable to have a child? Well then simply apply a technical solution. Not much thought is given to it. The only decision one makes is which technique would be most efficient.
I don’t blame someone who employs technique for say having a child. I might have done the same in their situation despite a conviction that it is wholly unethical. Technique forces your hand, it makes you do things which you do not want to. This dissonance tears man apart from his soul. Your conviction says one thing but your actions another.
In the technical society, the worst accusation that can be leveled against someone is that they are impeding the advance of technique. You've seen a lot of this recently in respect to COVID-19. The matter of vaccine or therapeutic efficacy is irrelevant to objectors. People may believe the vaccine works and yet decide to not receive it if they have any sort of ethical objection to it. The accusation that gets brought against them is that they’re being non-compliant or dangerous which is to say that they are standing in the way of ultimate efficiency. In the technical milieu if one has the premise that a medication works then the choice of administration is already made.
These autonomous technical decisions often have ramifications that are not immediately obvious. Roundup was widely adopted in the 70s due to its efficacy and in the technical milieu this made sense. There was no reason to examine the ethics of widespread chemical murder of plant life because in the technical milieu if efficiency exists it must be employed. Then Roundup started causing cancer. This technical problem required technical legal solutions of settlement. Consider the abuse our bodies go through in the modern sedentary lifestyle. Practically everyone past the age of forty suffers some sort of spine-related pain. Instead of addressing the issue of the modern computer-desk life, we come up with surgeries and pain killers. In many ways technique is a hydra, for every problem that it seems to solve it creates several more problems.
People are often amazed by the rather modern introduction of organ transplants. Isn’t it great that you can receive a new heart or kidney? I suppose it is. But organs must be in a very specific condition to be transplanted. They must be from healthy normally young people, they must be fresh, and they must be kept chill. Almost all organs for transplants come from traffic accidents. If you desire more organ transplants you need more traffic accidents. All modern medicine exists in this sort of dynamic.
Sure is great that we have chemotherapy after we covered all our crops in cancer. And what choice do you have? Are you going to refuse the chemotherapy?
The modern man makes himself a construction of technique. He doesn’t wait to meet his maker; his maker is at the hospital wearing a lab coat, or in the legislature wearing a suit.
In taking man’s choices away from him he loses his individuality and is reduced to his lowest nature. Man is still needed in the technical society but only as a bag of meat. In pre-industrial society, a man’s individuality was what kept him alive. It took a lot of training to be a blacksmith, to be an effective farmer, to read and keep records, or to do administrative work. Man filled the holes of the tools that he had, man had choices to make which resulted in real consequences. In Industrial society, technique has replaced the need for human skill. Humans, while still needed, have just become nothing more but their bone and muscle. The production of metal products is no longer done by a skilled craftsman but by a line of mammals each of which can be replaced by the next mammal. The implication of this, as Ellul points out, is that "the individual's role is less and less important in technical evolution". Nearly every job can be done by anybody else with a few days of training. This is because all autonomous decision-making has been removed from the job. The inability to make decisions about one’s life drives men slowly insane and makes them feel spiritually and physically insecure. Kaczynski makes the point that much of our security is reliant upon other people and entities.
“The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war…” -Dr. Theodore Kaczynski
At least on the subconscious level, we all know that we have been duped. But what is it that duped us? We've been duped by technique's promise of progress.
“Technique, in its action on the economy, awakened vast hopes in human hearts. And certainly, there is no question of denying these hopes. The machine and all that came with it, all it brought in the way of progress, would put into human hands riches perhaps different but as impressive as those of legend. These riches would not be piles of gold or precious stones reserved for the darlings of the gods, but comfort and pleasure for everyone...every man was promised decent glassware and porcelain, a house in which he could be warm, abundant nourishment, and, little by little, comfort and hygienic surroundings that would assure him physical and mental harmony. Everyone was to have in full measure the wherewithal to live. And, more than that, new needs would arise which would no longer be the rare pleasures of initiates but simply the human condition. To drink chilled beverages in the summer or to be warm in the winter would no longer be the costly fancy of a prince” -Jacques Ellul
Man was promised that technique would liberate him of all of his pains and troubles; soon enough all that is left would be pleasure and play. This obviously hasn't happened and to high IQ individuals, the promise has lost any credibility that it ever might have had. Many still believe in this promise, however, and they come up with theories as to why the technical paradise keeps being postponed. They blame the communist, the fascist, Jew, Catholic, capitalist, neo-liberal and so on. If only they would get out of the way we could have the technical paradise we desire. Man didn’t always have this perception of progress and comfort. we can no longer envision comfort except as part of the technical order of things. Comfort today is having bathrooms, foam mattresses, air conditioning and so on. But the men of the middle ages also wanted to be comfortable but for them, it meant something completely different, comfort was about a moral and aesthetic order. The goal of the medieval man was not convenience but to create large and open spaces to reflect himself upon. This is why the architecture of that era was so rich and diverse.
The promise of progress is also premised with faulty understandings of human nature. Progress makes perfect sense if you subscribe to the Hobbesian understanding of the state of nature being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” This is explicitly the premise of widely accepted liberalism. Hobbes is very much wrong. His perverted view of man comes from his experience in a post-natural world. The miserable human response to technique makes much more sense in Rousseau’s state of nature:
“If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received, and all the artificial faculties he can have acquired only by a long process; if we consider him, in a word, just as he must have come from the hands of nature, we behold in him an animal weaker than some, and less agile than others; but, taking him all round, the most advantageously organised of any. I see him satisfying his hunger at the first oak, and slaking his thirst at the first brook; finding his bed at the foot of the tree which afforded him a repast; and, with that, all his wants supplied.” Jean Jacques Rousseau
The promise of progress is a new extension of Nietzsche's herd-man morality. Herd-men have cleverly used conception of morality to shame the conqueror and impose on them their own instinct of obedience. Technique is used in the same way. Remember how anti-science has become one of the worst things someone can be called in the technical milieu? The herd-man “makes himself out to be the only permissible kind of man and glorifies the qualities through which he is tame, peaceable, and useful to the herd as the real human virtues: namely public spirit, benevolence, consideration, industriousness, moderation, modesty, forbearance, pity.”
What can be done about this misery? I don't know. You figure it out. When you do, tell me.