It’s been quite some time since I posted here. It seems inappropriate to break a long silence with such a brief note and an incomplete thought. Nonetheless, I offer this here as an interesting bit from my recent research on the reception of critical technology studies.

In 1962, a summation of Ellul’s primary theoretical claims regarding ‘la technique’ (delivered in the paper, “The Technological Order”) was critically received by none other than Walter Ong. A point of agreement between Ellul and Ong challenges the typical depiction of Ellul as a pessimist. Ong wrote that

Ellul treats the “fake problems” of technology extremely well. He [Ellul] says, first: “We make too much of the disagreeable features of technological development, for example, urban overcrowding, nervous tension, air pollution, and so forth. I am convinced that all such inconveniences will be done away with by the ongoing evolution of Technique itself.” I agree, and am persuaded that many critiques of contemporary conditions are based on a romantic symbolic transformation of the past. Those who dwell on these obvious faults of present technological society pretend there weren’t worse inconveniences before.

Here we see Ellul proclaiming these problems to be resolvable and certain to be resolved by (post)industrial technological civilization, and Ong in agreement. Yet, 50 years later, these problems are not “fake” but vicious. Urban overcrowding a thing of the past? The psychic distress of (post)modern life a thing of the past? Air quality resolved?

Let’s remember that in his time, Ellul was not criticized for his major theoretical claims nearly as much as he was for his prognostications, his style, and his ‘pessimistic’ attitude. If we look at most of the criticisms levied by his peers, they often lauded his acumen and the utility of his theses while decrying his futurology.