Jacques Ellul, Propagandele [Propagandes], Arad, Sens Publishing House, 2024, transl. Octavian Soviany

Jacque Ellul was a French sociologist and Protestant theologian. His work encompasses a large variety of issues, one of his main themes being the technological development/ enslavement of society and man by it. His book on Propaganda is not just merely a book on the subject matter, it is a work on the way the so-called technical system/society affects humankind. Propaganda is not just a tool of a certain kind of regime. It is born out of the political necessities of the democratic regimes and out of the inner infrastructure of the technical society. It is a pervasive activity that affects the inner life of man, traumatizing him permanently, and instilling in him a state of subservience and obedience, even if the targets of the propaganda are not aware of this external influence. His work on this matter represents a step toward emancipation because there is no way to get out the predicament in which present-day humanity finds itself without becoming aware of the difficulties humanity has to confront.