“The question now is whether people are prepared or not to realize that they are dominated by technology. And to realize that technology oppresses them, forces them to undertake certain obligations and conditions them. Their freedom begins when they become conscious of these things. For when we become conscious of that which determines our life we attain the highest degree of freedom.”

— Jacques Ellul

The Betrayal by Technology (1993 film)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The question now is whether people are prepared or not to realize that they are dominated by technology. And to realize…" by Jacques Ellul?

Jacques Ellul photo

Jacques Ellul 125

French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarch… 1912–1994

Related quotes

“When we come to the realization that we are not this identity that the mind has created, but we're actually spirit, at that moment spirit has become conscious of itself. It's become conscious of itself as spirit, as ineffable being, as a sort of conscious presence.”

Adyashanti (1962) Spiritual teacher

The Basic Teachings - Part 1: Principles of the Teaching (2009)

“I’ve really noticed over the last few years how many people are turning towards eating vegetarian or vegan. […] Everyone’s realizing that these things are delicious and good for you. And I think it’s an indication of how we’re becoming more conscious of what we do to our bodies by what we put into them and what we do to the planet.”

Alan Cumming (1965) Scottish actor

At a PETA’s news conference, as reported in “ Announcing the Winner of PETA’s ‘Most Vegan-Friendly City’ Prize https://www.peta.org/blog/announcing-winner-petas-vegan-friendly-city-prize/,” in peta.org (17 September 2014).

“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Source: (1932), pp. 27-28

“We are too young to realize that certain things are impossible… So we will do them anyway.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

“Under the conditions of modern life we have more control over our thoughts, and in connection with this there is a special method by which we may work on the development of our consciousness using that instrument which is most obedient to our will; that is, our mind, or the intellectual centre. In order to understand more clearly what I am going to say, you must try to remember that we have no control over our consciousness. When I said that we can become more conscious, or that a man can be made conscious for a moment simply by asking him if he is conscious or not, I used the words "conscious" or "consciousness" in a relative sense. There are so many degrees of consciousness and every higher degree means "consciousness" in relation to a lower degree. But, if we have no control over consciousness itself, we have a certain control over our thinking about consciousness, and we can construct our thinking in such a way as to bring consciousness. What I mean is that by giving to our thoughts the direction which they would have in a moment of consciousness, we can, in this way, induce consciousness.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

Fourth Lecture, p. 74.
The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (1950)

“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

1880s, In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire (1884)

“Every man knows that in his work he does best and accomplishes most when he has attained a proficiency that enables him to work intuitively. That is, there are things which we come to know so well that we do not know how we know them. So it seems to me in matters of principle. Perhaps we live best and do things best when we are not too conscious of how and why we do them.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)

“The names of persons and living creatures demand respect, because when we speak to them we touch their heart and become a part of thier life force.”

Isabel Allende book The Stories of Eva Luna

Source: The Stories of Eva Luna

“When we invent a new technology, we become cannibals. We eat ourselves alive since these technologies are merely extensions of ourselves. The new environment shaped by electric technology is a cannibalistic one that eats people. To survive one must study the habits of cannibals.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Hot & Cool (1967), p. 261

“We can license technologies and production techniques. Whoever gets the technologies can develop new things based on them.”

Ren Zhengfei (1944) Chinese businessman

Interview with the Economist (September 10, 2019)

Related topics