“The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods ralionally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past.”

J. Ellul,
The Technological Society, Introduction (p. xxv)

Relevant Quotes:


“The essence of technique is to compel the qualitative to become quantitative”
- Jacques Ellul

“The intellectual has become a mere mouthpiece subject to the demands of the various techniques.”
- Norbert Weiner

“If technique overwhelms public discourse, it is our own damn lazy, pleasure-seeking fault for letting it happen.”
- Jacques Ellul

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