The bright and brave new world

The modern world presents itself as the epitome of reason and freedom, as a place and time wherein man becomes himself and can after a long history become what he seeks to be. The modern world produces a new kind of man who wants to free himself from any kind of eternal determination and wants to build his future on scientific knowledge and a scientific view of society and reality. This spiritual outlook is not new and it has been captured in some remarkable literary works like A Brave New World. But this so-called freedom is not freedom at all but a new subservience to a system that is less human than all previous. It is the technological system, as the French sociologist Jacques Ellul put it. This system doesn’t emancipate man from nature or self. It is just another illusion that can lead to the destruction of mankind. The forces behind it are not the search for truth, but the forces of desire and conquering the whole world and universe and make it subservient to human whims and wishes.