4 ms·

I loved Illich when I was in high school. I read all of his books, dug up old audio recordings, and even built a website hosting all of the hard-to-find stuff h

I loved Illich when I was in high school. I read all of his books, dug up old audio recordings, and even built a website hosting all of the hard-to-find stuff he wrote. Reflecting on his work now, I think Illich's anti-institutionism was extreme and his alternatives are genuinely not compelling. Deschooling Society's critique is powerful, and Learning Webs is literally exactly how I learned how to program. But, it's an entirely unworkable alternative for like 60% of students. If we deschooled, we would absolutely end up with a double-digit percentage of the population either illiterate, innumerate, or both. If you're honest with yourself, Medical Nemesis is has some great passages but in it is also the germs of the anti-vaccination and natural healing movements. His critiques are powerful but the answer is not deinstitutionalism. The answer is taking his Tools for Conviviality to heart when engaging with/through institutions. Without conviviality, Learning Webs will become a "Platform" with blood-sucking silicon valley middle men taking a 20% cut on all education spending and gig worker teachers languishing away in poverty. Of course, Illich would just say SV platform capitalism is also an institution^1. With convivality, even the most institutional institutions can become places for human flourishing (Illich spent his life in the Catholic church, after all!) So, I love Illich's critique. And Illich was a genius, in the sense that he proposed online education 30 years before the internet was invented. But deschooling isn't the answer. Conviviality is. -- [^1]: which is one of the reasons that Foucault is worth reading of Illich resonates -- Illich always sort of grounded out in a no-true-scottsman when you point out his alternatives don't work. Foucault provides a more robust theory by explaining how power and institutions relate to one another.

deburo 6y ago
Can you expand a bit more on conviviality, what is represents?
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Is it ok if simply I point you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality and urge you to read the book (it's quite short)?
  - deburo 6y ago
    That's good too, thank you.
- jimduk 6y ago
  Another take on conviviality is from its root - 'to live with'. Hannah Arendt (and I'm sure many others) argues that 'living with' other people, well, in a polity, where you inevitably have different views, is a key problem of modern life. If you are strong at sciences as a kid, it often takes you a while to understand this. If you can get the BBC - this radio program (In our time) is a good introduction. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2ljg https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2ljg
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    I appreciate how the french idea of education includes savoir vivre. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809211 One should be able to be convivial even with those who aren't companions.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jimduk 6y ago
Agreed both being very impressed by Illich, but it not being workable. I dimly recall The Alphabetisation of the Popular Mind arguing that possibly you shouldn't teach language. Maybe this has merit (on the lines of Lanier arguing the midi-fication of music is detrimental which is clearer), but is the analogy that musical notation shouldn't happen. My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd who was much cleverer than me. After my first sentence she said "the problem with people who like Ivan Illich is they just want to talk about Illich". Touche But well worth reading, and a convivial life is a good life.
- paganel 6y ago
  > My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd who was much cleverer than me. After my first sentence she said "the problem with people who like Ivan Illich is they just want to talk about Illich". Touche Because he was basically right, and not that many people are right (Rousseau was another one, Hobbes and Machiavelli too) so it's worth talking about those who are. Of course most of what he's saying is not "workable", but we tend to forget that the not being "workable" part is specific to a technological society like ours and thus maybe the "technological society" part is the problem itself. Yes, if you want to keep nuclear power plants running you need a technocracy [1] that you need to have educated before the fact, but maybe we've been looking at all this the wrong way all the time and we don't actually need nuclear power plants and we don't need super-sonic flights. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibDNwF8bjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibDNwF8bjs
  - bananaface 6y ago
    The amount of calories we're able to extract from the earth is proportionate to the amount of energy we can produce. If we stop generating large amounts of energy, the population will shrink dramatically. If we keep generating it, the population will eventually grow to exceed carrying capacity. It's the wrong level of abstraction. There is no answer.
santoshalper 6y ago
Illich reminds me a lot of Ayn Rand. Not so much for what they believe, but in the way that both of their worldviews appeal so much to sheltered but intelligent teenagers. If you have a very limited depth of understanding of the world and how complex it can be, they seem to have ALL the answers.
askvictor 6y ago
> If we deschooled, we would absolutely end up with a double-digit percentage of the population either illiterate, innumerate, or both. This is already the case with our current schooling system; there double-digit percentages of school leavers who are functionally illiterate, and even more who are innumerate.
- JoelMcCracken 6y ago
  Not enough people understand this. It blew my mind when I first learned about illiteracy rates among Americans. And once you understand innumeracy you begin to understand just how vulnerable people are to coercion. And how people think that 1% fatality rates are no big deal.
  - jengleton 6y ago
    The illiteracy rate in the US is really quite incredible, with the federal government reporting something like 20% of the population to be "low literacy" https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2019179.asp https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2019179.asp
    - ljf 6y ago
      Wow - I really thought the first gp in this thread must be wrong, and then researched the UK and we are similar - around 20 to 25 percent. Blows my mind - it appears the levels haven't changed much since the 40s in the UK - which shocked me.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Are there many people who think 1% fatality rate is no big deal? I haven't seen many. But of course the illiterate would not be commenting much online. There are many who don't think COVID is a big deal, because it doesn't have anywhere close to a 1% fatality rate. But that's not quite the same thing.
    - JoelMcCracken 6y ago

deburo 6y ago

Can you expand a bit more on conviviality, what is represents?

throwawaygh 6y ago
Is it ok if simply I point you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality and urge you to read the book (it's quite short)?
- deburo 6y ago
  That's good too, thank you.
jimduk 6y ago
Another take on conviviality is from its root - 'to live with'. Hannah Arendt (and I'm sure many others) argues that 'living with' other people, well, in a polity, where you inevitably have different views, is a key problem of modern life. If you are strong at sciences as a kid, it often takes you a while to understand this. If you can get the BBC - this radio program (In our time) is a good introduction. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2ljg https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08c2ljg
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  I appreciate how the french idea of education includes savoir vivre. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23809211 One should be able to be convivial even with those who aren't companions.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jimduk 6y ago

Agreed both being very impressed by Illich, but it not being workable. I dimly recall The Alphabetisation of the Popular Mind arguing that possibly you shouldn't teach language. Maybe this has merit (on the lines of Lanier arguing the midi-fication of music is detrimental which is clearer), but is the analogy that musical notation shouldn't happen. My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd who was much cleverer than me. After my first sentence she said "the problem with people who like Ivan Illich is they just want to talk about Illich". Touche But well worth reading, and a convivial life is a good life.

paganel 6y ago
> My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd who was much cleverer than me. After my first sentence she said "the problem with people who like Ivan Illich is they just want to talk about Illich". Touche Because he was basically right, and not that many people are right (Rousseau was another one, Hobbes and Machiavelli too) so it's worth talking about those who are. Of course most of what he's saying is not "workable", but we tend to forget that the not being "workable" part is specific to a technological society like ours and thus maybe the "technological society" part is the problem itself. Yes, if you want to keep nuclear power plants running you need a technocracy [1] that you need to have educated before the fact, but maybe we've been looking at all this the wrong way all the time and we don't actually need nuclear power plants and we don't need super-sonic flights. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibDNwF8bjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fibDNwF8bjs
- bananaface 6y ago
  The amount of calories we're able to extract from the earth is proportionate to the amount of energy we can produce. If we stop generating large amounts of energy, the population will shrink dramatically. If we keep generating it, the population will eventually grow to exceed carrying capacity. It's the wrong level of abstraction. There is no answer.

santoshalper 6y ago

Illich reminds me a lot of Ayn Rand. Not so much for what they believe, but in the way that both of their worldviews appeal so much to sheltered but intelligent teenagers. If you have a very limited depth of understanding of the world and how complex it can be, they seem to have ALL the answers.

askvictor 6y ago

> If we deschooled, we would absolutely end up with a double-digit percentage of the population either illiterate, innumerate, or both. This is already the case with our current schooling system; there double-digit percentages of school leavers who are functionally illiterate, and even more who are innumerate.

JoelMcCracken 6y ago
Not enough people understand this. It blew my mind when I first learned about illiteracy rates among Americans. And once you understand innumeracy you begin to understand just how vulnerable people are to coercion. And how people think that 1% fatality rates are no big deal.
- jengleton 6y ago
  The illiteracy rate in the US is really quite incredible, with the federal government reporting something like 20% of the population to be "low literacy" https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2019179.asp https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2019179.asp
  - ljf 6y ago
    Wow - I really thought the first gp in this thread must be wrong, and then researched the UK and we are similar - around 20 to 25 percent. Blows my mind - it appears the levels haven't changed much since the 40s in the UK - which shocked me.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Are there many people who think 1% fatality rate is no big deal? I haven't seen many. But of course the illiterate would not be commenting much online. There are many who don't think COVID is a big deal, because it doesn't have anywhere close to a 1% fatality rate. But that's not quite the same thing.
  - JoelMcCracken 6y ago