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Holy cow you were not kidding…. > Illich’s central contention was that persons are relational beings embedded in a matrix of the natural cosmos, convivial comm
by liquidpele 3y ago
Holy cow you were not kidding….
> Illich’s central contention was that persons are relational beings embedded in a matrix of the natural cosmos, convivial community with others and, as a fallen but still faithful priest, God’s grace. As the maverick thinker saw it, Western modernity rent asunder this multidimensional oneness of “Life.”
The whole thing is full of this… sounds like Depak Chopra level word salad trying to hide the obvious behind confusing vocabulary.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoIt might be nice if >As the maverick thinker saw it was just "As he saw it" and maybe take out the fallen but still faithful priest bit as well. but the rest of the text is pretty straightforward what is meant. Synonyms suggested - torn apart instead of rent asunder.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nakedneuron 3y agoChatGPT to the rescue: Illich's main argument revolved around the idea that individuals are inherently social creatures, connected to the natural world, their communities, and, in his view as a religious person, to God's grace. He believed that Western modernity disrupted this holistic interconnectedness of life.
- glfharris 3y agoThat's so much more readable, even as someone who's read some Illich.
- maegul 3y agoI haven’t read Illich, but I like both. Obviously the original from the article is more verbose, and if one doesn’t like that or finds it difficult or distracting, I am by no means going to hold it against them and in fact sympathise. But there is a certain degree of imagery to the original text that I benefit from and enjoy. Rending asunder is quite different from “disrupt”; the generality of “relational beings embedded…” is meaningful compared to the somewhat trite “social creatures” … etc. Generally, many journalistic writers could really benefit from realising they are and probably never will be novelists or poets and that their job is to educate, edify and provide information and insight, which is often impeded by their insistence on exercising their literary rather than communication skills. But also, digging into the expressiveness one can muster with their language can work well for those willing and able to digest it when the topic or mood suits the language. Personally, I got the feeling that this article falls more in the latter than the former, though I can see the friction some would have with the style.
- woodruffw 3y agoThis both ablates (Illich’s “fallen” status) and distorts (natural cosmos vs. natural world, the latter being “scientific” in exactly the way Illich ordinarily critiques) the original meaning of the sentence. ChatGPT is a remarkable achievement in machine learning, but this demonstrates exactly why it can’t be used to accurately summarize complex ideas.
- oa335 3y agoWhat is wrong with that passage? I think it very artfully and concisely describes Ilichs views.
- liquidpele 3y agoArtful yes, concise... I don't think that word means what you think it means.