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The Betrayal of the West
Jacques Ellul is primarily known for his insightful critiques of Western culture. His recent books describe the "new demons" let loose on the contemporary world by the double-edged achievements of science and industry.
But, he asserts in this latest book, the critics have gone too far. The West is the victim os a betrayal — that of its own children. Its intellectuals, most notably those of the Left, are necessarily the products of a civilized society. Yet they so loudly reproach this civilization for the atrocities and the destruction of rich local culture which have accompanied its growth that we are deaf to the reasoned voice which proclaims our debts to this Western tradition.
The Betrayal of the West explores this need for defense as well as critique of our culture. It explains the origins of the contradiction at the heart of Western civilization and traces the course of this dialectic in three supreme chapters which correspond to the promise, the challenge, and, ultimately, the failure of the political left in Western societies.
But, he asserts in this latest book, the critics have gone too far. The West is the victim os a betrayal — that of its own children. Its intellectuals, most notably those of the Left, are necessarily the products of a civilized society. Yet they so loudly reproach this civilization for the atrocities and the destruction of rich local culture which have accompanied its growth that we are deaf to the reasoned voice which proclaims our debts to this Western tradition.
The Betrayal of the West explores this need for defense as well as critique of our culture. It explains the origins of the contradiction at the heart of Western civilization and traces the course of this dialectic in three supreme chapters which correspond to the promise, the challenge, and, ultimately, the failure of the political left in Western societies.
207 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
About the author
Jacques Ellul
123 books465 followersBaptised Catholic, Ellul became an atheist and Marxist at 19, and a Christian of the Reformed Church at 22. During his Marxist days, he was a member of the French Communist Party. During World War II, he fought with the French Underground against the Nazi occupation of France.
Educated at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris, he taught Sociology and the History of Law at the Universities of Strausbourg and Montpellier. In 1946 he returned to Bordeaux where he lived, wrote, served as Mayor, and taught until his death in 1994.
In the 40 books and hundreds of articles Ellul wrote in his lifetime, his dominant theme was always the threat to human freedom posed by modern technology. His tenor and methodology is objective and scholarly, and the perspective is a sociological one. Few of his books are overtly political -- even though they deal directly with political phenomena -- and several of his books, including "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" and "The Technological Society" are required reading in many graduate communication curricula.
Ellul was also a respected and serious Christian theologian whose 1948 work, "The Presence of the Kingdom," makes explicit a dual theme inherent, though subtly stated, in all of his writing, a sort of yin and yang of modern technological society: sin and sacramentality.
Educated at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris, he taught Sociology and the History of Law at the Universities of Strausbourg and Montpellier. In 1946 he returned to Bordeaux where he lived, wrote, served as Mayor, and taught until his death in 1994.
In the 40 books and hundreds of articles Ellul wrote in his lifetime, his dominant theme was always the threat to human freedom posed by modern technology. His tenor and methodology is objective and scholarly, and the perspective is a sociological one. Few of his books are overtly political -- even though they deal directly with political phenomena -- and several of his books, including "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" and "The Technological Society" are required reading in many graduate communication curricula.
Ellul was also a respected and serious Christian theologian whose 1948 work, "The Presence of the Kingdom," makes explicit a dual theme inherent, though subtly stated, in all of his writing, a sort of yin and yang of modern technological society: sin and sacramentality.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 8, 2025
Ellul’s The Betrayal of the West creates a healthy counterbalance to the often unimaginative, overly critical assessments of Western civilization. He aptly reminds us that although the West has frequently failed to live up to its standards of progress, democracy, liberty, and human dignity, it remains the benchmark by which those ideals are measured around the globe. This tension is not a contradiction to be dismissed but a paradox to be understood.
Ellul doesn’t excuse Western failures; rather, he calls attention to the West’s unique self-critical tradition, one that allows for internal reflection, reform, and even revolution. Where some see hypocrisy, Ellul sees a civilization grappling earnestly, however clumsily, with its own ideals. He is particularly insightful in resisting the fashionable nihilism of cultural self-flagellation, insisting that abandoning the Western project out of guilt or fatigue does little to help those who still long for its promises of freedom and justice.
His critique of intellectuals who adopt an unthinking anti-Westernism is particularly sharp. He challenges the shallowness of those who embrace cultural relativism only when it indicts the West, while failing to hold other regimes and traditions to the same moral scrutiny. For Ellul, betrayal does not come from Western crimes alone—but from the abandonment of the West’s moral vocation by its own elites.
The Betrayal of the West is not a triumphalist defense, but a plea to recover the West’s foundational principles—not as static monuments, but as living responsibilities. It is a reminder that critique must not lead to cynicism, and that genuine progress lies not in rejecting the past, but in holding it accountable, reimagined through faith, conscience, and hope.
Ellul doesn’t excuse Western failures; rather, he calls attention to the West’s unique self-critical tradition, one that allows for internal reflection, reform, and even revolution. Where some see hypocrisy, Ellul sees a civilization grappling earnestly, however clumsily, with its own ideals. He is particularly insightful in resisting the fashionable nihilism of cultural self-flagellation, insisting that abandoning the Western project out of guilt or fatigue does little to help those who still long for its promises of freedom and justice.
His critique of intellectuals who adopt an unthinking anti-Westernism is particularly sharp. He challenges the shallowness of those who embrace cultural relativism only when it indicts the West, while failing to hold other regimes and traditions to the same moral scrutiny. For Ellul, betrayal does not come from Western crimes alone—but from the abandonment of the West’s moral vocation by its own elites.
The Betrayal of the West is not a triumphalist defense, but a plea to recover the West’s foundational principles—not as static monuments, but as living responsibilities. It is a reminder that critique must not lead to cynicism, and that genuine progress lies not in rejecting the past, but in holding it accountable, reimagined through faith, conscience, and hope.
September 6, 2025
Very unique read. Elluls writing always seems to be very discursive, fluid, polemical, and heavily speculative. This one is no different and it makes for a very exciting read of what would be a pretty boring, played-out topic. However, this style also allows him to cram so many ideas in so quickly and, the book even ends with an allegory about the role of the executioner and a novel interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s the grand inquisitor. He also spares no harsh words for theologians of the ‘social gospel’ or ‘hermeneutical’. Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault also get name dropped explicitly!
This work does offers some novel ideas, good insight into the broader ideas of Ellul, and is a fun read! 4 stars!
This work does offers some novel ideas, good insight into the broader ideas of Ellul, and is a fun read! 4 stars!
December 18, 2015
Un tour de force d'Ellul, que pourrait s'appeller « La fin de l'Occident ». Pour les russofiles en vigilance, il inclue la Russie dans l'Occident, donc pas d'espoir de la côté eslave ni plus.
J'aimerais avoir vu l'approche théologique meilleur développé, mais elle est toujours présente.
Il sonne un David Paul ‘Spengler’ Goldman précoce et plus profond, probablement à cause de son trinitarianisme — Goldman est juif, ça veut dire, antitrinitarien.
J'aimerais avoir vu l'approche théologique meilleur développé, mais elle est toujours présente.
Il sonne un David Paul ‘Spengler’ Goldman précoce et plus profond, probablement à cause de son trinitarianisme — Goldman est juif, ça veut dire, antitrinitarien.
June 8, 2026
racist pseudointellectual garbage. almost has an interesting thesis: that the west’s critical tradition, which finds its academic foundation in self-critique, produces its own destruction. the scientific method developed in this tradition to find objective truth cannibalizes itself, giving way to subjective histories (p. 33).
ellul begins by presenting the western tradition as under attack by its own practitioners, who critique it as racist and colonialist. he then defines what he sees as the nature of the “western man,” gives a history of the western academic tradition in terms of who he sees as its originators (jews, who originated a monotheistic god of liberation; greeks, whose philosophy affirmed intellectual and political liberty, and whose gods were representative of human stories and values; and romans, whose institutions codified these values), and marks the christian tradition (god is a man, triumph of man over god, p. 81) as both the point at which western philosophy was made whole and the beginning of the end. the rest of the book is spent framing every subsequent movement for liberty throughout history as a product of western philosophy.
this is a compelling foundation, but this interesting middle part is completely overshadowed by whataboutism, straw manning, racism, colonialism apologia, and a lot of unhinged rambling about how the natural conclusion of collectivism is NWO bug-eating (all of part 2 of chapter 3). ellul makes up a humanist to get mad at who completely rejects consumer choice, art, and individuality (all of part 1 of chapter 3). he claims that stalin’s USSR was worse than the whole of the transatlatic slave trade (p. 129). he claims that US proxies, like israel (p. 112-116) and south vietnam (p. 104), are the real 'political poor' because although the palestinians and north vietnamese have few resources, they have support of the international new left (professors and activists), who contextualize their struggle as greater than what they really are (to ellul, the vietnamese fighting for freedom were just tonkin barbarians). to ellul, the support of the academic left somehow translates to more power than military might, making us-backed proxies and the west more broadly the real victims of conquest and domination.
above all, ellul is angriest at an imagined western left that is entirely comprised of wealthy academics (p. 126) who reject all aspects of the western academic tradition, from roman law, to greek philosophy, and christian religion (p. 10) (even though the contemporary left that he’s critiquing proudly draws its history from the french idealists, english political economists, and german philosophers). there’s much more that can be picked apart about this book—like how ellul spends half of the book arguing that western-supremacists shouldn’t have to apologize, and the other half of the book apologizing and qualifying his opinions—but all-in-all, it's just a very poorly executed essay. ironically, ellul’s writing itself produces more insight into the new-left and the very specific kind of dissident reactionary it produced, than any of his actual arguments.
ellul begins by presenting the western tradition as under attack by its own practitioners, who critique it as racist and colonialist. he then defines what he sees as the nature of the “western man,” gives a history of the western academic tradition in terms of who he sees as its originators (jews, who originated a monotheistic god of liberation; greeks, whose philosophy affirmed intellectual and political liberty, and whose gods were representative of human stories and values; and romans, whose institutions codified these values), and marks the christian tradition (god is a man, triumph of man over god, p. 81) as both the point at which western philosophy was made whole and the beginning of the end. the rest of the book is spent framing every subsequent movement for liberty throughout history as a product of western philosophy.
this is a compelling foundation, but this interesting middle part is completely overshadowed by whataboutism, straw manning, racism, colonialism apologia, and a lot of unhinged rambling about how the natural conclusion of collectivism is NWO bug-eating (all of part 2 of chapter 3). ellul makes up a humanist to get mad at who completely rejects consumer choice, art, and individuality (all of part 1 of chapter 3). he claims that stalin’s USSR was worse than the whole of the transatlatic slave trade (p. 129). he claims that US proxies, like israel (p. 112-116) and south vietnam (p. 104), are the real 'political poor' because although the palestinians and north vietnamese have few resources, they have support of the international new left (professors and activists), who contextualize their struggle as greater than what they really are (to ellul, the vietnamese fighting for freedom were just tonkin barbarians). to ellul, the support of the academic left somehow translates to more power than military might, making us-backed proxies and the west more broadly the real victims of conquest and domination.
above all, ellul is angriest at an imagined western left that is entirely comprised of wealthy academics (p. 126) who reject all aspects of the western academic tradition, from roman law, to greek philosophy, and christian religion (p. 10) (even though the contemporary left that he’s critiquing proudly draws its history from the french idealists, english political economists, and german philosophers). there’s much more that can be picked apart about this book—like how ellul spends half of the book arguing that western-supremacists shouldn’t have to apologize, and the other half of the book apologizing and qualifying his opinions—but all-in-all, it's just a very poorly executed essay. ironically, ellul’s writing itself produces more insight into the new-left and the very specific kind of dissident reactionary it produced, than any of his actual arguments.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews