Bulletin of Science,

Technology & Society

http://bst.sagepub.com/

Temptation and Seduction in the Technological Milieu

J. M. van der Laan
Bulletin of Science Technology & Society 2004 24: 509
DOI: 10.1177/0270467604270258
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://bst.sagepub.com/content/24/6/509

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:
National Association for Science, Technology & Society

Additional services and information for Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://bst.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://bst.sagepub.com/content/24/6/509.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Nov 2, 2004

What is This?

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

10.1177/0270467604270258
van
der Laan / TECHNOLOGICAL MILIEU

BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / December 2004

Temptation and Seduction

in the Technological Milieu
J. M. van der Laan
Illinois State University
Jacques Elluls work on propaganda provides the
basis for this analysis of life in technology. Advertising
and the mass media rely on temptation and seduction
and create a constant flow of propaganda, all of which
serve the technological system. Propaganda aims to
condition and regulate us so that we participate in and
adapt ourselves to a desired pattern, specifically an
existence adjusted to and in accord with the technological milieu. Technology tempts and seduces us with its
promise and provision of comfort, convenience, and
efficiency. Above all, technology tempts and seduces
us with power: power over nature and over human beings. Naively and paradoxically, we believe we have
power over technology, even though it actually has
power over us. Our immersion in a sea of temptation
and seduction, of constant and total propaganda, may
seem inescapable; however, to criticize and challenge
the primacy of technology is to reassert our freedom.
Keywords: technology; temptation; seduction; propaganda; advertising; mass media; consumer capitalism; power

In a key scene of the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz

Lang, technology comes into sharp focus as temptation and seduction. A scientist has made a robot and
then given it external feminine form. Once activated,
that machine steps forth as temptress and seductress,
an alluring and irresistible femme fatale. Even as she
embodies all that is lascivious, she is at the same time
the actual embodiment of technology itself. The episode culminates in an exotic and erotic dance in and by
which she tempts, seduces, and completely captivates
her audience. In passing, let me note that the movie
impressed Hitler so much that in 1933, when the Nazi
Party came to power, he had his Propaganda Minister

Joseph Goebbels approach Lang and ask him to make

films for the National Socialists. Lang (whose mother
was Jewish and whose wife was an ardent member of
the Nazi Party) fled the country immediately (Prouty,
1982, p. 743).
The following pages present an argument based on
the work of Jacques Ellul. In particular, his concepts of
technique and propaganda have guided and lent shape
to this analysis. Perhaps more than anyone else, Ellul
exposed how qualitatively different technology is
today from times previous to ours, especially with
respect to its pervasiveness and autonomy. As a necessary point of reference, let me reiterate his definition of
technique: it is the totality of methods rationally
arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field
of human activity (Ellul, 1954/1964, pp. xxv-xxvi).
Although Ellul distinguished between technique and
technology (which strictly speaking is the study of or
discourse about technique), technology is the catchall
term we are more familiar with and which I use here.
Ellul provides us with a working definition of propaganda as well. According to him, it is
a set of methods employed by an organized
group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an
organization. (1962/1973, p. 61)
Propaganda, he explained, conditions and regulates
us at the same time (1962/1973, p. xiv). Quoting
Goebbels, the notorious head of Nazi propaganda,
Ellul pointed out that the method and purpose of propaganda is not necessarily to say something, but to
obtain a certain effect (1962/1973, p. x).

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 24, No. 6, December 2004, 509-514
DOI: 10.1177/0270467604270258
Copyright 2004 Sage Publications

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

510

BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / December 2004

Ellul identified various categories of propaganda:

political, sociological, agitation, and integration. Integration and sociological propaganda particularly apply to our present sociocultural context. As explained
by Ellul, integration propaganda specifically aims to
make us adjust ourselves to certain desired patterns.
Similarly, sociological propaganda is
the group of manifestations by which any society
seeks to integrate the maximum number of individuals into itself, to unify its membersbehavior
according to a pattern, to spread its style of life
abroad, and thus to impose itself on other groups.
(1962/1973, p. 62)
The United States, Ellul concluded, is a nation living
by sociological propaganda (1962/1973, p. 63); that
is, the propaganda element is in the American way of
life (1962/1973, p. 64). Connected with that propaganda and way of life are new criteria of judgment
and choice (1962/1973, p. 64). We have reached the
point where, as Ellul predicted, a whole society actually expresses itself through this propaganda by advertising its kind of life (1962/1973, p. 65). In this time
and place, propaganda and advertising go hand in
hand. What is more, advertising and its two chief manifestations and mechanisms, temptation and seduction, have remade all aspects of our culture in their
own image. Propaganda and its outgrowth, advertising, in turn belong to the realm of technique, that is, to
the technological milieu.
Ellul found that propaganda must be continuous
to be effective (1962/1973, p. 17). He exposed its pervasiveness that we see in the constant and total, allday, everyday program of temptation and seduction on
radio, television, and Internet, on billboards, in newspapers, and magazines. Everywhere temptation and
seduction appear as form and content, means and end,
informing and molding everything from the arts and
politics, to education and religion, to speech, dress,
and behavior.
Temptation and seduction have become our criteria
of judgment and choice, our way of life, and the
desired pattern into which we have been integrated.
The pattern of temptation and seduction has placed its
stamp on us, as it constantly conditions and regulates
us. As means and end, temptation and seduction are
the propagandistic instruments (or techniques) used to
adapt and mold us into the desired pattern that is also
temptation and seduction. In other words, temptation

and seduction are what is used in propaganda and what

results from that propaganda. We exist in a culture that
thrives in and on temptation and seduction because
they have been constantly modeled for us and because
they are fundamental in and for the technological
system and its dependent: consumer capitalism.
As the heart and soul of advertising, temptation and
seduction define the mass media as well as our sociocultural institutions that, in turn, define us. The technological system on which our media and sociocultural institutions now depend has established
temptation and seduction as our new values. Consumer capitalism, for example, our sociocultural context, requires temptation and seduction to survive.
Without constant temptation and seduction, moreover,
the technological system cannot maintain itself either.
As Kellen (1962/1973) noted in his introduction to
Propaganda, Integration propaganda is needed especially for the technological society to flourish, and its
technological meansmass media among themin
turn make such integration propaganda possible
(p. vi). Indeed, all media now serve the larger technological system.
Temptation and seduction are terms loaded with
evocative power. Once they carried negative associations, but now their meanings have so changed as to
render them harmless if not entirely positive concepts.
Once they had highly charged moral overtones. Now,
as essential and chief tools of the mass media, not to
mention as our dominant forms of cultural expression
and social intercourse, they have lost that content.
They have been sanitized, regularized, and normalized. Everywhere we turn, we face and embrace temptation and seduction. In our attire, entertainments,
speech, economy, and politics, we endorse them either
tacitly or patently. They have become so much the fabric of our culture that we have become inured by and
immune to them. We have forgotten the dangers those
words once conveyed and implied. To overlook their
meanings imperils us.
Even though it seems a tired and pedantic exercise,
let me offer a brief and simple definition of the terms in
question. At least, we can try to recall what those
words used to signify. (The following definitions are
gleaned from the Oxford English Dictionary and Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language.) To tempt has meant:
to test, put to the test, try; to try to attract, allure,
incite, induce; to entice (a person) to do evil; to

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

van der Laan / TECHNOLOGICAL MILIEU

induce and entice, especially to something

immoral or sensually pleasurable; to rouse
desire; to be inviting; to provoke.
Seduction proves to be the close relative of temptation.
To seduce has meant:
to persuade to do something disloyal, something
disobedient; to persuade or tempt to evil or
wrong; to lead astray; to draw away from the
right or intended course of action to or into a
wrong one; to entice.
Although seduction indicates an act of seducing, it
also designates the state of being (or having been) seduced. Sensation and the sensational are in, addition,
that by which and to which we are now typically
tempted and seduced. As this simple rehearsal of
meanings shows, both terms carried a sense of transgression, of deviation, indeed, of corruption. In both
words, we detect the sense of forsaking a right path for
a wrong one. That path may be political, economic,
ecological, moral, religious, or yet another. However,
the message and pattern of temptation and seduction
suggests, even declares, that the wrong path to which
we are being tempted and seduced is now the right
path.
Traditionally, there have been two responses to temptation, either resistance or surrender. As temptationseduction presents itself to us now, resistance is (to
quote from science fiction) not only futile, but irrelevant. Surrender to temptation and seduction is part of
the desired pattern we are to adjust to. Desensitized,
we have become so adjusted to the pattern that temptation and seduction no longer give pause or trigger any
internal warnings. We no longer take exception to their
ubiquitous presence. What sense, for example, can we
make of something such as Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, when temptation is the
desired pattern of behavior?
Because temptation and seduction are now deeply
embedded sociocultural patterns, the distinctions
between good and evil are smeared, if not altogether
erased. The constant diet of temptation and seduction
subverts, even inverts, moral categories, substituting
evil for good. Because we live with, in, and by temptation and seduction, because that is the way it is, we
think that is the way it ought to be.
To be effective, Ellul observed, propaganda
must short-circuit all thought and decision (1962/
1973, p. 27). We are tempted and seduced in particular

511

to do just that: abandon all critical reflection and judgment. Temptation and seduction seek to overcome and
break down reason and self-control and to produce
their opposites. An old advertisement by Anheuser/
Busch perfectly illustrates my point. Why ask why,
try Bud Dry, the ad went. In other words, Dont
think, drink! Although it tempts and seduces, it at the
same time eliminates any analysis and deliberation. So
disabled are we by an environment of temptation and
seduction that we cannot perceive the possible, even
actual loss of self-control or reason. We know only
diversion away from what we need, and need to think
and do, to what we do not need.
Several other randomly selected advertisements
nicely illustrate what I have awkwardly been trying to
demonstrate. In them, we not only hear echoes of the
definitions given previously but also encounter the
very terms we have under scrutiny here. Stir the
senses is the invitation and command of Salem cigarettes. According to Citibank and American Express
respectively, we can or should or must Live Richly
and Make Life Rewarding. While Maserati calls you
to Move in Different Circles, Expedia.com tells you:
Youve been very, very good. Now go to your room.
Search for > The extraordinary. Here, the subtle suggestion is to forsake the straight and narrow, as it were,
and be bad. In another campaign aimed at students,
Citibank Mastercard subtly inveigles with the tag line:
Apply today. So you can see whats on the other side.
We are surrounded by an ever-present Come hither!
See what awaits you beyond the pale. Such enticements ask each in its own way that we step beyond a
boundary, be it economic, societal, or moral.
Clearly, we are invited and encouraged to go astray,
to take an alluring, even forbidden path different from
the one we have been on, specifically to surrender to
temptation. While Hewlett-Packard assures us that
everything is possible, and Sharp actually urges us to
Be provocative, an advertisement for Bordeaux
wines comes right out and says it: Be Seduced!
(Wouldnt Ellul who made his home in Bordeaux have
been amused?) What probably amazes most is how
forthright and brazen such advertising has become, but
this development merely confirms Elluls descriptions
and assessments of propaganda.
Let me offer one last example. Far be it from me to
cast aspersions on a church for adjusting itself to the
pattern of temptation and seduction, but the company
named Thrivent Financial for Lutherans unintentionally and ironically invites comparison with the story of
Jesus and the money changers. According to its Web

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

512

BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / December 2004

site, Thrivent is a Fortune 500 financial services organization with annuities, insurance, investments, and
its own bank available to members. From a Thrivent
ad, we learn what its members value most: protecting
and providing for their families, and giving back to
their congregations and communities. Altogether
missing from the list, a list for Lutherans, presumably
people of the Christian faith, is the Biblical statement
of ultimate values (love God with all your heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself). In this case, it is quite clear that economic rather
than spiritual concerns are of utmost importance. The
picture accompanying the advertisement reinforces its
message about values. It shows an open wallet with a
drivers license, credit card, and several bills of American currency in at least two denominations (no pun
intended). According to the ad copy, Thrivent is the
place where values thrive. Ellul reminds us, however, that propaganda is necessarily false when it
speaks of values (1962/1973, p. 59). A sobering
thought.
Temptation and seduction touch and taint all areas
of life. Radio and television may offer the most glaring
examples, given the typical content of most television
shows and pop music; however, the Internet reveals
itself also as tempter and seducer with its steady
stream of pop-ups and unbidden solicitations. Here I
do not refer to Internet pornography, even though that
surely comes to mind as the chief temptation and
seduction offered by that medium. The Internet tempts
us in another more subtle way. It tempts us to jump
from site to site, page to page, link to link, and context
to context, until the only context to remain is that of
perpetual temptation. Our schools and universities
resort (and surrender) to temptation and seduction as
well, as they vie for company logos and names to
assign to their buildings and programs. Universities
now have their own offices of and for marketing themselves. They moreover lure students, parents, and
alumni with the book bags, caps, umbrellas, shirts,
folders, daily planners, and even credit cards they now
make available to us. And one could hardly ask for a
better caricature of political life as temptation and
seduction than the Clinton presidency; however, the
current administration of George W. Bush has shown
the real power of integration propaganda as it first
tempted and then seduced a nation into invasions and
wars abroad.
Tempted and seduced at every turn, we need and
acquire that which we do not need. Everything must be
newer or bigger or better, or there must simply be

more. We need constantly to update and renew everything we touch from automobiles and houses, to
computers and telephones, to teaching methods and
materials, even to our churches that have discovered
efficient techniques for renovation and growth. In particular, we believe we need newer and better, but above
all, more technology. Ellul reminded us, however, that
necessity is proof of power, not of excellence (1962/
1973, p. xv).
Let me, for a moment, return attention to Elluls
definition of propaganda. According to him, it is a set
of methods employed by an organized group that
wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations
and incorporated in an organization (1962/1973,
p. 61). Someone might raise the objection here that
there is no such organized group, but let me counter
with the likes of Rupert Murdoch whose press, radio,
and television empire is imposing or Bill Gates whose
Microsoft dominion knows no limits (and includes
MSNBC among its many territories). Or consider a
corporation such as ADMonce supermarket to the
world, now ominously the nature of whats to
come. Yet another large corporation, State Farm
Mutual Auto Insurance, holds and controls the largest
share (10%) of ADM stock. Similar to ADM or
Microsoft, Altria Group Incorporated extends in surprising and far-reaching directions. Its subsidiaries
include Kraft Foods, Philip Morris, Marlboro,
Maxwell House, Nabisco, Oreo, Oscar Mayer,
Altoids, Parliament, Post, Ritz, and Tang.
My point is that such large and powerful entities,
though disparate, constitute an organized group inasmuch as they have fundamentally identical interests
and share a singular objective: to adapt us to the pattern of the technological system within which consumer capitalism exists and thrives. Similar to countless other companies, ADM, for example, runs
advertising or propaganda campaigns not only to promote its products but to polish its image badly tarnished a few years ago. Its ad campaigns, in turn, govern radio and television programming that, in turn,
condition consumers and public opinion. Through
substantial monetary contributions to political parties
and candidates, the proponents of consumer capitalism and the technological systemADM or State
Farm Insurance or Microsoft or Sony or Halliburton or
Boeing, to name only a feware able to shape public
policy as they see fit, whether it concerns the
environment or taxation or something else again.

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

van der Laan / TECHNOLOGICAL MILIEU

No one thinks she or he is conditioned by propaganda, certainly not in this country, the land of the
free and the home of the brave. As Ellul observed,
the educated man does not believe in propaganda; he
shrugs and is convinced that propaganda has no effect
on him (1962/1973, p. 111). In the same way no one
thinks he or she is manipulated by propaganda (which
they also believe does not even exist in the United
States), so too no one thinks she or he is being tempted
or seduced. However, as we have seen, propaganda
encompasses and surrounds us on all sides. A public
that does not think itself propagandized, tempted, and
seduced certainly does not recognize its immersion in
and subjugation to technology either.
Whether the advertising or entertainment industryprinted, televised, conservative, or liberal news
media, education or the megachurch movementall
conspire together to tempt and seduce us and ultimately to integrate us into consumer capitalism and
the overarching technological system.
In point of fact, technology itself is the temptation
and seduction. Its promises and enticements are all but
irresistible. Remember how the seductive robot
embodied technology in Metropolis. More recently
and more consistently, Godfrey Reggios film trilogyKoyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1987), and
Naqoyqatsi (2002)examined the subject again and
boldly exposed our technology as calamitous. Reggio
(2002a) chose words from the Hopi language for his
titles, because, as he explained, the language that we
have no longer describes the world in which we live. It
describes a world thats not here any more (n.p.).
While the first film depicts life out of balance and the
second focuses on transformation, the third specifically examines technology as the new host of life in
which everything now exists, but which at the same
time wages war against life (Reggio, 2002b, n.p.).1
Even more than Metropolis, Reggios films lay bear
the seductive and destructive power of technological
culture. In the context of this analysis, it is highly suggestive that the title for Reggios second film comes
from powaqa the Hopi word for a black magician who
operates through allurement and seduction.
With technology, we are guaranteed (and even see
fulfilled) an apparent lightening of our burdens, betterment of our conditions, and enhanced connection with
family and friends. We save time and save work. We
enjoy every convenience: no need to walk, when we
can take the car; no need to sweat, when we can turn on
the air conditioning; no need to freeze, when we can
turn up the heat. We cherish ease and efficiency. The

513

temptations of technology are too great. Technology

has seduced us, and we have succumbed. If culture is
the totality of the intellectual and artistic forms of
expression of a society, if culture encompasses everything a society does and brings forth, then a culture of
technology is one in which the totality of forms of
expression are determined, formed, and governed by
technology. We can no longer conceive of (and will not
accept) a world without the surgical procedures and
pharmaceuticals, without the heating, cooling, and
electrical lighting, without the airplane and automobile, without the telephone, television, e-mail, and
Internet, without the ease and convenience, without
the prepared and processed foods, and without the
security of our technological system. Again, the temptation is too great. Existentially, we long for safety and
for security, and technology holds it or the semblance
of safety and security out to us. But greater still is the
temptation and seduction of the power which technology proffers and confers.
With its seemingly unlimited power, technology
emerges as the great tempter and seducer. After all,
technology is in essence about power. Mumford
(1970) understood and explained that in The Pentagon
of Power. Since the beginning of human history, technology has been about power, power over the natural
world, over natural laws (such as gravity), over the elements (such as heat and cold), over the environment
(such as forest and field), over human limitations (such
as strength and speed), and ultimately over human
beings. According to Horkheimer (1947), the entire
history of mans effort to subjugate nature is also the
history of mans subjugation of man (p. 105).
Marcuse (1964) reached the same conclusion: human
mastery of nature provided the instruments by which
human beings then exercised mastery over other
human beings (p. 158); that is to say, the very methods
that enabled humans to dominate nature subsequently
served as the means to dominate humans. Ellul (1988/
1990) stated it most succinctly: We should never forget that its [techniques] only objective is to enhance
power (p. 25). He declared moreover that all technical means are means of power, seizure, domination,
organization, and utilization (Ellul, 1973/1976,
p. 310).
Even when we are repulsed by it or see how it
threatens us, we are nevertheless attracted by and to
technology because it is so alluring, so tempting, so
seductive. Above all else, technology tempts and
seduces us with its promise of power, power over
nature and humankind. We desire technology. Think-

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012

514

BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / December 2004

ing we possess it and that, possessing, it we have its

power, we believe we also have power over it. In possessing technology, however, we have instead been
possessed by it, and it now has power over us.
The situation looks bleak and hopeless because we
are awash and adrift in a sea of advertising, of temptation and seduction, of constant and total propaganda.
Ellul would not relinquish hope, however. Nor should
we. Following Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard, Ellul
believed that we show our freedom by recognizing
our nonfreedom (1988/1990, p. 411); that is, by criticizing we begin to liberate ourselves (cf. p. 411). There
is yet another antidote to propaganda and to the temptation and seduction of technology. It is exceedingly
difficult, but simple enough, too. Ellul wrote that propaganda ceases where simple dialogue begins (1962/
1973, p. 6). And that is what I attempt here and what
we must initiate with others at every opportunity.

NOTE
1. In a filmed interview, Reggio summed up the subject matter
of his trilogy:
The utopia of the technological order is virtual immortalityhithertofore only ascribed to the gods, to the divinity.
Now we have a new pantheon. The computer sits in the middle of it. The computer, not being a sign, is the most powerful instrument in the world in that it produces what it signifies. It produces this globalization. In that sense, it is the
highest magic in the world, and something that were all in
adoration of. And thats what these films are about. (Carson,
2002, n.p.).

REFERENCES
Carson, G. (Director). (2002). Impact of progress [Short film with
interviews of Godfrey Reggio: In special features of
Powaqqatsi DVD]. United States: MGM Home Entertainment.
Ellul, J. (1964). The technological society. (J. Wilkinson, Trans.).
New York: Knopf. (Original work published 1954)
Ellul, J. (1973). Propaganda: The formation of mens attitudes (K.
Konrad, Trans.). New York: Vintage. (Original work published
1962)
Ellul, J. (1976). The ethics of freedom (G. W. Bromiley, Trans.).
Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans. (Original work published 1973)
Ellul, J. (1990). The technological bluff (G. W. Bromiley, Trans.).
Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans. (Original work published 1988)
Horkheimer, M. (1947). Eclipse of reason. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kellen, K. (1973). Introduction. In J. Ellul Propaganda: The formation of mens attitudes (K. Konrad, Trans.). New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1962)
Lang, F. (Director). (1927). Metropolis [Motion picture]. Germany: Universum-Film A. G.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon.
Mumford, L. (1970). The pentagon of power. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.
Prouty, H. H. (1982). Metropolis. In F. N. Magill (Ed.), Magills
survey of cinema: Silent films (Vol. II, pp. 733-744).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press.
Reggio, G. (2002a). Filmed panel discussion at New York University [Special features]. In G. Reggio (Dir.), Naqoyqatsi (DVD).
United States: Miramax Home Entertainment.
Reggio, G. (2002b). Life is war [Special feature]. In G. Reggio
(Dir.), Naqoyqatsi (DVD). United States: Miramax Home Entertainment.

J.M. van der Laan is a professor of foreign languages at Illinois State University. He has written extensively about German literature of the 18th century. Currently, his research
focuses on Goethe and Faust as well as the intersections of
the humanities, the natural sciences, and technology.

Downloaded from bst.sagepub.com at National School of Political on August 28, 2012