L'illusion politique

La petite vermillon #214

by Jacques Ellul, Daniel Compagnon (Preface)

Dans la société occidentale, le verbalisme politique exprime une double illusion, en même temps qu'il lui donne naissance. Nous assistons au développement de l'illusion de l'homme politique qui croit maîtriser la machine de l'État, qui croit prendre des décisions politiques toujours efficaces, alors qu'il se trouve de plus en plus impuissant en face de la rigueur croissante des appareils étatiques. Or, cette impuissance de l'homme politique est voilée précisément par la puissance et l'efficacité des moyens d'action de l'État qui interviennent toujours plus profondément et exactement dans la vie de la nation, et dans celle des citoyens. Mais l'homme politique, fût-il dictateur, n'a finalement aucune maîtrise de ces moyens. Réciproquement, paraît l'illusion du citoyen, qui, vivant encore sur l'idéologie de la souveraineté populaire et des constitutions démocratiques, croit pouvoir contrôler la politique, l'orienter, participer à la fonction politique, alors que tout au plus il peut contrôler des hommes politiques sans pouvoir réel - et s'engage, sur cette double illusion, un dialogue d'impuissants. Dans cette difficile situation, n'y a-t-il aucun remède ? S'il en existait un, il serait, en tout cas, à la fois humble et héroïque.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

368 pages, Pocket Book

Published June 7, 2018

About the author

Baptised 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.

Reviews

[Hagar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally done w this! I have many caveats to loving this book. Hardcore blackpill stuff.

[Matt]

Originally written in 1965 for a French audience, The Political Illusion, by French author Jacques Ellul, was translated into English in 1967. Ellul is an author who is hard to pin down and describe. What exactly was he? By training he was a historian, and he taught on history and sociology at the University of Bordeaux. Yet his work ranged far beyond what those two disciplines would seem to imply. He wrote on politics, technique, propaganda, and art among others. In addition to this side of his work, Ellul was also a committed Christian who wrote extensively on issues related to Christian faith and living. While these two sides of his work did occasionally come into explicit contact with each other (most clearly in The Humiliation of the Word) most of his writing kept his Christianity and social criticism separate. This was to honor the integrity of both disciplines, and so to observe the dialectical tension between the two.

The Political Illusion is a work of political criticism written for a secular, French audience (though Americans like myself can still read it profitably). Perhaps the book could be summarized by the title. Our understanding of politics: democracy, political engagement, the ability to control the state, etc., are all illusions and they are sustained by myths.

The primary myth is the politicization of society. Politicization has two dimensions. First, there is the growing importance and frequency of political debates and second, there is the tendency to treat all problems in the world according to patterns and procedures found in the political world.

The result of this politicization is the creation of a myth. Ellul says that “[t]o think of everything as political, to conceal everything by using this word (with intellectuals taking the cue from Plato and several others), to place everything in the hands of the state, to appeal to the state in all circumstances, to subordinate the problems of the individual to those of the group, to believe that political affairs are on everybody's level and that everybody is qualified to deal with them - these factors characterize the politization of modern man and, as such, comprise a myth.”

As this quote makes clear, the increasing growth of the state is a necessary part of the growth of politicization. The omnipotent state is seen as the savior of all our problems. A corollary of this is that anyone who doesn’t participate in elections or contribute to politics involving the state is judged harshly by his society. Again, to hear this from Ellul’s own words: “In our society anyone who keeps himself in reserve, fails to participate in elections, regards political debates and constitutional changes as superficial and without real impact on the true problems of man, who feels that the war in Algeria deeply affects him and his children, but fails to believe that declarations, motions, and votes change anything will be judged very severely by everybody.”

The problem is politicization, which is propped up by the ever-increasing state. Those are merely claims, and they need backing up, and that is what Ellul does throughout his book. His basic argument is three fold. First, he is going to show the problem of modern politics through several different lenses. Second, he is going to clarify three different aspects of the political illusion we have. Third and finally, he is going to outline man’s response to this.

His analysis of the political problem is a damning one. Political affairs are subject both to what is necessary and what is ephemeral. That means that there is no real choice involved in political affairs. What we do is determined by public opinion and, most crucially of all, efficiency of the bloated bureaucracy. And the “choice” we are presented with is not based on anything substantial, but instead deals with ephemeral concerns.

This is due to a strong influence of propaganda and an overwhelming amount of facts, which amounts to more than a person can truly sift through. Yet we expect be able to be informed and able to make a decision ourselves on what is politically viable. This is an untenable situation for a couple of reasons. First, all facts are seen to directly concern us. A war in Iraq, famine in Syria, pollical unrest in France all have a direct consequence to the American. A second element of this is that people are expected to give their opinion on everything. This means that the public has to know the facts. How do they know them? It is impossible to directly visit Syria, Iraq, and France to be adequately informed. Instead, we obtain our facts through intermediaries. An implication of this is that only those facts which are given public importance are considered political facts. It doesn’t matter if other facts are really more important, if they aren’t in the public eye, then they aren’t political facts.

This all leads to the different facets of the political illusion. The first political illusion we have is that we are able to control the state. Yet it is an illusion that we can control the state. We don’t have the time to sort through the mess of propaganda, which controls the facts we see, and, even if we could, bureaucracy dominates our political systems to such an extent that political change can’t happen anyways. Even if we were to achieve control of the state through our own political action, our policies and choices would still need to be carried out, and to do that we would need to go through the ever increasing bureaucracy which only operates under the order of efficiency.

The second political illusion is that we can effectively participate in political life. There are several problems with this illusion. First is that we are often not competent enough to participate effectively. Second, we also can’t participate by using political parties , for political parties are “only groups maneuvering for the purpose of capturing political power for some team.” To think otherwise is to an illusion. Party participation is not political participation. Third, we don’t really have a democracy, nor even a representative democracy. The ideal of a democracy is nice, but it doesn’t correspond to what we have on the ground. Instead what we have are different groups trying to smother each other and so democracy is not allowed to exist.

The third and final aspect of the political illusion is that all problems are political and thus only solvable along political lines. It is the society which causes all of people’s problems. And who is the one to organize society so that there are no more problems? The state, always the state.

This is an illusion for while politics can solve administrative problems, it cannot solve man’s deepest problems: “such as good and evil, or the meaning of life, or the responsibilities of freedom.”

To claim that the state can solve all of our personal problems ultimately leads to the absence of real responsibility. If everyone is responsible for everything else, then no one is responsible for anything. As Ellul puts it "[t]o consider oneself responsible for the tortures in Algeria while actually being a professor in Bordeaux, or for all hunger in the world, or for racist excesses in various countries is exactly the same thing as to reject all responsibility. What characterizes this attitude is impotence in the face of reality: I really cannot do anything about these things except sign manifestos and make declarations or claim that I act through political channels and establish a just order with the help of some abstraction. To say that we are all murderers means, translated, that nobody is individually a murderer, i.e., that I am not a murderer. To admit that I am co-responsible for all the evil in the world means to assure a good conscience for myself even if I do not do the good within my own reach. To admit that I am a dirty dog because, being French, I am involved in the acts of all Frenchmen in Algeria, means to free myself of the slightest effort to cease being a dirty dog personally and to do so, moreover at the cheapest price, namely by joining a political party or shouting in the streets; in addition, I am assured of being on the right side of those who want ‘the French’ to cease being dirty dogs."

What then is man’s response? This is not, contrary to what may be thought, an argument for apoliticism. He has strong words for those advocating for apoliticism. He says that “I have never called apoliticism a virtue. The apoliticism of a great number - though surely not most -Frenchmen is not a good sign at all. Rather, it affords them a cheap feeling of relief to no longer consider themselves responsible for anything."

Apoliticism is an escape, a radical lie. To be apolitical is to make a political choice, and thus another illusion.

He wants us to make truly effective political actions. This depends on two major conditions. First, we must be freed from the political myths and put things into their proper perspective. This should prevent us from becoming overly agitated and recognizing the limited scope of political engagement and debate. It should also make our political feelings, reactions and thoughts less dramatic.

Second, the citizen’s development needs to change so that he is no longer the plaything of orthodoxies. This includes not being drowned in propaganda and current events.

For real political solutions we need tensions, yet our current politics only brings up false tensions. The solution then is presented to us in the form of a dilemma. "We are therefore in the presence of the following dilemma: either we must continue to believe that the road to solving our problems is the traditional road of politics, with all sorts of constitutional reforms and "revolutions" of the Right and the Left - and I have already tried to demonstrate that all that no longer has any significance, but merely represents shadow boxing - or we turn away from the illusory debate, and admit, for example, that "public liberties" are but "resistances," admit that for man "to exist is to resist," and that, far from committing oneself to calculating the course of history, it is important above all never to permit oneself to ask the state to help us. This means that we must try to create positions in which we reject and struggle with the state, not in order to modify some element of the regime or force it to make some decision, but, much more fundamentally, in order to permit the emergence of social, political, intellectual, or artistic bodies, associations, interest groups, or economic or Christian groups totally independent of the state, yet capable of opposing it, able to reject its pressures as well as its controls, and even its gifts. These organizations must be completely independent, not only materially but also intellectually and morally, i.e., able to deny that the nation is the supreme value and that the state is the incarnation of the nation."

That means, we need alternative, self-sufficient structures which can force us to deal with the real tensions. They can challenge the state and are sufficiently well-established that they can resist conformity to, pressures from, attempts to control, and gifts from the state.

While not explicit in this book, this viewpoint would later lead Ellul to become an anarchist.

What are we to make of Ellul’s claims in this book? I find many of them still insightful and compelling today. In typical Ellul fashion, he doesn’t present us with any easy answers to the difficult situation he presents to us. Instead, he wants for us to live in the tension.

For the Christian Ellul has a few more words of advice on what to do in the midst of this scenario (these points are taken from David Gill’s essay The Political Theology of Jacques Ellul in Political Illusion and Reality): (1) Keep the church and state separate. (2) Desacralize, demythologize, relativize politics. (3) Be present in the political world. (4) Be an ambassador of a third way which is not the way of the world. In every case Christians must be present as bearers of the distinctive Word and values of God. (5) Focus especially on these five concerns: (a) Study the societal maincurrents below the surface. (b) Warn of future consequences, threats, and challenges. Try to play the role of Ezekiel’s “watchman on the wall” (33:1–20) watching for coming threats and opportunities, warning our world of what may be coming, thinking ahead about consequences of current activities and trends. (c) Critique the means. (d) Address the “vast domain of the psychic”—the emotional, spiritual, and relational dimensions of life. (e) Advocate for the truly poor. There are the “popular poor” in our world who are the subject of a vivid, guilty conscience and who have strong representation in the halls of political power. Of course their needs are real and it is good that their cause be advocated. But Ellul points out that there are others who we could call the “truly poor,” the unpopular poor, the poor who are ignored and have no advocates. (6) Serve as ministers of reconciliation. Christians should also carry out a “ministry of reconciliation” in our alienated, partisan, segregated culture. (7) Create a life outside of politics and the state.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacques Ellul's *The Political Illusion*, originally published in 1965 and translated into English in 1972, offers a profound and prescient critique of the modern political landscape. Ellul, a French sociologist, theologian, and philosopher, is known for his incisive analysis of the pervasive influence of technology on society. In this work, he extends his critical lens to the realm of politics, arguing that the illusion of political efficacy masks deeper systemic issues and limits true human freedom.


Ellul's central thesis is that contemporary political activity is dominated by an illusion of control and effectiveness, which he attributes to the rise of mass media and the bureaucratic state. This illusion is perpetuated by the belief that political mechanisms and structures are capable of resolving the complex problems of modern society. Ellul contends that this belief is fundamentally flawed, as it overlooks the intrinsic limitations of political power and the pervasive influence of technological and bureaucratic systems.

The book is structured around a series of thematic explorations. Ellul examines the relationship between politics and technology, the role of propaganda, the nature of political power, and the impact of mass media. Each chapter builds upon the previous ones, creating a comprehensive critique of the political structures that dominate contemporary life.


One of Ellul's most compelling arguments is his analysis of the relationship between politics and technology. He posits that technological advancements have led to the creation of a bureaucratic state, which in turn reduces the individual's ability to influence political outcomes. This technocratic governance prioritizes efficiency and control, often at the expense of genuine democratic engagement and human autonomy.

Ellul also delves into the role of propaganda in shaping public perception and political behavior. He argues that mass media serves as a tool for disseminating political propaganda, creating a homogenized public opinion that stifles critical thinking and dissent. This, in turn, reinforces the political illusion by presenting a distorted reality where political participation appears meaningful, while in reality, it is heavily manipulated.

Another significant contribution of Ellul's work is his exploration of the nature of political power. He asserts that true power lies not in the hands of elected officials, but within the structures of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus. This power is diffuse and impersonal, making it difficult for individuals to challenge or change it effectively.


Ellul's *The Political Illusion* is both provocative and insightful, offering a critical perspective that remains relevant in contemporary political discourse. His arguments are well-supported by a blend of theoretical analysis and empirical observations, making the book a rigorous examination of political dynamics.

However, the book is not without its limitations. Some critics argue that Ellul's analysis is overly deterministic, painting a bleak picture of political agency without offering clear pathways for change or resistance. Additionally, his focus on the negative aspects of technology and bureaucracy may overshadow potential benefits and progressive uses of these systems.

Moreover, Ellul's writing style, while intellectually stimulating, can be dense and challenging for readers unfamiliar with his broader body of work or the sociological concepts he employs. This may limit the accessibility of his insights to a wider audience.


*The Political Illusion* by Jacques Ellul remains a seminal work in the field of political sociology. Its incisive critique of the modern political landscape, especially the interplay between technology, bureaucracy, and propaganda, provides valuable insights into the limitations of political agency in contemporary society. Despite its challenges, the book is an essential read for scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the deeper forces shaping political life and the enduring relevance of Ellul's thought in an era increasingly dominated by technological and bureaucratic systems.

Ellul's work challenges readers to reconsider their assumptions about political power and efficacy, urging a more critical and reflective engagement with the political structures that govern their lives. In doing so, *The Political Illusion* continues to offer a potent critique of the illusions that sustain modern political systems.

GPT

[Ben C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential work for anyone serious about critiquing Technological Society, Politics, or the future.

[Erik Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shockingly prescient. Still very quotable. But contains a lot of political history unfolding in his time that is a bit foreign.

[EU · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cet essai paru en 1965 est incroyablement contemporain. Avec une prescience méthodique, il démontre comment les progrès de la civilisation technicienne conduisent simultanément à l’extension inexorable de l’interventionnisme étatique et à la dépossession politique non seulement des citoyens mais aussi dirigeants des sociétés modernes. De là l’illusion que « tout est politique » car tout est étatisé. Mais en réalité règne la « nécessité » imposée par les techniques (sciences, administration, etc) qui confinent l’action des politiciens au domaine de l’éphémère, au spectacle dit politique qui alimente les médias et les discussions provoquées par les épiphénomènes mis en avant par ces derniers. Les débats de fond sont occultés. L’homme moderne échange sa liberté - et les responsabilités qui vont avec - pour le confort, matériel et moral, facilité par les lois de la nécessité. Jacques Ellul reprend ici le thème des dangers éthiques de la société technicienne, qui transforme les hommes en participants adaptés à la grande fourmilière moderne. Il développe rapidement comment les idéologies participent à ce mouvement en fournissant un prêt-à-penser qui dispense de réfléchir par soi-même aux valeurs qui doivent fonder la vie humaine. Un des grands risques étant notamment qu’une avancée technique soit automatiquement considérée comme bonne car rendue possible pour les progrès de la science. C’est exactement ce que nous constatons aujourd’hui avec les débats sur la GPA par exemple. Même s’il n’est pas très optimiste, Ellul ébauche des pistes pour que l’homme reprenne sa liberté. Et cela passe notamment par le refus du confort intellectuel et moral, l’aptitude au questionnement et au débat, le refus du conformisme et de la conformation aux exigences de la nécessité technicienne.
Pour résumer, il s’agit donc d’une grand livre de réflexion sur les sociétés modernes. À diffuser largement!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the tip of the iceberg with Ellul, the author of scores of books and hundreds of articles. I read it because I wanted a sample, to see if his writing suggested further study. I also read it in my efforts to maintain perspective about the current state of political events in the nation and the world.

The writing is dense and slow. I can't quite say whether it's because of the writing itself, deeply philosophical ideas translated from French, with long sentences and complex multi-syllabic words; or because he's questioning long-held assumptions and "truths."

I stayed with it enough to learn Ellul has something to say. So I bought Understanding Jacques Ellul, and am finding it rich and full of stimulating ideas. Many of which I find agreement with, others not so very much. Which is to say, worth reading and thinking about.

So this book has served its purpose. I give it four stars for offering me new insights and opening new ways of thinking for me. On current times I've been reminded that looking to politics for solutions to the important questions in life is always shortsighted, and that the responsible action of the citizen is to invest in other efforts to really make a difference. In my rating of the book, I hold back the fifth star because of its density.

As a coda, reading more about his writing, I learn that he sees the slowness of reading as an advantage, in support of his thesis that learning ought to be slow and deep to make a profound impact on the reader. Good example of the level he's working at.