Book Review: Book Reviews

Abstract

Illusions of Freedom: Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on Technology and Human Condition. By Jeffrey M. Shaw. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick Publications, 2014. xiv + 193 pp. $23.00 (paper).andReturning to Reality: Thomas Merton's Wisdom for a Technological World. By Phillip M. Thompson. Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2012. xxii + 112 pp. $17.00 (paper).This year marks centenaiy of birth of famous Trappist monk, poet, and peace activist Thomas Merton. Often called most significant Catholic spiritual writer of twentieth century, Merton has acquired an increasing reputation as a wise and prescient commentator on many issues of contemporary life with gradual publication of his journals and letters beginning in early 1990s (a quarter-century after his untimely death in 1968, as stipulated by his literary estate). In anticipation of this Merton anniversary year a number of books have examined various aspects of Merton's life and work.Two of these focus on Merton's disparate writings on technology. Merton left no single comprehensive account of his philosophy of technology, but topic came up often in his letters and his extensive private journals. Jeffrey Shaw and Phillip Thompson each have skillfully woven disparate threads of Merton's philosophy of technology into a coherent fabric.Shaw discusses Merton alongside French Protestant philosopher and theologian Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), and pairing makes for a richer discussion than Thompson manages in his slimmer but also fine volume. Merton and Ellul never met and had no known correspondence, but Merton read Ellul enthusiastically and mentioned him several times in his journals.What excited Merton about Ellul's theory of technology was concept of technique, by which Ellul meant something beyond standard meaning of that word in English. In his most well-known book, La Technique (The Technological Society), Ellul defined technique as the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Put differently, technique is that inherent characteristic of technology that enforces efficiency and technological progress at expense of natural world and of other, arguably higher, humanistic concerns. The classic example of this is Henry Ford's replacement of craftsmanship with efficient but mind-numbing and spiritually empty assembly-line work.Shaw's book began as a doctoral dissertation, and it retains both advantages and disadvantages of that genre. The advantages are its comprehensiveness and clear organization, with nicely self-contained chapters dedicated to a comparison of two men's worldviews; their theology, sociology, and politics of technology; and relationship between their philosophies of technology and their literary work. …