The Empire of Non-sense

The Empire of Non-sense
Title The Empire of Non-sense PDF eBook
Author Jacques Ellul
Publisher Papadakis Dist A/C
Pages 0
Release 2014
Genre Art and technology
ISBN 9781906506407

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Many modern artists and architects continue to imagine and build the world technologically. Their beliefs remain firmly rooted in their assumption that the liberating forces of technology freed them from previous artistic traditions while making available vast means of production and a plethora of materials. All artistic traditions were seemingly put aside by the paintings of Cézanne, the poetry of Baudelaire, and the architecture of Le Corbusier. Behind this apparent freedom French critic Jacques Ellul, author of the classic The Technological Society, found an absolute slavery. The artist was the handmaiden of technology, a relation the artist no longer understood, like other citizens of technological culture. Artists acclaimed their unbridled individualism while being intensely determined by the forces of technological culture. Ellul examines this process in modern art from the beginning of the 20th century where the sense of art - its meaning and embodiments - is reduced to non-sense. Ellul's study is in the tradition of Guy Debord's The Society of Spectacle and Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory but moves significantly beyond their Marxist perspectives that were, from Ellul's view, co-opted by technique.

The No-nonsense Guide to World History

The No-nonsense Guide to World History
Title The No-nonsense Guide to World History PDF eBook
Author Chris Brazier
Publisher Verso
Pages 148
Release 2001
Genre Civilisation
ISBN 9781859843550

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This guide integrates concisely the conventional narratives of history with the stories of the continents and communities of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century

Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century
Title Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society in the 21st Century PDF eBook
Author Helena M. Jerónimo
Publisher Springer Science & Business Media
Pages 260
Release 2013-07-08
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 9400766580

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This volume rethinks the work of Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) on the centenary of his birth, by presenting an overview of the current debates based on Ellul's insights. As one of the most significant twentieth-century thinkers about technology, Ellul was among the first thinkers to realize the importance of topics such as globalization, terrorism, communication technologies and ecology, and study them from a technological perspective. The book is divided into three sections. The first discusses Ellul’s diagnosis of modern society, and addresses the reception of his work on the technological society, the notion of efficiency, the process of symbolization/de-symbolization, and ecology. The second analyzes communicational and cultural problems, as well as threats and trends in early twenty-first century societies. Many of the issues Ellul saw as crucial – such as energy, propaganda, applied life sciences and communication – continue to be so. In fact they have grown exponentially, on a global scale, producing new forms of risk. Essays in the final section examine the duality of reason and revelation. They pursue an understanding of Ellul in terms of the depth of experience and the traditions of human knowledge, which is to say, on the one hand, the experience of the human being as contained in the rationalist, sociological and philosophical traditions. On the other hand there are the transcendent roots of human existence, as well as “revealed knowledge,” in the mystical and religious traditions. The meeting of these two traditions enables us to look at Ellul’s work as a whole, but above all it opens up a space for examining religious life in the technological society.

The Subversion of Christianity

The Subversion of Christianity
Title The Subversion of Christianity PDF eBook
Author Jacques Ellul
Publisher Wipf and Stock Publishers
Pages 223
Release 2011-06-02
Genre Religion
ISBN 1606089749

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Pointing to the many contradictions between the Bible and the practice of the church, Jacques Ellul asserts in this provocative and stimulating book that what we today call Christianity is actually far removed from the revelation of God. Successive generations have reinterpreted Scripture and modeled it after their own cultures, thus moving society further from the truth of the original gospel. The church also perverted the gospel message, for instead of simply doing away with pagan practice and belief, it reconstituted the sacred, set up its own religious forms, and thus resacralized the world. Ellul develops several areas in which this perversion is most obvious, including the church's emphasis on moralism and its teaching in the political sphere. The heart of the problem, he says, is that we have not accepted the fact that Christianity is a scandal; we attempt to make it acceptable and easy--and thus pervert its true message. Ultimately, however, Ellul remains hopeful. For, in spite of all that has been done to subvert the message of God, the Holy Spirit continues to move in the world. Christianity, writes Ellul, never carries the day decisively against Christ.

Biblical Nonsense

Biblical Nonsense
Title Biblical Nonsense PDF eBook
Author Jason Long
Publisher iUniverse
Pages 215
Release 2005
Genre Religion
ISBN 0595341829

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The Bible is not the word of God. Biblical Nonsense is a broad look at the tremendous problem of associating divinity with the world's most popular book. This part-philosophical, part-scientific overview explores the Bible's divine treachery, scientific mistakes, historical errors, false prophecies, and comical absurdities. Biblical Nonsense also expands beyond these standard reasons for skepticism by tackling the rationale behind the emergence and perpetuation of Christianity, psychological and sociocultural reasons that drive Christians to cling to their beliefs, and illogical methods of argumentation invoked in the defense of the Bible. Author Dr. Jason Long is a former Christian who condenses the most significant biblical problems into this single volume. Unlike other books in the field that delve into only one topic, this manuscript, comprehensible even to those who have never opened a Bible, is a full-fledged attempt to demonstrate that God's supposed word is a product of human minds, not divine inspiration. Dr. Long's fresh experiences in the church and advanced levels of educational enlightenment make him the perfect individual to present this vehemently unpopular, yet undeniably appealing topic.

The No-nonsense Guide to World Food

The No-nonsense Guide to World Food
Title The No-nonsense Guide to World Food PDF eBook
Author Wayne Roberts
Publisher New Internationalist
Pages 193
Release 2008
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 1904456960

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A world tour of fast food, health food, junk food, school food, slow food and even more food. It shows how real food' has become increasingly hard to find, dominated in the West by agri-business and supermarkets. With a history of world food production and consumption, this Guide explains current debate and controversies and introduces the principle of 'food security', fast becoming a global movement to make food provision fair, safe and nutritious for all the world's population at all times.'

Sense & Nonsense in Australian History

Sense & Nonsense in Australian History
Title Sense & Nonsense in Australian History PDF eBook
Author John Hirst
Publisher ReadHowYouWant.com
Pages 422
Release 2015-01-29
Genre History
ISBN 1458798577

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Sense and Nonsense in Australian History represents a lifetime's original reflection by Australia's most innovative and penetrating historian. Included here are classic essays on the pioneer legend, Australian egalitarianism and colonial culture. There are celebrated critiques of The Tyranny of Distance, multiculturalism and nationalistic history, as well as a substantial essay on Aboriginal dispossession and the history wars. In Sense and Nonsense in Australian History, John Hirst overturns familiar conceptions and deepens our sense of Australia's development from convict society to distinctive democracy.