13 ms·

Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

180 points by truculent 3y ago

stanislavb 3y ago
Has anyone read any of his books? What do you think?
- peter_retief 3y ago
  I am keen to read some.
- flipbrad 3y ago
  I have read a few, and - at least when I was a more open-minded young adult - thought they were really insightful. I wouldn't say they're 100% on the money, but there are still many moments in life when something I see really resonates with what he wrote. Definitely worth reading and digesting.
- ttoinou 3y ago
  Read 90% of them yeah. It's amazing. If you like the free software movement, Tools for Conviviality is a must read. But my favorite is Deschooling Society He defines his own terms throughout his bibliography and everything makes so much sense put together (you can apply his logic to the health system, language, knowledge through written books, industrial society, education, gender vs. sex etc.). He didn't tried to make his writing too complex to appear like an advanced intellectual nobody gets, he really tries to make his messages understood, so reading him is also not a pain. Weirdly, only left wing people read him. But he's actually quite libertarian compatible
  - bmj 3y ago
    >Weirdly, only left wing people read him. But he's actually quite libertarian compatible. There are quite a few on the Right that read Illich as well. He was, essentially, a communitarian anarchist. Some of his thought is well-received on the Right, particularly his critique of institutionalized education and medicine.
    - ttoinou 3y ago
      Interesting, I've never read about that. Who are those people ? Unless you mean people forming Kibbutz, then yeah
      - quacked 3y ago
        There's a heavily online right-wing presence that admires Ilich; of the people who could be described as "right-wing" I've seen that talk about Ilich, most are either hobby homesteaders or people with advanced CS/engineering degrees that read a lot of "online rationalist" work about a decade ago.
        markhahn 3y ago
        right-wingers including, it is claimed, Putin.
- bmj 3y ago
  I've read a handful, and agree that he truly understood the effects of technology and Modernity. It's worth reading the French sociologist/theologian Jacques Ellul, too (they were contemporaries).
  - ttoinou 3y ago
    I like Ellul unfortunately he is much more cloudy in his statements and analysis, it takes much more energy to decipher (even in French) and make your own what he's saying. I'd rather recommend reading basics stuff like Guy Debord (Society of Spectacle), André Gorz (Métamorphoses du travail), Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Kohr (The Breakdown of Nations). A little bit of Bourdieu cannot hurt either
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Mumford and Postman also expand that list. Of Illich I've only fully read "Tools for Conviviality", which I'd say is a manifesto for Humane Technology of a kind.
      - ttoinou 3y ago
        Thank you for the recs ! Would you have one book per author to rec ? And indeed Illich is not anti-tech, he's not a luddite
        nonrandomstring 3y ago
        For Lewis Mumford [0] maybe "Myth of the Machine" - with his concept of "megatechnics" - is more readable than the earlier "Technics and Civilisation", but his earlier insights seem ever more relevant. For Neil Postman [1] the standard reader is "Technopoly", but for me "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is a real treat. It was literally a description of social media and modern "performance politics" 40 years too early. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman
        3y ago
- undebuggable 3y ago
  Yes, Deschooling Society - iconoclastic and inspiring.
- code51 3y ago
  I think Deschooling Society is a great read, gets the problem with schools and education right. However it fails to offer a compelling solution. Why? Because it fails to address the complexity of modern day subjects to learn.
- spinfz 3y ago
  I guess a great starting point would be "Ivan Illich in Conversation" by David Cayley, which is basically an exhaustive interview with Illich that touches on almost every different stage of his ideas.
- marttt 3y ago
  A great introduction to his lines of thinking was (to me) "Ivan Illich in Conversation" by David Cayley [0]. Essentially a book-length interview. While I find him truly interesting, there is an annoyance: he is strongly critical about "traditional" school system, while holding a PhD himself. I've always found this kind of thing somewhat controversial. I wonder if he did consider dropping out during his studies; and if not, then why. It somewhat feels like first getting the most out of a (by and large still hugely beneficial) system for your own good -- and then stating that actually, this is a remarkably harmful system. (Side note: I read "Deschooling Society" quite a while ago; might not remember the main ideas all that well, so please correct me if this feedback is too harsh, or superficial.) In that light, guys like the Finnish ecophilosopher (and fisherman) Pentti Linkola [1] seem more "true". As in, Linkola was heavily critical towards contemporary schooling, but he also dropped out of university at an early stage of his studies already, and (as much as I understand) lived in a cabin in the forest his entire life. It's a different path than first finishing a PhD and then becoming a notable critic of "the system". I don't think Illich would've had the same analytical capabilities and intellectual horizon if he would not have trained his thinking in a doctorate program. Then again, Pentti Linkola's father was rector of Helsinki University, and also member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. So I imagine Pentti the son was steeped in sciences and academic thinking at an early age already. Who knows, maybe that's what made him suspicious in the first place (no illusions?). A biography of Linkola is also published in Finland, but haven't read that one. I will definitely read more of Illich, though. He is really clever and to the point in oh-so-many things. 0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253081.Ivan_Illich_in_Conversation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253081.Ivan_Illich_in_Co... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola
  - ako 3y ago
    You can disagree with something, but still do it because your environment expects you to do it. He might not have been able to succeed in his goals if he hadn’t gotten a phd, not because of the phd itself, but how companies and people perceive those with phds. It opens doors, that would otherwise remain shut. Similar to how no US president would ever say they don’t believe in god, as that would immediately alienate a large part of the voters. Usually, if you want to win inside a system, it means you have to play by the rules of the system.
- di4na 3y ago
  I have. And I think it is definitely worth it to read it, because he brings a lot of clarity to a lot of things. Buuuuuut. In the end, I think Illich fail his own test. He claims to analyze systemic impacts, but fail to recognize the systemic impacts of his own solutions. I always use the "speed" example for this. Illich basically advocate for more or less banning the use of any mean of transportation faster than a bicycle. The arguments do make sense actually, in a lot of ways, and it is important to keep these in mind. But he acknowledge that there are real use case for engine driven vehicules and fast speed, for things like medical or emergency needs. Make sense right? So from his pov, noone should have engine car, except for ambulance, medical transportation (like transplant), fire engine, etc. Where it becomes a net good. What he utterly fail to realise is that without the fast transportation and the whole system built to ... actually build and distribute these cars to everyone, then building these emergency vehicules and developing the engineering for them cannot happen. Not only it is cost prohibitive (because of reuse of means of production, mass production impact on cost, etc) but also it is really hard to actually engineer this stuff without a lot of experiments and needs for it, which do not happen if you restrict the use of these stuff to a limited niche. Engineering need practical use of the tool to be able to learn about the use to make it more efficient and better to the point that it benefits everyone. That of course does not negate the point that these technologies do have negative impact on society. But thinking that you can wholly separate the positive from the negative, banning the later but getting the former, is not as simple as calling it out. You need to consider the systemic effects and really think through the long term and systemic impact of your action. Something that Illich seems to only apply to other people actions, but not to his own remedy or analysis.
  - palata 3y ago
    > Not only it is cost prohibitive (because of reuse of means of production, mass production impact on cost, etc) but also it is really hard to actually engineer this stuff without a lot of experiments and needs for it, which do not happen if you restrict the use of these stuff to a limited niche. Couldn't one argue that there is not that much engineering needed to keep producing emergency vehicles that we already have? It's not like an ambulance fundamentally changes every year. Would each unit be more expensive without mass production? Most likely, but... it's not like firefighter trucks are mass-produced for people who use them to go to work, and some of them are adapted for firefighters, right? Still it seems like it's not cost-prohibitive. Another example is military equipment, where I believe countries try to produce more locally (for obvious security reasons). Military equipment is typically much more expensive than consumer products, but still... it's there. So it seems like it's not completely impossible, right?
- base698 3y ago
  One of the notable things from "Deschooling" is his solution. Illich describes was could be thought of as Meetups using the internet. Hobbyist experts with common interests that can serve as teachers and demonstrators of skills. One of the big insights is that today you have teachers who are certified in teaching and experts in a particular thing. The two are very rarely present in the same person. > In deschooled society professionals could no longer claim the trust of their clients on the basis of their curricular pedigree, or ensure their standing by simply referring their clients to other professionals who approved of their schooling. Instead of placing trust in professionals, it should be possible, at any time, for any potential client to consult with other experienced clients of a professional about their satisfaction with him by means of another peer network easily set up by computer, or by a number of other means. Such networks could be seen as public utilities which permitted students to choose their teachers or patients their healers.
  - wslh 3y ago
    It seems like he is talking about influencers, where there is a relationship that is based on abstract metrics like number of followers and unclear success. Here I use abstract and metrics together to convey the idea that the metrics does not give a real meaning. Obviously there are many people who perfectly deserves their "followers" but it is gamed by other people removing real meaning.
    - wanderingbit 3y ago
      That’s now how I understood the quote. I thought of it more like if you went to go hire a doctor, then the best people to review that doctor would not be the university that gave the doctor their credential, or even the doctor’s patients; it would be the doctor’s colleagues who understand the doctor’s strengths and weaknesses best because they are the only ones who have the direct relationship as well as technical skills to compare against.
      - eszed 3y ago
        I think that's incorrect. He wants clients to consult other clients, not professional colleagues. I like it in principle, but in practice it's too amenable to gaming (witness every review section and spam-fed product listing in my search results) to actually work at scale.
- motohagiography 3y ago
  Can recommend this idea of his that is quite relevant today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly
peter_retief 3y ago
This is great, "The Virtue Of Enoughness" Kind of how I try and live, there are some things I kind of need like coffee and internet.
- toyg 3y ago
  The problems typically arise when someone decides that everything everyone needs is coffee and internet. What is enough for you might not be enough for someone else, particularly people who grew up resenting the fact that they only had a few things.
  - peter_retief 3y ago
    It is how I want to live, I don't want to impose it on others and don't even do it that well myself. The early Stoics were influenced by the Cynics, the word Cynic apparently means stray dog in Greek. Various philosophers, such as the Pythagoreans, had advocated simple living in the centuries preceding the Cynics. So it is a very old idea.
thriftwy 3y ago
Not to be confused with Ivan Ilyin or with Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin).
- ajuc 3y ago
  I was very confused for a moment why HN promotes russian fascism :)
  - tazjin 3y ago
    Having some difficulty with the meaning of words, hm?
    - bigbillheck 3y ago
      You're the one who complained about fancy vocabulary.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      Illyin was a russian fascist. Openly so.
      - thriftwy 3y ago
        It was during these times when a significant chunk of American establishment and some members of British royal family were not less fascist leaning than him. I understand that they're also all not vogue now, but it still has to be reminded. He moved to Switzerland before German fasicsm turned out real bad.
        ajuc 3y ago
        That explains why he wasn't shunned by western society back then, it doesn't explain why putin rehabilitated him recently, and it certainly wouldn't explain promoting his books on hackernews (which was why I was initially confused about this whole thread on hn).
ofrzeta 3y ago
Somehow I doubt the time has come for "truths so radical that they question[ed] the very foundations of modern certitudes".
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Soon most likely
- podgorniy 3y ago
  Look at people who are consuming corporate-paid subscription to "Headspace" and alike meditation apps. Ironically these apps are solving the problem created by latest capitalism (or corporatism if you wish): unsatisfaction with ones life. People searching for piece in corporate-sponsored meditation apps is a direct representation described in these lines from the article: > Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others” from above and afar in the name of advancing progress. “I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value,” he wrote in “Tools for Conviviality.” “I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.”
  - markhahn 3y ago
    I know it's trendy, but how is capitalism/corporatism the cause of dissatisfaction with life? people were all satisfied a thousand years ago? honestly curious...
palata 3y ago
> In his words, “By breaching the limits set on man by nature and history, industrial society engendered disability and suffering in the name of eliminating disability and suffering. … The warming biosphere is making it intolerable to think of industrial growth as progress; now it appears to us as aggression against the human condition.” This resonates with me.
- heresie-dabord 3y ago
  > industrial society I dislike blaming "industrial society" as an impersonal, abstract villain. The fact is that it is humans who may either organise themselves and build a society or fail in the trying. Modern industry and the modern economy have achieved remarkable, good things on a global scale. Even on the scale of our solar system, if we consider the exploration of other planets. The fact is that humans have trouble thinking at scale. We had never achieved the scale of activity that we have in our modern world. The individual human has always harboured resentments and been subject to pyschological problems and limitations. We cannot expect to scale human growth without confronting human psychology. That said, fanaticism and the petrostate kakistocracies are the worst elements of our world today. It's their scale that has become an existential threat. Although I welcome an intelligent discussion, how we can make the world a better place in a practical way is the constructive mode that I prefer. > individual mobility turns into collective congestion when everyone has a car This is a pertinent example to illustrate. The manufacturing is brilliant, the machines are ingenious, but humans fail at scale if they see only selfish interest. We certainly can do better. > One does not have to embrace Illich’s romanticization of premodern times This "embrace" would be my fundamental objection to his solutionless critique.
  - palata 3y ago
    > the modern economy have achieved remarkable, good things on a global scale. There is no doubt about that. But it has also brought us into a mass extinction (that's happening right now), it brought climate change (it will add to the biodiversity issue), and it relies very heavily on fossil fuels which are not unlimited. > to his solutionless critique. I believe that we need to agree on the problem before we can find solutions. I strongly believe that we have an energy problem, and the biodiversity loss and climate problem are consequences of it. In my view, we need to do less with less (a.k.a. degrow). Doesn't mean we "go back to the Middle Age", just that we address different challenges (instead of "how do I get people to buy an iPhone every year?", maybe "how do I get people to keep the benefits of smartphones without overconsumption?). The thing is that some people seem to believe that on the contrary, we should not care about our survival on Earth and start looking at other solar systems (which is, in my understanding of the current fundamental state of physics, absolutely impossible). Some even seem to believe that surviving on Mars would be better than "having less" on Earth... Of course we as a species probably won't agree, and therefore we won't really control where it goes: we will just have to deal with whatever happens.
dang 3y ago
Related. Others? Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 - Sept 2021 (17 comments) Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 - Feb 2021 (31 comments) Deschooling Society (1970) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 - July 2020 (195 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Tools for Conviviality (1973) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21512587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21512587 - Nov 2019 (6 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13408250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13408250 - Jan 2017 (1 comment) Silence is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402711 - March 2013 (2 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=285107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=285107 - Aug 2008 (45 comments) A vision of social networking from 1971 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257094 - July 2008 (1 comment) Edit: a bunch of comments from other threads too - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22ivan%20illich%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- truculent 3y ago
  A touch less related perhaps, but there are many links from The Convivial Society newsletter whose name is taken from Illich’s work: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=convivialsociety https://hn.algolia.com/?q=convivialsociety
  - ggpsv 3y ago
    This is a great resource to get into Ivan Illich. The writing refers a lot to Illich's work, and there are a couple of episodes where it is discussed with people close to Illich. Quite related, I'd say! The name, however, is a play of Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" and Jaques Ellul's "The Technological Society".
    - 3y ago
tazjin 3y ago
I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- smokefoot 3y ago
  I was about to make the same comment. Literary magazines tend to encourage this style.
- fakecontent000 3y ago
  [dead]
- gumby 3y ago
  The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained. I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.
  - smokefoot 3y ago
    Not so much the vocabulary but the excessive use of adjectives and the overall verbosity. It took ten paragraphs for me to understand anything new about who this guy was and what his worldview was.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Pleonexia might be used in some certain way by Illich, but it's not his neologism. Or particularly new either. It's an ancient Greek word meaning greed or literally "apetite for (ever) more", where pleon = more, coming from PIE root for the same meaning.
    - 3y ago
hcks 3y ago
> critique of modern certitudes > it’s bottom of the barrel degrowthism Every. Single. Time.
- roenxi 3y ago
  I'll add in that "we should get rid of all these modern flimflam" is generally a rallying cry by quite well off people who choose not to see the obvious future of poor people getting squelched as resources dry up. There are a lot of problems faced by modern society, and those problems are uncomfortably complicated. Most people don't understand the details of them. However, the incredible productivity of modern humans is one of several fragile bricks in the wall between us and the unspeakably horrible lifestyles of centuries ago. People may not like industrial society. It may even kill us all, looking at the gently escalating tensions between nuclear powers. But the fact is it has been far better than all the alternatives on the table. The grass is not greener over there.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >I'll add in that "we should get rid of all these modern flimflam" is generally a rallying cry by quite well off people who choose not to see the obvious future of poor people getting squelched as resources dry up. Poor people like degrowth just fine. When they let them, that is, and not, e.g. take their land and their forests and their livelihoods. Also, that the first world pro-growthers care for the "poor people" is hypocrisy of the highest order. If it was a choice between them letting the third world "peasants" die of hunger in exchange for the first world continuing their "way of life" and "progress" they wouldn't even blink. In fact, it's not even theoritical, this has been a choice the first world consistently made for centuries: milking them, impoverising them, stealing their lands and resources, and even making them downright their subjects for centuries to fuel their own greed and growth.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      That is the thing though, you're privileging good intentions above good results. None of the pro-growthers "care" about China, they just like the benefits bring to them personally. Nevertheless, more than a billion people you consider peasants thrive. The degrowthers literally want them impoverished so that they can score whatever weird points care earns them in their twisted framework. It is a sick philosophy. Hopefully they keep losing battles long enough for Africa to get up on its feet.
deleted 3y ago
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haltist 3y ago
This is very well written. Thanks for posting. Some time ago I read Neil Postman and if you are interested in culture and technology then Technopoly is a pretty good book to read.
aguacaterojo 3y ago
I found Deschooling Society book on my dad's bookshelf about 9 years ago. No idea why he had it. I quit university about 3/4 way through reading it. I'm poorly adapted to the cadence and mechanisms of institutional education and this guy provided an alternative that I have employed since to an effect further than I had imagined was possible.
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Can you give us a bit more with regards to the most successfull or helpful bits in your experience?
  - aguacaterojo 3y ago
    Anecdotally speaking, the deeply ingrained cultural view around me is that education is attained through educational institutions. One of Illich's core arguments against traditional schooling is that in fact the mechanisms of school are not the major contributor to one's aptitudes. When I traced my most promising or useful aptitudes, I agreed that school was not where these were developed. Having one dissenting and well-reasoned voice was important in being able to follow through with experimenting with a self-driven educational model. Illich demonstrates real examples in learning Spanish through a dominant institutional approach versus intensive, ad-hoc immersive study groups to claim a growing disconnect between method & goal as well as agency problems arising in institutional education (credentialism, self-justification etc). For me, replacing the learning confirmation and feedback tools with a real-world cause/effect, market-driven approach (job interviews, low stakes freelancing, hobby projects) well aligned my intrinsic motivation with my educational goals. Retrospectively, an institutional computer-science education would have had its advantages, though I don't think I was ready for it. I do think our dominant educational approaches are very far from optimal for a big subset of students, we haven't ventured far enough into experimenting with alternatives and from a macro lens, I definitely sympathise with the idea that broadly speaking, it begins to look like a grift designed to continue & justify its own existence.
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
jhbadger 3y ago
Something that goes without comment by the uncritical author is Illich's vile comment that medical science and its quest to extend life at all costs "extends the suffering of cripples". In other words, he doesn't see the life of disabled people as having value.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Speaking as someone who has teetered on the edge of disability most of my life, so does essentially everyone else. We tie health insurance/access to healthcare to your employer for a few reasons, but I think fundamentally it's because we believe that those who cannot work are undeserving.
  - markhahn 3y ago
    the healthcare-employment thing is mostly American. but about cannot work -> undeserving, I think it's mostly idle -> undeserving. Americans are terribly worried about idleness.
- hudon 3y ago
  To say that disabled people's lives have no value is vile, but that is not what he's saying. It's the unnecessary prolonging of suffering that Ivan Illich speaks against, the pressure to do everything humanly possible to eek out any extra week on one's lifespan, even if that extra week is a miserable one spent in agony. Now that is not to say that we should just jump off a bridge at the mere sight of suffering, but rather discern how our life is meant to be lived while letting go of our need to control everything.
  - jhbadger 3y ago
    I understand that argument, and respect the choices of people who choose not to be hospitalized at the end of their life but to die at home, but that's not the same thing as claiming that it is wrong to "extend the suffering of cripples". I can kind of excuse the use of the nasty slur "cripples" given that this interview was decades ago, but the strong implication is that he thought that disabled people just sat around suffering and would prefer not to have the medical technology needed to keep them living.
indigo945 3y ago
> Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative > intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons > with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the > conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon > them by others” from above and afar in the name of > advancing progress. For someone who claims to criticize "Western" thought, this appears to be quite deeply steeped in a particular Western prejudice, namely that conviviality contrasts with order and obedience. From a Confucian perspective, they are one and the same - the "demands made upon them by others" are the very basis enabling people to engage with society and to therefore realize themselves as moral subjects. Without the demands of productivity (or, equivalently, the demands of effective statecraft), conviviality is therefore impossible, or, at the very least, meaningless.
- narinxas 3y ago
  he's a westerner, clearly; nobody has contested this. it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response already to enact certain behavior. the difference is between "inner impulse from the individual outwards to their environment" and "external environment draws out a conditioned response from within the individual" but how you say that Confucian (i.e. chinese) thought is different but also not really is ver interesting. considering "freedom with responsability" as the highest value in contrast with "harmony with your surroundings"
  - indigo945 3y ago
    > it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous > creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND > the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response > already to enact certain behavior. Of course I see it, but, again, understanding this as a meaningful distinction is a cultural prejudice. Besides, in Confucian thought, moral behavior is the result of consciously cultivating moral feelings, in at least partial contrast to following spontaneous impulses. Some Confucian thinkers, like Mencius, do believe that humans have an innately good and moral inclination that precedes conscious learning, but even Mencius does not consider this to be a stable moral foundation to stand on. Van Norden, in his translation of Mencius, comments on a dialogue between Mencius and a student that although impulsive moral > inclinations manifest themselves spontaneously in everyone to a certain > degree, cultivation is necessary to fully develop them. Part of this > cultivation is using one’s heart, whose function (literally, “office”) is > “reflecting” [...]. What is the “it” the heart will “get” if it reflects? > Zhu Xi says it is the Pattern of whatever things or affairs one > encounters; to “get it” is to understand how things are and how they > should be. [1] This pattern (the Taiji, in Zhu Xi's parlance) is, of course, highly hierarchical. And it is, as I think becomes clear here, not just the correct and natural order of the cosmos, but also the fundamental requirement to correctly process one's own (social) impulses. Without this moral cultivation, man is no better than an animal, slave to his own desires. To wit, it's not about "freedom with responsibility", it's about "freedom through responsibility": (consciously) conditioned responses are the very form liberation takes. As an aside: I deliberately didn't say "Chinese" thought, as Daoism - without a doubt a Chinese philosophy - turns this idea on its head, advocating to free man not through, but from conviviality. [1]: Van Norden 2008: Mengzi. With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. P. 156.
slibhb 3y ago
Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Similarly, we don't have to drag out our final years: we're free to opt out of medical treatments. You can also opt out of modernity in smaller ways, decisions like not owning a car, not watching TV, and so on.
- walleeee 3y ago
  I would contest the notion that a lack of religiosity must magnify discontent with death. Also it remains rather difficult to "opt out" of a protracted, likely intubated decline, at least in the US. Moreover there is no opting out of modernity writ large. This is the nature of multi-polar traps: choosing not to join an arms race is a local, temporary reprieve. The optionality modernity seems determined to optimize for is narrow at best. At worst it threatens its own end
  - ses1984 3y ago
    >I would contest the notion that a lack of religiosity must magnify discontent with death It’s the other way around. Lack of religiosity is the default state and with it you get the default discontent with death, but a religion with an afterlife could reduce discontent with death.
    - telmo 3y ago
      > Lack of religiosity is the default state On the contrary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligio... > and with it you get the default discontent with death That is a huge assumption. There is a huge variety of ways in which societies, cultures and individuals relate and have related with death.
      - 3y ago
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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cainxinth 3y ago
> *But he was blistering in his critique of our medical systems oriented toward postponing the end as long as possible. “We now see that a majority of these medical achievements are deceptive misnomers, actually prolonging the suffering of madmen, cripples, old fools and monsters,” he wrote.* That one has certainly proved prescient. Medical science has gotten frighteningly good at prolonging life even in cases when it probably shouldn’t because the patient has no quality of life.
- mdgrech23 3y ago
  Here in the US and many other first world countries the population is getting very old. We'll need to bring in younger people who look different to keep the average age down. This obviously has all sorts of side effects. The other problem is the wealth inequality it creates. Wealth compounds with time plus the older generation grew up in a boom period. Add in the fact that they were able to buy cheap housing which has appreciated by a large amount and are effectively blocking new affordable housing from being created in many areas (NIMBY's) and we have a very interesting predicament.
  - Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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jonjacky 3y ago
The computer scientist Stephen Kell has made an Illich-like critique of computing and software development practices. I recall Kell mentions that he ran across Illich's work after beginning the critique but was struck by the similarities: Software Against Humanity? An Illichian perspective on the industrial era of software https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/kell19software-slides.pdf https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/... De-Escalating Software https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/kell19de-escalating-intro-script.txt https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/... The software developer Kartik Agaram cites Illich's 'Tools for Conviviality' as an influence on his Mu system: http://akkartik.name/akkartik-convivial-20200607.pdf http://akkartik.name/akkartik-convivial-20200607.pdf
nathias 3y ago
critique so radical it isn't philosophical, it's theological

180 points by truculent 3y ago

stanislavb 3y ago

Has anyone read any of his books? What do you think?

peter_retief 3y ago
I am keen to read some.
flipbrad 3y ago
I have read a few, and - at least when I was a more open-minded young adult - thought they were really insightful. I wouldn't say they're 100% on the money, but there are still many moments in life when something I see really resonates with what he wrote. Definitely worth reading and digesting.
ttoinou 3y ago
Read 90% of them yeah. It's amazing. If you like the free software movement, Tools for Conviviality is a must read. But my favorite is Deschooling Society He defines his own terms throughout his bibliography and everything makes so much sense put together (you can apply his logic to the health system, language, knowledge through written books, industrial society, education, gender vs. sex etc.). He didn't tried to make his writing too complex to appear like an advanced intellectual nobody gets, he really tries to make his messages understood, so reading him is also not a pain. Weirdly, only left wing people read him. But he's actually quite libertarian compatible
- bmj 3y ago
  >Weirdly, only left wing people read him. But he's actually quite libertarian compatible. There are quite a few on the Right that read Illich as well. He was, essentially, a communitarian anarchist. Some of his thought is well-received on the Right, particularly his critique of institutionalized education and medicine.
  - ttoinou 3y ago
    Interesting, I've never read about that. Who are those people ? Unless you mean people forming Kibbutz, then yeah
    - quacked 3y ago
      There's a heavily online right-wing presence that admires Ilich; of the people who could be described as "right-wing" I've seen that talk about Ilich, most are either hobby homesteaders or people with advanced CS/engineering degrees that read a lot of "online rationalist" work about a decade ago.
      - markhahn 3y ago
        right-wingers including, it is claimed, Putin.
bmj 3y ago
I've read a handful, and agree that he truly understood the effects of technology and Modernity. It's worth reading the French sociologist/theologian Jacques Ellul, too (they were contemporaries).
- ttoinou 3y ago
  I like Ellul unfortunately he is much more cloudy in his statements and analysis, it takes much more energy to decipher (even in French) and make your own what he's saying. I'd rather recommend reading basics stuff like Guy Debord (Society of Spectacle), André Gorz (Métamorphoses du travail), Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Kohr (The Breakdown of Nations). A little bit of Bourdieu cannot hurt either
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Mumford and Postman also expand that list. Of Illich I've only fully read "Tools for Conviviality", which I'd say is a manifesto for Humane Technology of a kind.
    - ttoinou 3y ago
      Thank you for the recs ! Would you have one book per author to rec ? And indeed Illich is not anti-tech, he's not a luddite
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        For Lewis Mumford [0] maybe "Myth of the Machine" - with his concept of "megatechnics" - is more readable than the earlier "Technics and Civilisation", but his earlier insights seem ever more relevant. For Neil Postman [1] the standard reader is "Technopoly", but for me "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is a real treat. It was literally a description of social media and modern "performance politics" 40 years too early. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman
      - 3y ago
undebuggable 3y ago
Yes, Deschooling Society - iconoclastic and inspiring.
code51 3y ago
I think Deschooling Society is a great read, gets the problem with schools and education right. However it fails to offer a compelling solution. Why? Because it fails to address the complexity of modern day subjects to learn.
spinfz 3y ago
I guess a great starting point would be "Ivan Illich in Conversation" by David Cayley, which is basically an exhaustive interview with Illich that touches on almost every different stage of his ideas.
marttt 3y ago
A great introduction to his lines of thinking was (to me) "Ivan Illich in Conversation" by David Cayley [0]. Essentially a book-length interview. While I find him truly interesting, there is an annoyance: he is strongly critical about "traditional" school system, while holding a PhD himself. I've always found this kind of thing somewhat controversial. I wonder if he did consider dropping out during his studies; and if not, then why. It somewhat feels like first getting the most out of a (by and large still hugely beneficial) system for your own good -- and then stating that actually, this is a remarkably harmful system. (Side note: I read "Deschooling Society" quite a while ago; might not remember the main ideas all that well, so please correct me if this feedback is too harsh, or superficial.) In that light, guys like the Finnish ecophilosopher (and fisherman) Pentti Linkola [1] seem more "true". As in, Linkola was heavily critical towards contemporary schooling, but he also dropped out of university at an early stage of his studies already, and (as much as I understand) lived in a cabin in the forest his entire life. It's a different path than first finishing a PhD and then becoming a notable critic of "the system". I don't think Illich would've had the same analytical capabilities and intellectual horizon if he would not have trained his thinking in a doctorate program. Then again, Pentti Linkola's father was rector of Helsinki University, and also member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. So I imagine Pentti the son was steeped in sciences and academic thinking at an early age already. Who knows, maybe that's what made him suspicious in the first place (no illusions?). A biography of Linkola is also published in Finland, but haven't read that one. I will definitely read more of Illich, though. He is really clever and to the point in oh-so-many things. 0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253081.Ivan_Illich_in_Conversation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253081.Ivan_Illich_in_Co... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola
- ako 3y ago
  You can disagree with something, but still do it because your environment expects you to do it. He might not have been able to succeed in his goals if he hadn’t gotten a phd, not because of the phd itself, but how companies and people perceive those with phds. It opens doors, that would otherwise remain shut. Similar to how no US president would ever say they don’t believe in god, as that would immediately alienate a large part of the voters. Usually, if you want to win inside a system, it means you have to play by the rules of the system.
di4na 3y ago
I have. And I think it is definitely worth it to read it, because he brings a lot of clarity to a lot of things. Buuuuuut. In the end, I think Illich fail his own test. He claims to analyze systemic impacts, but fail to recognize the systemic impacts of his own solutions. I always use the "speed" example for this. Illich basically advocate for more or less banning the use of any mean of transportation faster than a bicycle. The arguments do make sense actually, in a lot of ways, and it is important to keep these in mind. But he acknowledge that there are real use case for engine driven vehicules and fast speed, for things like medical or emergency needs. Make sense right? So from his pov, noone should have engine car, except for ambulance, medical transportation (like transplant), fire engine, etc. Where it becomes a net good. What he utterly fail to realise is that without the fast transportation and the whole system built to ... actually build and distribute these cars to everyone, then building these emergency vehicules and developing the engineering for them cannot happen. Not only it is cost prohibitive (because of reuse of means of production, mass production impact on cost, etc) but also it is really hard to actually engineer this stuff without a lot of experiments and needs for it, which do not happen if you restrict the use of these stuff to a limited niche. Engineering need practical use of the tool to be able to learn about the use to make it more efficient and better to the point that it benefits everyone. That of course does not negate the point that these technologies do have negative impact on society. But thinking that you can wholly separate the positive from the negative, banning the later but getting the former, is not as simple as calling it out. You need to consider the systemic effects and really think through the long term and systemic impact of your action. Something that Illich seems to only apply to other people actions, but not to his own remedy or analysis.
- palata 3y ago
  > Not only it is cost prohibitive (because of reuse of means of production, mass production impact on cost, etc) but also it is really hard to actually engineer this stuff without a lot of experiments and needs for it, which do not happen if you restrict the use of these stuff to a limited niche. Couldn't one argue that there is not that much engineering needed to keep producing emergency vehicles that we already have? It's not like an ambulance fundamentally changes every year. Would each unit be more expensive without mass production? Most likely, but... it's not like firefighter trucks are mass-produced for people who use them to go to work, and some of them are adapted for firefighters, right? Still it seems like it's not cost-prohibitive. Another example is military equipment, where I believe countries try to produce more locally (for obvious security reasons). Military equipment is typically much more expensive than consumer products, but still... it's there. So it seems like it's not completely impossible, right?
base698 3y ago
One of the notable things from "Deschooling" is his solution. Illich describes was could be thought of as Meetups using the internet. Hobbyist experts with common interests that can serve as teachers and demonstrators of skills. One of the big insights is that today you have teachers who are certified in teaching and experts in a particular thing. The two are very rarely present in the same person. > In deschooled society professionals could no longer claim the trust of their clients on the basis of their curricular pedigree, or ensure their standing by simply referring their clients to other professionals who approved of their schooling. Instead of placing trust in professionals, it should be possible, at any time, for any potential client to consult with other experienced clients of a professional about their satisfaction with him by means of another peer network easily set up by computer, or by a number of other means. Such networks could be seen as public utilities which permitted students to choose their teachers or patients their healers.
- wslh 3y ago
  It seems like he is talking about influencers, where there is a relationship that is based on abstract metrics like number of followers and unclear success. Here I use abstract and metrics together to convey the idea that the metrics does not give a real meaning. Obviously there are many people who perfectly deserves their "followers" but it is gamed by other people removing real meaning.
  - wanderingbit 3y ago
    That’s now how I understood the quote. I thought of it more like if you went to go hire a doctor, then the best people to review that doctor would not be the university that gave the doctor their credential, or even the doctor’s patients; it would be the doctor’s colleagues who understand the doctor’s strengths and weaknesses best because they are the only ones who have the direct relationship as well as technical skills to compare against.
    - eszed 3y ago
      I think that's incorrect. He wants clients to consult other clients, not professional colleagues. I like it in principle, but in practice it's too amenable to gaming (witness every review section and spam-fed product listing in my search results) to actually work at scale.
motohagiography 3y ago
Can recommend this idea of his that is quite relevant today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly

peter_retief 3y ago

This is great, "The Virtue Of Enoughness" Kind of how I try and live, there are some things I kind of need like coffee and internet.

toyg 3y ago
The problems typically arise when someone decides that everything everyone needs is coffee and internet. What is enough for you might not be enough for someone else, particularly people who grew up resenting the fact that they only had a few things.
- peter_retief 3y ago
  It is how I want to live, I don't want to impose it on others and don't even do it that well myself. The early Stoics were influenced by the Cynics, the word Cynic apparently means stray dog in Greek. Various philosophers, such as the Pythagoreans, had advocated simple living in the centuries preceding the Cynics. So it is a very old idea.

thriftwy 3y ago

Not to be confused with Ivan Ilyin or with Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin).

ajuc 3y ago
I was very confused for a moment why HN promotes russian fascism :)
- tazjin 3y ago
  Having some difficulty with the meaning of words, hm?
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    You're the one who complained about fancy vocabulary.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    Illyin was a russian fascist. Openly so.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      It was during these times when a significant chunk of American establishment and some members of British royal family were not less fascist leaning than him. I understand that they're also all not vogue now, but it still has to be reminded. He moved to Switzerland before German fasicsm turned out real bad.
      - ajuc 3y ago
        That explains why he wasn't shunned by western society back then, it doesn't explain why putin rehabilitated him recently, and it certainly wouldn't explain promoting his books on hackernews (which was why I was initially confused about this whole thread on hn).

ofrzeta 3y ago

Somehow I doubt the time has come for "truths so radical that they question[ed] the very foundations of modern certitudes".

quickthrower2 3y ago
Soon most likely
podgorniy 3y ago
Look at people who are consuming corporate-paid subscription to "Headspace" and alike meditation apps. Ironically these apps are solving the problem created by latest capitalism (or corporatism if you wish): unsatisfaction with ones life. People searching for piece in corporate-sponsored meditation apps is a direct representation described in these lines from the article: > Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others” from above and afar in the name of advancing progress. “I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value,” he wrote in “Tools for Conviviality.” “I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.”
- markhahn 3y ago
  I know it's trendy, but how is capitalism/corporatism the cause of dissatisfaction with life? people were all satisfied a thousand years ago? honestly curious...

palata 3y ago

> In his words, “By breaching the limits set on man by nature and history, industrial society engendered disability and suffering in the name of eliminating disability and suffering. … The warming biosphere is making it intolerable to think of industrial growth as progress; now it appears to us as aggression against the human condition.” This resonates with me.

heresie-dabord 3y ago
> industrial society I dislike blaming "industrial society" as an impersonal, abstract villain. The fact is that it is humans who may either organise themselves and build a society or fail in the trying. Modern industry and the modern economy have achieved remarkable, good things on a global scale. Even on the scale of our solar system, if we consider the exploration of other planets. The fact is that humans have trouble thinking at scale. We had never achieved the scale of activity that we have in our modern world. The individual human has always harboured resentments and been subject to pyschological problems and limitations. We cannot expect to scale human growth without confronting human psychology. That said, fanaticism and the petrostate kakistocracies are the worst elements of our world today. It's their scale that has become an existential threat. Although I welcome an intelligent discussion, how we can make the world a better place in a practical way is the constructive mode that I prefer. > individual mobility turns into collective congestion when everyone has a car This is a pertinent example to illustrate. The manufacturing is brilliant, the machines are ingenious, but humans fail at scale if they see only selfish interest. We certainly can do better. > One does not have to embrace Illich’s romanticization of premodern times This "embrace" would be my fundamental objection to his solutionless critique.
- palata 3y ago
  > the modern economy have achieved remarkable, good things on a global scale. There is no doubt about that. But it has also brought us into a mass extinction (that's happening right now), it brought climate change (it will add to the biodiversity issue), and it relies very heavily on fossil fuels which are not unlimited. > to his solutionless critique. I believe that we need to agree on the problem before we can find solutions. I strongly believe that we have an energy problem, and the biodiversity loss and climate problem are consequences of it. In my view, we need to do less with less (a.k.a. degrow). Doesn't mean we "go back to the Middle Age", just that we address different challenges (instead of "how do I get people to buy an iPhone every year?", maybe "how do I get people to keep the benefits of smartphones without overconsumption?). The thing is that some people seem to believe that on the contrary, we should not care about our survival on Earth and start looking at other solar systems (which is, in my understanding of the current fundamental state of physics, absolutely impossible). Some even seem to believe that surviving on Mars would be better than "having less" on Earth... Of course we as a species probably won't agree, and therefore we won't really control where it goes: we will just have to deal with whatever happens.

dang 3y ago

Related. Others? Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 - Sept 2021 (17 comments) Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 - Feb 2021 (31 comments) Deschooling Society (1970) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 - July 2020 (195 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Tools for Conviviality (1973) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21512587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21512587 - Nov 2019 (6 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13408250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13408250 - Jan 2017 (1 comment) Silence is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402711 - March 2013 (2 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=285107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=285107 - Aug 2008 (45 comments) A vision of social networking from 1971 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257094 - July 2008 (1 comment) Edit: a bunch of comments from other threads too - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22ivan%20illich%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

truculent 3y ago
A touch less related perhaps, but there are many links from The Convivial Society newsletter whose name is taken from Illich’s work: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=convivialsociety https://hn.algolia.com/?q=convivialsociety
- ggpsv 3y ago
  This is a great resource to get into Ivan Illich. The writing refers a lot to Illich's work, and there are a couple of episodes where it is discussed with people close to Illich. Quite related, I'd say! The name, however, is a play of Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" and Jaques Ellul's "The Technological Society".
  - 3y ago

tazjin 3y ago

I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.

deleted 3y ago
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smokefoot 3y ago
I was about to make the same comment. Literary magazines tend to encourage this style.
fakecontent000 3y ago
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gumby 3y ago
The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained. I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.
- smokefoot 3y ago
  Not so much the vocabulary but the excessive use of adjectives and the overall verbosity. It took ten paragraphs for me to understand anything new about who this guy was and what his worldview was.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Pleonexia might be used in some certain way by Illich, but it's not his neologism. Or particularly new either. It's an ancient Greek word meaning greed or literally "apetite for (ever) more", where pleon = more, coming from PIE root for the same meaning.
  - 3y ago

hcks 3y ago

> critique of modern certitudes > it’s bottom of the barrel degrowthism Every. Single. Time.

roenxi 3y ago
I'll add in that "we should get rid of all these modern flimflam" is generally a rallying cry by quite well off people who choose not to see the obvious future of poor people getting squelched as resources dry up. There are a lot of problems faced by modern society, and those problems are uncomfortably complicated. Most people don't understand the details of them. However, the incredible productivity of modern humans is one of several fragile bricks in the wall between us and the unspeakably horrible lifestyles of centuries ago. People may not like industrial society. It may even kill us all, looking at the gently escalating tensions between nuclear powers. But the fact is it has been far better than all the alternatives on the table. The grass is not greener over there.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >I'll add in that "we should get rid of all these modern flimflam" is generally a rallying cry by quite well off people who choose not to see the obvious future of poor people getting squelched as resources dry up. Poor people like degrowth just fine. When they let them, that is, and not, e.g. take their land and their forests and their livelihoods. Also, that the first world pro-growthers care for the "poor people" is hypocrisy of the highest order. If it was a choice between them letting the third world "peasants" die of hunger in exchange for the first world continuing their "way of life" and "progress" they wouldn't even blink. In fact, it's not even theoritical, this has been a choice the first world consistently made for centuries: milking them, impoverising them, stealing their lands and resources, and even making them downright their subjects for centuries to fuel their own greed and growth.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    That is the thing though, you're privileging good intentions above good results. None of the pro-growthers "care" about China, they just like the benefits bring to them personally. Nevertheless, more than a billion people you consider peasants thrive. The degrowthers literally want them impoverished so that they can score whatever weird points care earns them in their twisted framework. It is a sick philosophy. Hopefully they keep losing battles long enough for Africa to get up on its feet.

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haltist 3y ago

This is very well written. Thanks for posting. Some time ago I read Neil Postman and if you are interested in culture and technology then Technopoly is a pretty good book to read.

aguacaterojo 3y ago

I found Deschooling Society book on my dad's bookshelf about 9 years ago. No idea why he had it. I quit university about 3/4 way through reading it. I'm poorly adapted to the cadence and mechanisms of institutional education and this guy provided an alternative that I have employed since to an effect further than I had imagined was possible.

Obscurity4340 3y ago
Can you give us a bit more with regards to the most successfull or helpful bits in your experience?
- aguacaterojo 3y ago
  Anecdotally speaking, the deeply ingrained cultural view around me is that education is attained through educational institutions. One of Illich's core arguments against traditional schooling is that in fact the mechanisms of school are not the major contributor to one's aptitudes. When I traced my most promising or useful aptitudes, I agreed that school was not where these were developed. Having one dissenting and well-reasoned voice was important in being able to follow through with experimenting with a self-driven educational model. Illich demonstrates real examples in learning Spanish through a dominant institutional approach versus intensive, ad-hoc immersive study groups to claim a growing disconnect between method & goal as well as agency problems arising in institutional education (credentialism, self-justification etc). For me, replacing the learning confirmation and feedback tools with a real-world cause/effect, market-driven approach (job interviews, low stakes freelancing, hobby projects) well aligned my intrinsic motivation with my educational goals. Retrospectively, an institutional computer-science education would have had its advantages, though I don't think I was ready for it. I do think our dominant educational approaches are very far from optimal for a big subset of students, we haven't ventured far enough into experimenting with alternatives and from a macro lens, I definitely sympathise with the idea that broadly speaking, it begins to look like a grift designed to continue & justify its own existence.
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago

jhbadger 3y ago

Something that goes without comment by the uncritical author is Illich's vile comment that medical science and its quest to extend life at all costs "extends the suffering of cripples". In other words, he doesn't see the life of disabled people as having value.

hotpotamus 3y ago
Speaking as someone who has teetered on the edge of disability most of my life, so does essentially everyone else. We tie health insurance/access to healthcare to your employer for a few reasons, but I think fundamentally it's because we believe that those who cannot work are undeserving.
- markhahn 3y ago
  the healthcare-employment thing is mostly American. but about cannot work -> undeserving, I think it's mostly idle -> undeserving. Americans are terribly worried about idleness.
hudon 3y ago
To say that disabled people's lives have no value is vile, but that is not what he's saying. It's the unnecessary prolonging of suffering that Ivan Illich speaks against, the pressure to do everything humanly possible to eek out any extra week on one's lifespan, even if that extra week is a miserable one spent in agony. Now that is not to say that we should just jump off a bridge at the mere sight of suffering, but rather discern how our life is meant to be lived while letting go of our need to control everything.
- jhbadger 3y ago
  I understand that argument, and respect the choices of people who choose not to be hospitalized at the end of their life but to die at home, but that's not the same thing as claiming that it is wrong to "extend the suffering of cripples". I can kind of excuse the use of the nasty slur "cripples" given that this interview was decades ago, but the strong implication is that he thought that disabled people just sat around suffering and would prefer not to have the medical technology needed to keep them living.

indigo945 3y ago

> Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative > intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons > with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the > conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon > them by others” from above and afar in the name of > advancing progress. For someone who claims to criticize "Western" thought, this appears to be quite deeply steeped in a particular Western prejudice, namely that conviviality contrasts with order and obedience. From a Confucian perspective, they are one and the same - the "demands made upon them by others" are the very basis enabling people to engage with society and to therefore realize themselves as moral subjects. Without the demands of productivity (or, equivalently, the demands of effective statecraft), conviviality is therefore impossible, or, at the very least, meaningless.

narinxas 3y ago
he's a westerner, clearly; nobody has contested this. it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response already to enact certain behavior. the difference is between "inner impulse from the individual outwards to their environment" and "external environment draws out a conditioned response from within the individual" but how you say that Confucian (i.e. chinese) thought is different but also not really is ver interesting. considering "freedom with responsability" as the highest value in contrast with "harmony with your surroundings"
- indigo945 3y ago
  > it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous > creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND > the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response > already to enact certain behavior. Of course I see it, but, again, understanding this as a meaningful distinction is a cultural prejudice. Besides, in Confucian thought, moral behavior is the result of consciously cultivating moral feelings, in at least partial contrast to following spontaneous impulses. Some Confucian thinkers, like Mencius, do believe that humans have an innately good and moral inclination that precedes conscious learning, but even Mencius does not consider this to be a stable moral foundation to stand on. Van Norden, in his translation of Mencius, comments on a dialogue between Mencius and a student that although impulsive moral > inclinations manifest themselves spontaneously in everyone to a certain > degree, cultivation is necessary to fully develop them. Part of this > cultivation is using one’s heart, whose function (literally, “office”) is > “reflecting” [...]. What is the “it” the heart will “get” if it reflects? > Zhu Xi says it is the Pattern of whatever things or affairs one > encounters; to “get it” is to understand how things are and how they > should be. [1] This pattern (the Taiji, in Zhu Xi's parlance) is, of course, highly hierarchical. And it is, as I think becomes clear here, not just the correct and natural order of the cosmos, but also the fundamental requirement to correctly process one's own (social) impulses. Without this moral cultivation, man is no better than an animal, slave to his own desires. To wit, it's not about "freedom with responsibility", it's about "freedom through responsibility": (consciously) conditioned responses are the very form liberation takes. As an aside: I deliberately didn't say "Chinese" thought, as Daoism - without a doubt a Chinese philosophy - turns this idea on its head, advocating to free man not through, but from conviviality. [1]: Van Norden 2008: Mengzi. With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. P. 156.

slibhb 3y ago

Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Similarly, we don't have to drag out our final years: we're free to opt out of medical treatments. You can also opt out of modernity in smaller ways, decisions like not owning a car, not watching TV, and so on.

walleeee 3y ago
I would contest the notion that a lack of religiosity must magnify discontent with death. Also it remains rather difficult to "opt out" of a protracted, likely intubated decline, at least in the US. Moreover there is no opting out of modernity writ large. This is the nature of multi-polar traps: choosing not to join an arms race is a local, temporary reprieve. The optionality modernity seems determined to optimize for is narrow at best. At worst it threatens its own end
- ses1984 3y ago
  >I would contest the notion that a lack of religiosity must magnify discontent with death It’s the other way around. Lack of religiosity is the default state and with it you get the default discontent with death, but a religion with an afterlife could reduce discontent with death.
  - telmo 3y ago
    > Lack of religiosity is the default state On the contrary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligio... > and with it you get the default discontent with death That is a huge assumption. There is a huge variety of ways in which societies, cultures and individuals relate and have related with death.
    - 3y ago

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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cainxinth 3y ago

> *But he was blistering in his critique of our medical systems oriented toward postponing the end as long as possible. “We now see that a majority of these medical achievements are deceptive misnomers, actually prolonging the suffering of madmen, cripples, old fools and monsters,” he wrote.* That one has certainly proved prescient. Medical science has gotten frighteningly good at prolonging life even in cases when it probably shouldn’t because the patient has no quality of life.

mdgrech23 3y ago
Here in the US and many other first world countries the population is getting very old. We'll need to bring in younger people who look different to keep the average age down. This obviously has all sorts of side effects. The other problem is the wealth inequality it creates. Wealth compounds with time plus the older generation grew up in a boom period. Add in the fact that they were able to buy cheap housing which has appreciated by a large amount and are effectively blocking new affordable housing from being created in many areas (NIMBY's) and we have a very interesting predicament.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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jonjacky 3y ago

The computer scientist Stephen Kell has made an Illich-like critique of computing and software development practices. I recall Kell mentions that he ran across Illich's work after beginning the critique but was struck by the similarities: Software Against Humanity? An Illichian perspective on the industrial era of software https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/kell19software-slides.pdf https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/... De-Escalating Software https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/kell19de-escalating-intro-script.txt https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/srk21/research/talks/... The software developer Kartik Agaram cites Illich's 'Tools for Conviviality' as an influence on his Mu system: http://akkartik.name/akkartik-convivial-20200607.pdf http://akkartik.name/akkartik-convivial-20200607.pdf

nathias 3y ago

critique so radical it isn't philosophical, it's theological