I read The Anxious Generation between layovers and cramped flights to Panama and Colombia, and only now, back in my warm apartment in Xalapa, Mexico, can I begin to write something about it.
One should eschew the simplicity of a mere book summary when the text invites a deeper descent into intellectual history.
Indeed, "Ellulism" was the concept that immediately resonated with me upon concluding Jonathan Haidt’s latest work, The Anxious Generation. How the Great Rewiring is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Penguin, 2024).
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, rather than a clinical practitioner or media theorist. He posits a chilling reality in The Anxious Generation.
But let us return to the term "Ellulism". It comes from French thinker Jacques Ellul (1912–1994). He did not merely critique machines; he diagnosed La Technique: an autonomous system that prioritizes efficiency above all human values and reorganizes society in its own image.
I read The Anxious Generation between layovers and cramped flights to Panama and Colombia, and only now, back in my warm apartment in Xalapa, Mexico, can I begin to write something about it. For Ellul, the technical system produces the "total individual" by liquidating the intermediate social bodies –family, local guilds, and genuine community –leaving the person isolated and thus more easily integrated into the technical apparatus.
While Historical Materialism identifies the worker's alienation in the owner’s control of the means of production, Ellul identifies a deeper, more pervasive alienation in the Technique itself. For Ellul, the individual is not merely a victim of the "owner" of the machine, but has been reconciled to the Technique as a redemptive force. This "reconciliation of the masses with Technique" is what Haidt now documents empirically: a state where we are no longer exploited by a master, but absorbed by a system.
Within the trajectory of historical materialism and the evolution of media, two critical junctures define our current predicament. The first, appearing in 2007, was the advent of the touchscreen—a technological shift that collapsed the distance between the human hand and the digital interface. However, the true "singularity" occurred in 2012; this era marked the emergence of the modern, selfie-centric ecosystem, catalyzed by the integration of front-facing optics and Facebook’s strategic acquisition of Instagram. This was not merely a commercial transaction, but the birth of a global "conformity engine" that definitively rewired the adolescent social architecture.
Jonathan Haidt grounds his contrast between Discover mode and Defend mode in mammalian biology rather than in metaphor. All mammals, he reminds us, are born into a tension between two imperatives: stay close enough to the mother to avoid being eaten, and range far enough from her to practice the skills needed for adulthood—running, fighting, forming alliances. In neurological terms, this tension maps onto two evolved systems: a behavioral activation system (discover mode), which pushes young animals to seek novelty and opportunity, and a behavioral inhibition system (defend mode), which pulls them back when threat is detected.
Comparative Analysis: Haidt’s Behavioral Modalities
| Feature | Discover Mode (BAS) | Defend Mode |
| Primary Driver | Behavioral Activation System (BAS) | Behavioral Inhibition / Threat Detection |
| Cognitive Focus | Scanning for opportunities | Scanning for existential dangers |
| Psychological Stance | Autonomous: "Think for yourself." | Heteronomous: "Cling to the collective." |
| Developmental Goal | Expansion: "Let me grow." | Preservation: "Keep me safe." |
| Underlying Ethos | Abundance Mindset: The world as a "candy shop." | Scarcity Mindset: The world as a zero-sum game. |
| Social Outcome | High resilience; capacity for conflict resolution. | Heightened anxiety; social fragility (Antifragility stifled). |
Conversely, overprotection induces a perpetual “defend mode” –a state of hyper‑vigilance that stifles autonomy. Modern social media acts as a conformity engine, which cyberpsychologists now document through large‑scale shifts in mood, anxiety, and social comparison.
Ultimately, the "Anxious Generation" is merely the symptomatic vanguard of a deeper civilizational drift. If we accept Haidt’s findings through an Ellulian lens, the struggle is no longer just about protecting the psychological well-being of the young; it is about the preservation of the human spirit against a technical system that seeks its total absorption.
Reclaiming our attention—and by extension, our capacity for love—requires more than individual willpower.
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