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Jacques Ellul Biography

Jacques Ellul (French: [ɛlyl]; January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences at the University of Bordeaux. A prolific writer, he authored 58 books and more than a thousand articles over his lifetime, many of which discussed propaganda, the impact of technology on society, and the interaction between religion and politics. The dominant theme of his work proved to be the threat to human freedom and religion created by modern technology. Among his most influential books are The Technological Society and Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes.

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Jacques Ellul Quotes

This is where each individual must decide for himself. The essential thing is the decision to challenge the modern state, which without this small group of protesters will be checked by neither brake, value, nor reason.

Challenges, Decision, Group, Groups, Individual, Thing

The individual who is the servant of technique must be completely unconscious of himself.

Completely, Individual, Servant, Technique, Unconscious

God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.

Character, Fact, Giving, Interior, Prayer, Present

For the word is dialectical in itself and at the same time is integrated into the whole of existence. By this I mean that the word is intended to be lived.

Mean, Existence, Integrated, Time, Intended

The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.

Intellectual, Ought, Thinking, Woman, World

Thinking has become a superfluous exercise. . . purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.

Exercise, Thinking, Games, Superfluous, Become, Game

Education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians.

Goal, Ends, Humanist, Create, Longer, Education

If man--if each one of us--abdicates his responsibilities with regard to values; if each one 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 determinates will be transformed into inevitabilities.

Responsibility, Men, Civilization, Technological, Greater

When God picks out a man and speaks to him, it is to engage him in a work, an action. Nowhere in Scripture do we find indeterminate or purely mystical vocation.

Christian, Men, Nowhere, Prayer, Purely, Speaks

No one knows where we are going, the aim of life has been forgotten, the end has been left behind. Man has set out at tremendous speed- to go nowhere.

Aim Of Life, Forgotten, Men, Set, Speed, Tremendous

We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope. " The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.

Bible, Biblical, Pope, Possible, Read, Thinking

Propaganda must not concern itself with what is best in man - the highest goals humanity sets for itself, its noblest and most precious feelings. Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve. It must therefore utilize the most common feelings, the most widespread ideas, the crudest patterns, and in so doing place itself on a very low level with regard to what it wants man to do and to what end. Hate, hunger, and pride make better levers of propaganda than do love or impartiality.

Hate, Impartiality, Levers, Men, Noblest, Pride

Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.

Integrate, Play, Propaganda, Technology, World

Philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.

History, Human, Human Experience, Ineffectual, Philosophy

God is not an encyclopedia whose task it is to satisfy our curiosity.

Curiosity, Tasks, Encyclopedia, Satisfy, Task, God

The person who imagined that he could not be the victim of propaganda because he could distinguish truth from falsehood, is extremely susceptible to propaganda, because when propaganda does tell the truth, he is then convinced that it is no longer propaganda: moreover, his self-confidence makes him all the more vulnerable to attacks of which he is unaware.

Convinced, Doe, Extremely, Self Confidence, Telling The Truth, Vulnerable

Technical civilization has made a great error in not suppressing death, the only human reality still intact

Civilization, Error, Errors, Reality, Suppressing, Technical

It is the multiplication of men who are exluded from working which provokes war. We ought at least to bear this in mind when we boast of the continual decrease in human participation in technical operations.

Men, Operations, Participation, Technology, War, Working

Faith lived in the incognito is one which is located outside the criticism coming from society , from politics , from history , for the very reason that it has itself the vocation to be a source of criticism. It is faith (lived in the incognito) which triggers the issues for the others, which causes everything seemingly established to be placed in doubt , which drives a wedge into the world of false assurances.

Issues, Doubt, Criticism, Causes, Source

Fate operates when people give up

Fate, Give, Giving Up, Operates, People

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