Abstract

[opening paragraph] -- I am convinced that `health' and `responsibility' belong to a lost past and that, since I am neither a romantic, a visionary, nor a drop-out, I must renounce both of them. We are occupied with a reflection on contemporary certainties and their history, that is, on assumptions which seem so commonplace that they escape critical testing. Over and over again we find that the renunciation of these very certainties offers the only possibility remaining for us to take up a critical position regarding that which Jacques Ellul calls la technique. As we want to free ourselves from these assumptions, not just run away, my reaction to `taking responsibility for one's own health' is an emphatic `no!'