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The cage of the modern world was not built by a tyrant — it was assembled by efficiency itself. This lecture from Academy of Ideas explores Jacques Ellul’s warning about technique: the rule of the single most efficient method. Technique now runs machines, economies, organizations, and even the human body, quietly discarding beauty, morality, and spirit along the way. The result is a soft totalitarianism that needs no dictator, only systems and procedures. Ellul doubted an easy escape, but named the first act of freedom: become aware that the cage exists.
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Man is caught like a fly in a bottle. His attempts at culture, freedom, and creative endeavor have become mere entries in technique’s filing cabinet.
In the mid-1950s, the French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote a book titled The Technological Society.
In it, he proposed that technology, or more broadly what he called technique, was enslaving
mankind.
In this video, we explore this fascinating yet terrifying thesis.
The number of technical slaves, Allul wrote, is growing rapidly, and the ideal of all governments
is to push as fast as possible toward technical enslavement.
A technological society is one that is dominated by what Allul called technique.
Technique is a method of action, or a means for achieving ends, that prioritizes efficiency above
all else. Technique, in other words, searches for the one best way to solve a problem or accomplish
a task, and in its search for optimal solutions it disregards broader moral, aesthetic, spiritual,
and cultural considerations. Or as Allul explains, technique is the totality of methods rationally
arrived at in having absolute efficiency for a given stage of development in every field
of human activity.
Ballul believed that technique had become the dominant ordering principle of society
and he identified several subdivisions of technique.
Firstly, there is the machine.
Machines are the ultimate manifestation of technique as they constantly evolve in pursuit
of greater efficiency, they deliver consistent and precise results at speed and scale, and
strip away the variability that defines many other human endeavors. The spread of the machine
into ever more domains of life is reflective of our tendency to view most problems through
a technical mindset. Machines, however, are but one manifestation of technique, or as
Allul wrote, the machine is now not even the most important aspect of technique, though
it is perhaps the most spectacular. Technique has taken over all of man’s activities, not
just his productive activity. Another subdivision of technique is economic technique, which is the
application of rational methods of organizing and managing the economy in pursuit of maximum
efficiency. Economic technique seeks to optimize metrics such as the employment rate,
GDP level, and the rate of inflation. When an economy becomes the object of technique,
the spontaneous order of markets gives way to centralized planning and control by technocrats,
i.e., specialists who apply technical methods and systems to manipulate economic outcomes,
often without regard for competing environmental, moral, or ethical concerns.
A third subdivision of technique is what Allul called organizational technique and refers to
methods for efficiently coordinating, managing, and controlling large groups of people,
whether in the military, government, corporations, or society at large.
Organizational technique leads to the bureaucratization of life, as ever-increasing
layers of rules, procedures, and administrative systems are implemented to control group behavior.
The final subdivision of technique is human technique, and this is technique applied to
the functioning of the human organism, whether in its biological or psychological form.
Human technique encompasses fields such as education, medicine, genetic engineering,
psychology, advertising, and the use of propaganda. Human technique seeks the most efficient and
rational ways to influence, condition, and control human beings in body and mind. And
as Alal explains, with human technique, man himself becomes the object of technique.
These four subdivisions of technique reveal how its application has infiltrated all areas
of society. Machines are constantly used in both our personal lives and in the production
and distribution of goods and services. Economic and organizational technique structures our work
life, government institutions, the monetary system, and social trends in general. While
human technique shapes not only the health or sickness of our physical body, but also influences
what we desire, how we think, and how we act. It might be said that technique is the translation
into action of man’s concern to master things by means of reason, explains Allul, to account for
what is subconscious. Make quantitative what is qualitative. Make clear and precise the outlines
of nature. Take hold of chaos and put order into it. What is the problem with the compulsive drive
to apply technique to all aspects of life? Why shouldn’t we attempt to order the world around us
through the most efficient and rational means possible? According to Allul, the danger lies in
the fact that as technique becomes more ubiquitous a new form of totalitarianism emerges, one that
enslaves us through control by the machines, systems, and procedures of technique. Under this
form of totalitarianism, the loss of freedom is not the result of the intentional acts of a small
group of people, and it doesn’t require a conspiracy of a ruling elite. Rather, this totalitarianism
occurs of its own volition, for as Allul explains in The Technological Society, we have now reached
a point where technique has taken on a life of its own, or as he writes, 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.”
Allul believed that as the use of technique spreads, it gains its own momentum. For when
technique is applied to a task, it opens new pathways for its further development or creates
new problems that must be solved with the use of more technique. For example, the invention
of computers led to the production of ever greater amounts of data, necessitating the
development of ways to store this data, as well as methods to analyze it. As data analytic and
storage techniques advanced, this made possible new forms of surveillance, new ways to measure
and manipulate the economy, and new ways to develop artificial intelligence systems.
Similarly, the development of the internet gave rise to social networks, which in turn
generated new communication techniques and powerful new techniques for the large-scale
distribution of propaganda.
In a self-perpetuating cycle, technique begets more technique, and increasingly all of life
is swallowed up in the drive for technical control and efficiency.
Or as Ellul explains,
in its development, poses primarily technical problems which consequently can be resolved
only by technique. The present level of technique brings on new advances, and these in turn add to
existing technical difficulties and technical problems, which demand further advances still.
Or as Ian McGilchrist writes in The Master and His Emissary,
Increasing technologization and bureaucratization of life help to erode the more integrative modes
of attention to people and things which might help us resist the advances of technology
and bureaucracy, so that in this way they aid their own replication.
As technique spreads throughout society, it changes the very nature of man.
For technique is a dehumanizing force if relied upon too heavily.
In the pursuit of rational efficiency, it moves man away from his traditions, away from
the natural world and away from aesthetic, moral, and spiritual values.
It transforms man from a subject interacting with the world to an object manipulated for
technical ends.
Or as McGilchrist explains,
There is a difficulty in maintaining one’s integrity as a unique, individual subject
in a world where a combination of the hubris of science and the drive of technology blots
out the awe-inspiring business of conscious human existence and replaces it with a set
of technical problems for which they purport to have solutions.
In such circumstances we would be too easily persuaded to accept the role thrust upon us,
to become an object, no longer a subject, and would connive at our own annihilation.
Technique’s relentless pursuit of the most efficient means, the one best way, comes at
the expense of values that have long been central to the human experience.
One such value is beauty.
When decisions are governed solely by efficiency, beauty is treated as a luxury or ignored completely.
The disregard for beauty is visible in modern architecture.
In many cities, aesthetic values are no longer a primary factor in the construction of buildings.
Instead, the emphasis is on efficiency.
For example, in the building of housing the focus is on minimizing costs and building
as many units as possible given the constraints of land.
Technique applied to architecture has resulted in skylines filled with uniform-looking glass
and concrete skyscrapers, and sprawling suburbs composed of cheap, efficient, cookie-cutter
houses.
Technique further dehumanizes us by entrapping us within an artificial world of its own making.
The world that is being created by the accumulation of technical means is an artificial world,
and hence radically different from the natural world, explains Allul.
Most people spend more time staring at screens and absorbed in the artificial worlds of social
media, video games, and movies than they do in nature. Most people work jobs that force them to
spend all day controlled by the machines and systems of technique. While governments and
corporations are increasingly using technique to control our behavior and manipulate our thoughts,
wherever we turn, technique is grasping hold of us and moving us further and further away from
the rhythms and flows of the natural world. A technical mindset also results in a loss of
connection with intuition, which is one of the most powerful means of acquiring truth while also
crucial to the creative process. Or as McGilchrist writes, if humans behave mechanistically, they
fail. Intuition is faster and smarter. A constant insistence on disattending to intuitions and
placing reliance instead on standard assessment forms and checklists replaces the unmeasurable
but often astute assessment of a real human being with the bogus precision and lack of individual
flexibility of a machine. The dangers of a technological society, however, do not end with
its dehumanization, for technique is a centralizing force that strips man of his freedom while
concentrating power in the hands of a relative few. Some believe the opposite to be true. They
see technique, specifically in its technological manifestations, as a decentralizing force that
will help return freedom to an unfree world.
But as Ellul wrote,
The idea of effecting decentralization while maintaining technical progress is purely utopian.
In truth, the history of technical progress is also a history of centralization.
The advance of technique has permitted the growth of vast centralized institutions such
as the modern state, military and corporations, whose combined power shapes nearly every aspect
of life.
Systems such as computers, cameras, and smartphones allow for an unprecedented level of surveillance
which promotes control by centralized states.
The internet has allowed for the instantaneous and global distribution of propaganda.
Military technique, through increasingly destructive machines of war, has enabled conquest on an
unprecedented scale and created a vast power disparity between those who control the weapons
of war and those who do not.
technique, especially applied to the creation of credit and the manipulation of the money supply,
has created a debt-based economic system that greatly enriches a select few and holds the rest
of us at a relatively impoverished state, while organizational technique has birthed
sprawling bureaucracies that regulate almost all aspects of life and grant immense power
to those who control these bureaucratic systems. Primitive man, hemmed in by prohibitions, taboos,
and rights was, of course, socially determined, rights-a-lul, but it is an illusion, unfortunately
very widespread, to think that because we have broken through the prohibitions, taboos, and rights
that bound primitive men, we have become free. We are conditioned by something new, technological
civilization. The centralizing force of technique, if unchecked, will continue to enslave us. It will
create a world where men and women are increasingly measured, molded, directed, and controlled by the
machines, systems, and processes of technique. All the while, many people will cheer on the advance
of technique and the belief that it represents social progress, not realizing that with each
advance our personal autonomy declines. Or as Allul explains, with the final integration of
the instinctive and the spiritual by means of innovations in human techniques, the edifice of
technical society will be completed. It will not be a universal concentration camp, for it will be
guilty of no atrocity. It will not seem insane, for everything will be ordered, and the stains
of human passion will be lost amid the chromium gleam. We shall have nothing more to lose and
nothing to win. Our deepest instincts and our most secret passions will be analyzed, published,
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Can we avoid a further descent into a technological enslavement? Can we find a
healthy balance between the natural and the artificial, between efficiency and other human
values? Alal was unsure, or as he put it, he is most enslaved when he thinks he is comfortably
settled in freedom. In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the technological
phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it.
How is this to be done? I do not yet know. That is why this book is an appeal to the individual’s
sense of responsibility. The first step in the quest, the first act of freedom, is to become
aware of the necessity. Ian McGilchrist, who was influenced by Allul’s writings, offered an even
more dire assessment in his 2021 book, The Matter with Things. By now, it may be too late. Some
people already seem to believe we are better off in the hands of our new masters, the machines.
Allul, however, did see a few ways that the iron grip of technique could be loosened.
One way was through social collapse.
For example, a severe economic depression or a world war would halt the advance of technique
but at the cost of great suffering.
Or as Allul wrote, if a general war breaks out, and if there are any survivors, the destruction
will be so enormous and the conditions of survival so different that a technological
society will no longer exist.
Another way to avoid a continuing descent into technological enslavement is if more
people wake up to the fact that there is much more to life than technological advance.
For while technique has its role to play, when it starts to crowd out other values and
to interfere with creative, aesthetic, or spiritual pursuits, its use has extended beyond
healthy limits.
If enough of us recognize this and change our lives accordingly, then perhaps technique
can be relegated to its proper role of servant rather than master of man.
Or as Allul wrote,
If an increasing number of people become fully aware of the threat that technological world
poses to man’s personal and spiritual life, and if they determine to assert their freedom
by upsetting the course of this evolution, my forecast will be invalidated.
But if we fail to heed Allul’s warning, our society will increasingly be ruled by
machines and controlled by technique.
We will continue to lose our basic humanity and become detached from the moral, aesthetic
and spiritual values that fill life with meaning and purpose.
We will become the optimized components of a technological society, a society that values
human life only to the degree that it furthers the autonomous development of technique.
Or as Allul forewarned, if man, if each one of us, abdicates his responsibilities with
regard to values, if each of us limits himself to leading a trivial existence in a technological
civilization, with greater adaptation and increasing success as his sole objectives,
if we do not even consider the possibility of making a stand against these determinants,
then everything will happen as I have described it, and the determinants of a technological
enslavement will be transformed into inevitabilities. Ideas shape the course of our life.
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