Chapter 6
Technological System and the Problem of Desymbolization Yuk Hui
Who is Jacques Ellul? Prophet, sociologist, philosopher, theologian? How should we read an author who has taken on such a multiplicity of roles in a career of prolific productivity? Shall we read using the theoretical frames he set himself, challenge him with postmodern theory, or link his theory to the different schools that characterize contemporary discussion? My reading takes the third approach, adapting the work of Gilles Deleuze, to create consistent concepts that allow us to renew our understanding of reality. It is undeniable that technology itself is the source of a transformation of reality, and this prompts us to constantly rethink the milieu in which we are living. This essay focuses on what Ellul calls a technological system, especially on the aspects of symbolization and desymbolization that characterize the technological evolution which separated human from nature. On the one hand, this system characterizes a permanent departure. It takes human beings to the middle of the sea, where they can no longer identify their own land, nor can they reach the horizon which had seemed to be so close, to paraphrase Nietzsche from The Gay Science. On the other hand, the separation presents us with contemporary situations that bear their own specificities and pose risks that must be tackled individually and in detail. Ellul’s conceptualization of a technological system suggests a new way to mediate the relation between human beings and, following the vocabulary of Gilbert Simondon, technical reality. The technical reality constitutes the world in which we dwell, an existential analytic (if Heidegger’s project still holds its importance today) that can only be reinvented by admitting that we are actually beings-in-the-technologicalsystem. But it is also essential to evaluate the technological system according to a
Y. Hui (*) Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Scharnhorststr. 1, Lüneburg 21335 e-mail: yuk.hui@leuphana.de Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation du Centre Pompidou, Rue Aubry le Boucher, 4, Paris 75004, France e-mail: yuk.hui@iri.centrepompidou.fr H.M. Jerónimo et al. (eds.), Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century, Philosophy of Engineering and Technology 13, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6658-7_6, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
73