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Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul Biography

Philosopher

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“The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries abandoned the idea of spiritual or intellectual happiness in order to have this material happiness, consisting of a certain number of essential consumer goods. And hence, in the nineteenth century, happiness was linked to a well-being obtained by mechanical means, industrial means, production. The new thing that Saint-Just spoke about was that, in the past, happiness could appear as a very vague, very distant prospect for humanity, whereas now, people seemed to be within reach of the concrete, material possibility of attaining it. That was why happiness was to become an absolutely essential image for the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie, and for modern society. Happiness was attainable thanks to industrial development, and this image of happiness brought us fully into the consumer society.”

HappinessConsumerismMarketplaceConsumer CultureIndustrialismIndustrial Production
Book:Perspectives on Our Age
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“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.”

WorldReasonCausesIssuesDoubtSourceCriticismVocationAssuranceTriggersWedges
Book:Hope in Time of Abandonment
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“I believe that the biblical teaching is clear. It always contests political power. It incites to "counterpower," to "positive" criticism, to an irreducible dialogue (like that between king and prophet in Israel), to antistatism, to a decentralizing of the relation, to an extreme relativizing of everything political, to an anti-ideology, to a questioning of all that claims either power or dominion (in other words, of all things political), and finally, if we may use a modern term, to a kind of "anarchism" (so long as we do not relate the term to the anarchist teaching of the nineteenth century).”

IfsKindMayLongUsePoliticalTermClearTeachingModernCenturyKingsAll ThingsCriticismClaimsRelationIsraelExtremesDialogueIdeologyRelateProphetQuestioningBiblicalContestsAnarchismAnarchistDominionNineteenth CenturyPolitical Power
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“In point of fact there are a certain number of values and of forces which are of decisive importance in our world civilization: the primacy of production, the continual growth of the power of the State and the formation of the National State, the autonomous development of technics, etc. These, among others - far more than the ownership of the means of production or any totalitarian doctrine - are the constitutive elements of the modern world. So long as these elements continue to be taken for granted, the world is standing still.”

WorldMeanLongStillsStatesFactsCertainValuesForceGrowthNumbersTakenModernDevelopmentCivilizationElementsStandingImportanceProductionsDoctrineGrantedEtcOur WorldOwnershipModern WorldFormationTaken For GrantedAutonomousStanding StillPrimacyContinual Growth
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“People think that they have no right to judge a fact - all they have to do is to accept it. Thus from the moment that technics, the State, or production, are facts, we must worship them as facts, and we must try to adapt ourselves to them. This is the very heart of modern religion, the religion of the established fact, the religion on which depend the lesser religions of the dollar, race, or the proletariat, which are only expressions of the great modern divinity, the Moloch of fact.”

PeopleThinkingTryingHeartStatesMomentsFactsRaceAcceptingModernExpressionJudgingDependsWorshipDollarsProductionsDivinityProletariat
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“There is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the seat of modern governmental power. The state is no longer founded on the 'average citizen', but on the ability and knowledge of this elite. The average man is altogether unable to penetrate technical secrets or governmental organization and consequently can exert no influence at all on the state.”

MenStatesAbilitySecretInfluenceModernCitizensOrganizationAverageTechniqueSeatsElitesPenetrateAverage ManMental Power
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“The individual, by means of the discipline imposed on him by sport, not only plays and finds relaxation from the various compulsions to which he is subjected, but without knowing it trains himself for new compulsions. ... Training in sports makes of the individual an efficient piece of apparatus which is henceforth unacquainted with anything but the harsh joys of exploiting his body and winning.”

MeanPlayBodyJoyWinningIndividualSportsKnowingPiecesDisciplineTrainingTrainVariousEfficientHarshRelaxationCompulsion
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Sport carries on without deviation the mechanical tradition of furnishing relief and distraction to the worker after he has finished his work proper so that he is at no time independent of one technique or another. In sport the citizen of the technical society finds the same spirit, criteria, morality, actions and objectives in short, all the technical laws and customs which he encounters in office or factory.”

ActionLawSpiritSportsCitizensMoralityOfficeTraditionIndependentWorkersFinishedTechniqueObjectivesEncountersReliefCarrieCustomsDistractionFactoriesCriteriaDeviation
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Having analyzed these traits, we can now advance a definition of propaganda - not an exhaustive definition, unique and exclusive of all others, but at least a partial one: Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.”

WantActionIndividualGroupsMassUniqueOrganizationMethodDefinitionsActivePsychologicalPropagandaOrganizedManipulationTraitsPassiveParticipationEmployedExclusiveUnifiedPsychological Manipulation
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“One thing, however, is sure: unless Christians fulfill their prophetic role, unless they become the advocates and defenders of the truly poor, witness to their misery, then, infallibly, violence will suddenly break out. In one way or another 'their blood cries to heaven,' and violence will seem the only way out. It will be too late to try to calm them and create harmony.”

WayTryingSeemsChristianHeavenPoorRolesBreakViolenceOne ThingBloodCryLateHarmonyMiseryCalmWitnessOne WayToo LateDefendersBreak OutProphetic
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“It was with the Industrial Revolution, as society plunged ever more eagerly into the conquest of material riches and bent all its energies to the accumulation of goods, that material poverty became a major problem. Obviously, this meant abandonment or downgrading of spiritual values, virtue, etc. To share or not to share in the increase of the collective wealth-this was the Number One question. It was the desire to acquire wealth that prompted the poor to start fighting.”

ProblemSpiritualDesireValuesFightingEnergyWealthPoorNumbersPovertyVirtueShareMaterialsRevolutionMajorsIncreaseRichesAcquireEtcCollectivesGoodsConsumerismBentConquestAbandonmentAccumulationOverconsumptionIndustrial RevolutionMajor ProblemsSpiritual ValuesDowngrading
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“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.”

GivingMomentsCharacterFactsValuesTurnsPrayerHeardAvailableAcceptedDispositionInteriorsOur PrayersFervorLucidity
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“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.”

MenWantDoeIdeasEndsFeelingsHateHumanityGoalLevelsCommonPrideHighestLowsConcernRegardAimHungerPatternsPropagandaLeversImpartialityLow Level
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“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.”

PersonsDoeSelfVictimConvincedSelf ConfidenceVulnerablePropagandaTelling The TruthFalsehoodSusceptible
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Propaganda tries first of all to create conditioned reflexes in the individual so that certain words, signs, or symbols, even certain persons or facts, provoke unfailing reactions...The important thing is that when the time is ripe, the individual can be thrown into action by the utilization of the psychological levers that have been set up.”

TryingFirstsPersonsHas BeensImportantFactsActionCertainIndividualImportant ThingsReactionsPsychologicalSymbolsPropagandaThrownProvokingRipeReflexesLeversUtilization
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“If I rule out violent anarchism, there remains pacifist, anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist, moral, and anti-democratic anarchism (i.e., that which is hostile to the falsified democracy of bourgeois states). There remains the anarchism which acts by means of persuasion, by the creation of small groups and networks, denouncing falsehood and oppression, aiming at a true overturning of authorities of all kinds as people at the bottom speak and organize themselves.”

PeopleIfsKindMeanStatesSpeakMoralDemocracyGroupsCreationAuthorityRemainsDemocraticBottomViolentAll KindsOppressionCapitalistFalsehoodOrganizePersuasionHostileAnarchismBourgeoisSmall GroupsPacifist
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of this world.”

WorldWayWantDifferentGodChristianChangeAcceptingChristianityLordTroubleThis WorldAcceptanceBecomingHolyNormalPatternsCreatorChristian InspirationalKingdomsAgentsUncertaintyChanging The WorldDimensionsMeant To BeStatus QuoKingdom Of GodInsistingTroublemakerAccepting RealityImperfect World
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Christians have always tended to transform the Christian Revelation into a Christian religion. Christianity is said to be a religion like any other or, conversely, some Christians try to show that it is a better religion than the others. People attempt to take possession of God. Theology claims to explain everything, including the being of God. People tend to transform Christianity into a religion because the Christian faith obviously places people in an extremely uncomfortable position ­ that of freedom guided only by love and all in the context of God's radical demand that we be holy.”

PeopleTryingSaidShowsChristianReligionChristianityPositionHolyDemandClaimsIncludingPossessionTheologyRadicalUncomfortableRevelationsChristian Faith
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“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.”

ThinkingNeedsShouldResultsReturnPaperBibleRelationWord Of GodPerpetualBiblicalPopeHere And NowOraclesTorahTalismans
Author:Jacques Ellul
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