...there is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the s… - Jacques Ellul

Once the church is ready to associate with instituted power it is obliged to associate with all and sundry forms of the state. The scandal is that each time the church seeks to justify both its adaptation and the existing power. It continues to legitimize the state and to be an instrument of its propaganda.

A major section of modern art and poetry unconsciously guides us in the direction of madness; and, indeed, for the modern man there is no other way. Only madness is inaccessible to the machine.

There is no concrete possibility at all of disengagement from social, political, and economic determinations. The only freedom man has is to recognize these and to recognize that he is determined by them. The first act of freedom is a recognition of necessity, not theoretically, but with a personal reference, and an attempt to put this recognition to work by trying to assess necessity, to discover its meaning and significance. To face up to the necessity that is seen at work in oneself, to perceive that I myself obey necessity, and to consider the implications of this—this act of recognition is an act of freedom.