| Author Quoted | Jacques Ellul |
| Title Quoted | technological society / Jacques Ellul ; transl. from the French by John Wilkinson ; with an introd. by Robert K. Merton |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1964/11/06 |
| Imprint | New York : Knopf. 1964 |
| Quotation | I think Ellul is perhaps too pessimistic. Not unreasonably so-but one must still have hope. Perhaps the self-determining course of technology is not as inexorably headed for the end he imagines. And yet certainly it is logical. But more is involved, thank heaven, than logic. All will be brought into line to "serve the universal effort" (of continual technological development and expansion). There will be no place for the solitary! No man will be able to disengage himself from society! Should I complain of technology with this hissing, bright green light with its comforts and dangers? Or with the powerful flashlight I got at Sears that sends a bright hard pole of light probing deep into the forest? |
| Quotation Source | Dancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 163 |
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| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
42884
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