Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul

""We hear every day that tech is remaking every area of life. If you feel in your bones that the one thing lacking is clarity on how to live with this fact, this book is for you, whether you're new to Jacques Ellul or have been reading him for years."" --Samuel Matlack, Managing Editor, The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society ""Technologists usually have a vision and desire to produce something great. Some technologists, often because of their faith, have a nobler goal of producing something that advances God's good creation. But even our best intentions are sometimes compromised. This same technology may have huge downsides that are not identified or may even be ignored. Jacques Ellul's cautious words are often unknown or dismissed, thinking his analysis is not always rooted in a deep understanding of technology and is unjustifiably pessimistic. That would be a mistake. The essays in Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul awaken an awareness of possible unintended consequences that may follow from some technology development. When I was director of technology for The Boeing Company, conversations with Ellul scholar David Gill led me to ask not only what a particular technology might do for us--but also what this might do to us."" --Albert Erisman, Director of Technology, Retired, The Boeing Company ""In the din of technophiles and technophobes, this is a timely and needed collection in the spirit of Ellul's imperative: to become aware of the deep structures of the contemporary world, and to proclaim freedom. Academics and practitioners provide original analyses of technique (not merely technologies) in our everyday life, from music to AI. These are invaluable for everyone interested in transcending the noise."" --George M. Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Arizona State University ""Ellul saw it coming. We live in a critical moment, as AI amplifies the presuppositions of our technological society to irreversible inflection points. There has never been a better time to engage with Ellul's ideas, through the diverse perspectives presented in this book."" --Christopher Lim, Founder, TheoTech ""What happens when the technological tools that bless our world become master over us, and the many layers of mechanization outsource human functionality and the sacredness of life? Gill and Richmond's collection of top-notch essays sheds light on today's challenges, providing a path forward and hope for the future."" --Stephanie Bennett, Professor of Communication and Media Ecology, Palm Beach Atlantic University ""As a practicing physician whose productivity is literally monitored minute by minute using sophisticated algorithms, I find Ellul's trenchant critique of efficiency at any cost to be even more salient today than when I first encountered it forty years ago. And the variety of thoughtful engagements with The Technological Society you will find in these pages is, if anything, more relevant now than upon its publication in 1954."" --Mark Mayhle, MD ""Considering the growing all-encompassing technological milieu and its entailments (the harm and destruction of nature, the rise of AI, the loss of privacy, automatism, and the like) this volume appears at just the right time in history. An exciting, stimulating, and challenging collection by scholars from around the globe, demonstrating the unimpeachable profundity, practical relevance, and urgency of Ellul's sociology of technology."" --Jacob Van Vleet, Professor of Philosophy, Diablo Valley College ""Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul is a remarkable prophetic call to examine our uncritical embrace of technology/tech