Horowitz's center

Carl Remick cremick at rlmnet.com
Wed Mar 10 09:05:01 PST 1999



> All technology? All efficiency? Sometimes this attitude is
> indistinguishable from an aristocratic contempt for innovation and
> massness. Didn't Lord somebody-or-other object to the
> railroad because it
> would only encourage the lower orders to travel needlessly about?

What concerned Ellul most, I believe, isn't productivity gains per se but the tendency of technological advance to promote a system of all-encompassing social control. Ellul noted, for instance, that the classic police state affords a very crude, expensive means of control -- namely, *external* control. Through advances in mass communications, it is no longer necessary to impose control from the outside; thoroughly indoctrinated people police themselves.

(BTW, as a daily commuter on the Long Island Rail Road for over 15 years, I can assure you that Lord somebody-or-other didn't know the half of it [insert smiley face].)

Carl Remick



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