In the video Ellul’s argues that in this modern technologically advanced society responsibility and freedom does not exist. He shows us our flawed idea of free will and illustrates the reality on how we just become this mass group of conformists. Ellul’s uses the example of traveling to show such lack of freedom. The inventions of cars and airplanes are believed to grant us some sort of freedom, the ability to go wherever and whenever we want plays into that idea. Yet we all seem to travel to the same places around the same time of year and fail to notice that. This really opened my eyes and I was able to compare it to our smartphones. Now a days the majority of us have Androids or iPhones and are madly in love with them. We are fed the idea that they leave the world to our disposal with all their abilities and new advancements. However, we could see that mass conformity through the apps we all have downloaded on them. Again one can choose to have these smartphones but at the end of the day we all use them for the same reasons through the same apps. In addition to this Ellul’s also points out how there is no such thing as responsibility. There are too many determining factors in the mix leaving out the idea of responsibility. It becomes a lot more complicated when trying to point fingers and most of the time responsibility loses its logic. I was able to make a connection to The Visit through this idea and through the death of Alfred Ill. At first I blamed the people of Gullen and had no doubt in my mind that it was all their fault. However, now I would take that back and say it is nobody’s fault. Everyone began buying on credit, claiming they would not let anything happen to Ill and started to feed into the new found wealth. The town and its people began to slowly conform excluding Ill. Once he passed away there was no way of holding someone responsible! It was a collective action that brought about this specific outcome. This then leads to the flawed idea of justice and how in certain instances, like responsibility, it loses its logic. Where and how could justice come out of this situation? In fact Ellul’s poses an almost identical example in the video. He uses the example of the broken dam and how no one is held responsible although everyone had some sort of impact on the outcome. They all had to do something with the dam and yet when it breaks no one is held accountable. Here responsibility loses its existence and logic once more.
THE NASTINESS OF REASON
English 2850 | Fall 2016
Great connections you’ve made here. You could also think about this in terms of social media, like FaceBook, in which you attempt to create your own profile, curate your presentation to the world, believe yourself to be very unique, etc. And that is then used in order to sell you and anyone else with similar likes, the same products, the same vacations, the same music, film, etc. which then gets reflected back again onto your profile (I like ABC, XYZ). You’ve got a good grasp on this it seems. The question of responsibility is also interesting, and can be connected to the above. Remember our reading NO ONE is responsible as EVERYONE is responsible. You mention the collective guilt, the collective action of buying on credit that leads to Ill’s death. What we see here is the shattering of the notion that the One Person is so unique, that s/he stands on their own. Rather, we get the sense of the complicity involved in all events within a society. No one is innocent in Güllen; even if they never touched Ill, they are guilty because they bought into the whole thing, figuratively or literally, it doesn’t matter. We spoke about this a bit in relation to the election, and those who didn’t vote. Can you stand apart during an election, be upset with the results (or not) and say you had no part in it? What we see during this period is the idea that we are always already bound up with whatever happens in our community, in our state, in our nation, in our world. We can’t separate ourselves from it, at least not entirely, and we will always be somewhat responsible for anything that happens. Anyway, good work! 5/5