[HN Gopher] Ivan Illich's radical critique of modern certitudes ...
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Ivan Illich's radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)
Author : truculent
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-10-29 10:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noemamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noemamag.com)
| stanislavb wrote:
| Has anyone read any of his books? What do you think?
| peter_retief wrote:
| I am keen to read some.
| flipbrad wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| Interesting, I've never read about that. Who are those
| people ? Unless you mean people forming Kibbutz, then yeah
| quacked wrote:
| 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.
| bmj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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), Andre Gorz (Metamorphoses du
| travail), Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Kohr (The
| Breakdown of Nations). A little bit of Bourdieu cannot hurt
| either
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman
| crabmusket wrote:
| Luddites were not anti-tech, you're thinking of the Amish
| high_5 wrote:
| I think it would be also worthy of note they were also both
| Christians, albeit quite unorthodox in their thinking.
| undebuggable wrote:
| Yes, Deschooling Society - iconoclastic and inspiring.
| code51 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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_Co...
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola
| ako wrote:
| 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.
| chubot wrote:
| Yeah the tone and style of the text kinda bugged me. Who
| talks like that?
|
| I'm definitely sympathetic to the kind of ideas he's
| advocating, but it's dressed up in a language that makes it
| seem untrue. It's not surprising to me that he has a Ph.D.
|
| Picking something random from the beginning of _Tools for
| Conviviality_ :
|
| https://co-
| munity.net/system/files/ILLICH%201973_tools_for_c...
|
| _For several years at CIDOC in Cuernavaca we have conducted
| critical research on the monopoly of the industrial mode of
| production and have tried to define conceptually alternative
| modes that would fit a postindustrial age._ ...
|
| _Alternative devices for the production and marketing of
| mass education are technically more feasible and ethically
| less tolerable than compulsory graded schools. Such new
| educational arrangements are now on the verge of replacing
| traditional school systems in rich and in poor countries.
| They are potentially more effective in the conditioning of
| job-holders and consumers in an industrial economy. They are
| therefore more attractive for the management of present
| societies, more seductive for the people, and insidiously
| destructive of fundamental values._
|
| I think what he's saying is something like:
|
| > Schools use metrics likes grades that are slanted towards
| the goals of an industrial economy. This isn't the only way
| of organizing society, or the most ethical way. So let's
| consider alternatives.
|
| There is an extreme amount of passive voice in his writing
| (and yes I know passive voice can be useful; it's not used
| well here.)
|
| e.g. I'm having a lot of trouble parsing this part:
|
| _are technically more feasible and ethically less tolerable
| than compulsory graded schools_
|
| Is he actually saying that alternatives to mass education are
| LESS ethically tolerable than compulsory graded schools?
|
| That feels like the OPPOSITE of what he says elsewhere.
|
| If he actually used the active voice, it would be clear WHO
| considers it ethically less tolerable.
|
| So yeah my initial impression is this writing is very bad.
| quacked wrote:
| > Is he actually saying that alternatives to mass education
| are LESS ethically tolerable than compulsory graded
| schools?
|
| Yes, but he's hiding his point in poor phrasing.
| Compulsory, graded schools are one solution for
| disseminating mass education. Another solution for
| disseminating mass education are personalized learning
| platforms run by algorithms, or video courses that are
| taught by a teacher far away from the student. These
| futuristic, alternative solutions are "technically more
| feasible and ethically less tolerable".
| wanderingbit wrote:
| I think at the end of the day we want both perspectives. We
| all benefit from having people from both inside and outside
| the system critique the system. Certainly, the person who
| walks the walk and talks the talk deserves more street cred,
| but from the my layperson's perspective I'd much rather live
| in a world where I can read Linkola's and Illich's critiques
| and take the best parts from both of them.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > While I find him truly interesting, there is an annoyance:
| he is strongly critical about "traditional" school system,
| while holding a PhD himself.
|
| Isn't it possible that getting a PhD gave him a front row
| seat to observe the problems of academia? In some sense it
| lends credibility to his arguments since he's been on the
| inside.
| di4na wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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?
| paganel wrote:
| It's not only emergency vehicles, it's also stuff like
| mini-vans and lorries that keep us well-fed. It's about
| who's going to pay for those highways once the personal
| cars are gone? How are you going to keep a Western
| logistics network in place without those highways and
| roads? No, extending the railway network to its past glory
| days (like the left-hand map in this photo [1]) won't work
| and will definitely not happen anymore. Do we really want
| to go back to stuff like this [2]?
|
| [1] https://64.media.tumblr.com/81242bedb09cc3087fc0855deb3
| 81f50...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e02ilyAatbM
| palata wrote:
| > It's about who's going to pay for those highways
|
| Those who are paying now. And if it's only for emergency
| vehicles and trucks that bring food to cities (because
| you are right, cities need them to survive), then don't
| you think you need less infrastructure? Doesn't seem to
| me that 6-lanes highways are fully used by emergency
| vehicles and trucks.
|
| > won't work and will definitely not happen anymore.
|
| It's not black and white, it's a gradient: you can
| definitely _try_ to move from the right-hand map towards
| the left-hand one.
| di4na wrote:
| Note that illich is against cities. In his mind, a more
| atomised world would emerge from such a ban, more
| localised and focused on communities in neighborhood,
| with less dependencies outside.
|
| So the only thing using roads would be emergency. Food
| would need to be local too or transported slowly by speed
| of walk or bicycle.
|
| Which means that we would all be taxed pretty high for
| something rarely used.
| paganel wrote:
| > Food would need to be local too or transported slowly
| by speed of walk or bicycle.
|
| I'm sure he knew that, and I'm a genuine fan of Illich
| (with all his pluses and minuses), but what he proposes
| will certainly lead to future famines.
| paganel wrote:
| > trucks that bring food to cities (because you are
| right, cities need them to survive), then don't you think
| you need less infrastructure?
|
| You'll still need the current paved roads to remain
| pretty much in place. Granted, the highways with 3 or
| more lanes could lose them (the extra lanes, that is),
| but we're still going to need 2-lane highways in order to
| connect the bigger centers of interest.
|
| To say nothing of the fact that less personal cars will
| also mean much more expensive gasoline/diesel in order to
| cover up for the last sales (once you get rid of personal
| cars), lots of economies of scale will vanish over night.
| The same discourse should be gad regarding the current
| forced push to electrification.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Couldn't one argue that there is not that much
| engineering needed to keep producing emergency vehicles
| that we already have
|
| And what you would do when the necessary knowledge would be
| lost? 'It wouldn't be' you want to say? But who would want
| to spend an entire life for doing things what would be
| replaced like once in a decade?
|
| > It's not like an ambulance fundamentally changes every
| year.
|
| Not every year but modern ambulance and the one from 30
| years are quite a different things, despite they are both
| just box on wheels and a stretcher.
|
| > 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
|
| But ambulances are produced on the chassis of the common
| (and cheap) designs which are mass-produced for all other
| markets and sectors. If your idea of firetruck is American
| behemoths then sure, they are not like firetrucks in other
| countries which just use... the common chassis from the
| cargo trucks. Yes, they are deeply overhauled, but the main
| benefit is what they get that chassis _and parts_ cheap
| _because_ they are mass-produced. And if they are not -
| they are no longer cheap.
|
| > Military equipment is typically much more expensive than
| consumer products, but still... it's there.
|
| And just like American firetrucks they share a lot of parts
| (and _means of production_ ) with their civilian
| counterparts.
|
| And by the way, ambulances and firetrucks, good. What about
| delivering a new AC unit to you? It's no longer 40 minutes
| on the highway from the warehouse. It's a multiday affair
| and hours and hours of manual labor. Do you expect to still
| pay $20 for that?
| palata wrote:
| I do agree that dramatically reducing the number of
| private cars is a challenge. But I strongly believe that
| we don't have a choice.
|
| I see it this way: our society is built upon abundant
| energy, which is mostly (and by far) fossil fuels. Yes,
| renewable grow fast (while still being marginal), but
| they grow fast in a world of abundant fossil fuels. Cut
| the fossil fuels entirely today, and we are dead.
|
| The thing is: fossil fuels are not unlimited; in the
| close future, we will have passed the peak of production
| for all of them (conventional peak oil was in 2008,
| Europe feels it since then). So we are going towards a
| world with less fossil energy, and we don't have a
| solution to replace it (we can hope for technological
| breakthroughs, but we just don't have the solution
| today). Hence it seems pretty reasonable to think that we
| will have less energy in the future. And therefore, we
| need to do less, and it will be more costly.
|
| That's not necessarily the end of the world, that's just
| different (though probably more complicated).
|
| > Do you expect to still pay $20 for that?
|
| No. I expect to have to do less with less. I am not
| saying that I will necessarily live better, just that my
| survival depends on my society being able to do it.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> we don 't have a solution to replace it (we can hope
| for technological breakthroughs, but we just don't have
| the solution today)_
|
| Yes, we do: nuclear. The reasons why nuclear energy has
| not taken hold as widely as it should have are political,
| not technical. We could be at the point today where _no_
| fossil fuels need to be burned anywhere in the world if
| we had started building nuclear plants on a larger scale
| back in the 1970s, as soon as it became clear that OPEC
| was not going to play nice when they thought they could
| extract more money from their customers by restricting
| supply.
| di4na wrote:
| You forgot the road themselves. Note that Illich also
| refuse train, so you have to build them with all logistic
| to build them on bicycles cargo.
|
| On top of this, the ambulance we know how to build today
| are not the one from when we first managed to go faster
| than a bicycle (average human).
|
| Which means you would be stuck at state of the art engine,
| car, brakes, etc from the 30s. Or maybe the 10s even, as it
| was already valuable in first world war.
|
| Same for planes. Trains. Etc
|
| And would we really build the infrastructure for them to
| actually drive on if it was so limited?
|
| As the other answers point out, this fails to acknowledge
| the systemic impact of such rules.
|
| My usual test for a lot of critics of current systems that
| offer something "far better" with nearly no downside
| compared to the current one is to ask if they could invent,
| develop and produce MRIs in enough quantities.
|
| It is actually really hard to build systems that would.
| This is a taller order than you think.
| base698 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Can recommend this idea of his that is quite relevant today:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_monopoly
| peter_retief wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Not to be confused with Ivan Ilyin or with Vladimir Ilyich
| (Lenin).
| ajuc wrote:
| I was very confused for a moment why HN promotes russian
| fascism :)
| tazjin wrote:
| Having some difficulty with the meaning of words, hm?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| You're the one who complained about fancy vocabulary.
| ajuc wrote:
| Illyin was a russian fascist. Openly so.
| thriftwy wrote:
| 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.
| fdgjgbdfhgb wrote:
| Or with Ivan Ilyich from "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Tolstoy
| [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich
| bloak wrote:
| That's the one I was more familiar with. (Is it the same name
| in some sense? On the one hand it rather looks like two
| different transcriptions of the same name; on the other hand
| Illich's father wasn't Russian and the names seem to be
| written differently in the Russian Wikipedia: Illich,
| Il'ich.)
| tazjin wrote:
| Il'ich is a patronym (son of Ilya). Lenin's father's first
| name was Ilya.
|
| It's not clear whether Illich (pronounced differently) is
| related, apparently it's used as a given name in some
| countries, or it might be an unrelated surname, or it might
| be a misspelling/mistranscription of the Russian patronym.
| Who knows!
| vegabook wrote:
| Nor with Ilich Ramirez Sanchez aka Carlos the Jackal
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Somehow I doubt the time has come for "truths so radical that
| they question[ed] the very foundations of modern certitudes".
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Soon most likely
| podgorniy wrote:
| 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."
| palata wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > we should not care about our survival on Earth and start
| looking at other solar systems
|
| Wacky thinking. Another modern achievement, some very
| wealthy people literally have more money than neurons. ^_^
|
| > I strongly believe that we have an energy problem
|
| There is no doubt that the challenge is _now_. But our
| industrial and technical capabilities can solve the
| problem... if corrupt petrostate kakistocracies don 't
| destroy civilisation first.
|
| I also agree that "overconsumption" is a clear failure to
| scale.
| markhahn wrote:
| surely it's not just an energy problem - but a resource
| problem.
|
| I dislike the "overconsumption" mantra (and its degrowth
| kin). The problem is waste - fast fashion is a great
| example. just stop making stupid choices - people still
| need clothes, and we still need lots of people.
| ska wrote:
| > There is no doubt that the challenge is now. But our
| industrial and technical capabilities can solve the
| problem...
|
| Of the first part, there is no doubt - the second
| statement is not nearly so clear (at least, on the
| necessary timelines)
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Silence Is a Commons (1983)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 - Sept 2021 (17
| comments)
|
| _Silence Is a Commons (1983)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 - Feb 2021 (31
| comments)
|
| _Deschooling Society (1970)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 - July 2020 (195
| comments)
|
| _Deschooling Society_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 - Nov 2019 (1
| comment)
|
| _Tools for Conviviality (1973) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21512587 - Nov 2019 (6
| comments)
|
| _Deschooling Society_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13408250 - Jan 2017 (1
| comment)
|
| _Silence is a Commons (1983)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5402711 - March 2013 (2
| comments)
|
| _Deschooling Society_ -
| 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 - July 2008 (1
| comment)
|
| Edit: a bunch of comments from other threads too -
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| truculent wrote:
| 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
| ggpsv wrote:
| 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".
| truculent wrote:
| Ah yes, thank you for the correction!
| wrycoder wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time and effort to produce these
| summaries. The comments on HN are such a useful resource, often
| exceeding the value of the cited sources!
| hypertexthero wrote:
| Indeed. Thank you.
|
| HN is a bit like the Whole Earth Catalogue's "Access to
| Tools" section.
|
| Curated, [gravity-powered][1] links are the Access to Tools
| article.
|
| Ranked comments are the books related to the article
| displayed on the sidebar.
|
| [1]:
| https://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2011/Learning_to_identify.pdf
| bpiche wrote:
| Illich was on the cover of the winter 1983 CoEvolution
| Quarterly. Definitely a kindred spirit.
|
| https://just.thinkofit.com/ivan-illich-silence-is-a-
| commons/
| tazjin wrote:
| 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.
| smokefoot wrote:
| I was about to make the same comment. Literary magazines tend
| to encourage this style.
| gumby wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| gumby wrote:
| Thanks. Makes the point better than my misunderstanding did
| (or should have): words the author thought the reader might
| not know were called out.
| RationalDino wrote:
| Average reading level consensus from
| https://readabilityformulas.com/readability-scoring-
| system.p... is "college graduate". Most people read well
| below their theoretical grade level. For example about half
| of high school graduates read at a grade 8 level or below.
|
| There have been a number of surveys of adult proficiency in
| reading. For instance the 2013 PIAAC. From that, I would
| estimate less than 2% of people can read this.
|
| If you're in that number, great! So am I. But the complexity
| of the language still limits the potential audience.
| coldtea wrote:
| Perhaps they're just using words that they think every person
| with a well-rounded (as opposed to exclusively vocational or
| STEM focused) education and/or interest in humanities
| would/should be familiar with?
|
| I mean aside from, say, pleonexia (greed) and iatrogenic (harm
| caused by medical intervention), I don't see anything out of
| the reach of an average well read person - and English isn't
| even my first language.
|
| I mean, what would the difficult terms be? Paternalism?
| Credentialism? Interlocutor? Cascading? Certitudes?
|
| (We want them to take down those "difficult" words, and then we
| go off lamenting how "Idiocracy was a documentary")
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Note how actually clever texts (probably including the
| source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like
| that._
|
| Please provide some examples that aren't STEM texts?
|
| There's a whole other world of literature out there that isn't
| how-to books.
| KnuthIsGod wrote:
| Reads like pretty normal English to me, even though English is
| my second language.
| draven wrote:
| Same here, but my native language is French and words with
| latin or greek roots are perhaps more familiar to me ?
| liquidpele wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It 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.
| nakedneuron wrote:
| ChatGPT 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 wrote:
| That's so much more readable, even as someone who's read
| some Illich.
| maegul wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| What is wrong with that passage? I think it very artfully and
| concisely describes Ilichs views.
| liquidpele wrote:
| Artful yes, concise... I don't think that word means what
| you think it means.
| oa335 wrote:
| I disagree, I thought it was well written and clear.
| hcks wrote:
| > critique of modern certitudes
|
| > it's bottom of the barrel degrowthism
|
| Every. Single. Time.
| roenxi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Living long enough to be killed by industrial society is
| luxury.
|
| About 8-10% of all humans to ever live are alive right now --
| because the last two centuries of development have been
| _fantastically_ successful.
|
| There are challenges to solve, but what's new?
| gnramires wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I think it's important to have perspective when speaking of
| history (and understand how difficult and perilous to obtain
| the correct perspective). I am far from against technology,
| but in many ways past lives don't seem so uncontroversially
| horrible to me.
|
| Disclaimer: I am not a historian (or anthropologist)! Some of
| my claims may contain an innacurate portrayal of history or
| other people (please correct me if that's the case). However,
| I wouldn't write it without feeling somewhat confident about
| my claims.
|
| If you were a peasant or a farmer in the past, that's what
| you did: farming throughout the day. I believe farmers in
| general worked fewer hours than we do now, because you were
| constrained by daylight (and sometimes winter and seasons).
| Again, I prefer modern life, but you can look at say the
| Amish, or several surviving pre-industrial societies which
| include native tribes to get a feel for their lives[1]. The
| least I can say is: it's not the hell many would naively
| expect.
|
| Was their life horrible? I don't think so; farming work is
| very hard but not in a horrible way (some people take up
| farming as a hobby really); diseases were largely outside
| people's control. People tend to think Living longer =
| Linearly better. I have my doubts. The lack of comforts too
| is something that you get used to: in the end, most things
| turn into a sort of game. The game we play today is being
| glued to a screen typing symbols, interpreting data and
| rules. The game people played was farming, herding, crafting,
| with the occasional bureaucratic jobs. That's not to say I
| don't prefer living today. However, someone from back then
| could see us in some ways in equally dystopic lights: people
| glued to tiny screens watching videos, depressed in their
| homes, etc.. We have far higher rates of obesity today.
|
| I think the progress doesn't come from obvious things like
| health and comfort. Progress is largely _afforded_ by those
| things. Because we 're healthy, or rather, in some sense we
| _can in theory be healthy_ , there are several activities we
| can do that simply couldn't be done, say playing games and
| sports, having a more diverse and balanced life. Living
| longer affords us to be educated and dive deeply into
| subjects, and obtain a deep understanding of nature and even
| our own nature. But we also sacrifice some of those very
| valuable things in the name of comfort. We (sometimes!) work
| crazy hours in meaningless jobs; we destroy the environment;
| we stay at home depressed and glued to addictive devices,
| addictive substances and compulsive behaviors[1]. Because we
| believe in silly equations like Comfort = Linearly better, or
| Money = Linearly better, and so on. This is why we need
| progress not only in technology but in wisdom too, so we can
| continually learn how to use our resources well (to genuine
| improve our lives), and make sure they're sustainable (and
| not collapse within a short time).
|
| [1] Many of the improvements are surprisingly subtle,
| although I'm partial to peace and lack of violence: I think
| violence tends to create a state of constant fear that
| genuinely sucks (although we are well adapted at dealing with
| that too, and in some ways we live in more fear from TV and
| internet blasting bad news). Part of the "technique" of
| improving our lives comes from lowering the chance of getting
| robbed or assaulted, part comes from our psychological
| ability to handle whatever risk exists without sacrificing
| our lives to cowering in fear.
|
| A fun illustration is that in older times we would adventure
| in the forest to hunt or from necessity, now we don't have
| to: instead, we go on hikes :) , with some people choosing to
| experience those same old ways voluntarily. We forego the
| comfort of our beds to go on adventures in sleeping bags. We
| are hobby gardeners and small scale farmers. It's not that is
| was by itself bad, it's that we can live experiences in a
| more controlled, selective and sustainable way, with lower
| risks of ending our lives from the natural risks.
|
| I think understanding this subtle nature of life and
| experiences is important in attaining wisdom to live a good
| life. (and also important so that we make the best of our
| limited resources so we can help everyone have the best lives
| possible)
| tivert wrote:
| > and the unspeakably horrible lifestyles of centuries ago.
|
| That sounds like an over-the-top fairy tale to constructed
| justify modern society.
|
| I assume by "unspeakably horrible lifestyle" you don't mean
| something like "lack of color television." That's an
| assumption I have to state, because there are a surprising
| number of people who say they consider the lack of modern
| creature-comforts to be something "unspeakably horrible" and
| that they'd rather die than be without them.
|
| That said, I'm sure you could cherrypick an "unspeakably
| horrible lifestyle" out of the history books, just like I can
| cherrypick an "unspeakably horrible lifestyle" out of the
| news. I also wouldn't be surprised if the ultimate causes are
| the same or similar for both. Such cherry-picked examples
| don't speak to typical experience and don't speak to what's
| possible.
| ttoinou wrote:
| If you think growth is growing the GDP then there's nothing
| wrong with not growing the GDP. You can decrease the GDP and
| have a better quality of life.
|
| If you think growth is producing more and more stuff, the same
| here, we can have a better life consuming less.
| coldtea wrote:
| Rather this is a typical HN religous-substituting faith in
| "progress" (of the non-reflective "just more of everything"
| variety), and a knew-jerk reaction to any mention of limits to
| growth and other concerns aside from enlargement.
|
| Every. Single. Time.
| toyg wrote:
| I think the stance comes from one's position towards the
| "want for more" attitude in humans.
|
| If you think the thirst for material wealth and welfare can
| be somehow limited or contained at scale, you will find the
| concept of de-growth very appealing, because it solves a
| bunch of big problems we have.
|
| If you don't think such thirst can be limited, which is
| arguably what modern history might suggest, then the concept
| is clearly impossible to realize and not worth discussing.
| haltist wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Can you give us a bit more with regards to the most successfull
| or helpful bits in your experience?
| jhbadger wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hudon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| What about this quote of Illich from the article:
|
| > "I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in
| personal _interdependence_ and, as such, an intrinsic ethical
| value," he wrote in "Tools for Conviviality."
|
| He doesn't seem to define conviviality outside of community or
| to put it another way, community seems to be an important
| requirement for conviviality. This stands in contrast to modern
| western individualism.
| slibhb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| > Lack of religiosity is the default state
|
| On the contrary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coun
| tries_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.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Popular or widespread doesn't mean it's default. Religion
| is part of culture and that's something that's passed
| down person to person. A blank culture or no culture has
| no religion. Tabula rasa.
|
| I'm not assuming anything, I'm not pegging the default
| discontent with death to a particular value, I don't know
| what it is and it's irrelevant. I'm just saying the some
| religions, with certain concepts of afterlife, like
| catholicism, would reduce that discontent.
| dan_mctree wrote:
| Why do you assume a tabula rasa person would assume that
| consciousness ceases to continue on death? I don't think
| there's anything obvious that would suggest this goes one
| way or the other and that different people could end up
| settling for different conclusions. An obvious natural
| guess would be that it'd be similar to sleeping, as in,
| you would see dreams
| markhahn wrote:
| isn't it more that people cleave to magical thinking, archaic
| though it is, because they have trouble dealing with the
| despair of poor health and final death?
|
| one big support for this is the gradual decline of
| religiosity in areas of the world where life is improving.
| conflated, of course, with the hegemonistic aspect of
| organized religion.
| pas wrote:
| One argument is that we simply replaced the archaic
| (religion-focused) dogma with a modern (consumerist,
| individualist, hyperpoliticized) one, but their function is
| the same, to serve as complex death denial rituals.
| thfuran wrote:
| That doesn't sound likely to be a compelling argument.
| lacrosse_tannin wrote:
| You only get so much time on earth either way!
| ogurechny wrote:
| It's a bit offensive to give us all "non-believers" zero
| metaphysical depth
| saghm wrote:
| > Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a
| devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of
| death > Similarly, we don't have to drag out our final years:
| we're free to opt out of medical treatments
|
| OTOH, Catholicism also is strongly against euthanasia, which is
| arguably at odds with the sentiment of not having to drag out
| final years. I think there's plenty of room for a philosophy to
| "not drag out final years" as a non-believer who doesn't need
| to rule out certain measures like that.
| hudon wrote:
| It isn't at odds, since in both cases (euthanasia and
| medically-prolonged end-of-life), it is the human person that
| is trying to control the ultimate outcome of life. The
| Catholic approach is to say "let God decide".
| saghm wrote:
| I guess to me it sounds like it's at best orthogonal to the
| idea of dragging out life; sometimes it drags out longer
| than it might otherwise have to, sometimes it ends much
| earlier than it would otherwise have to. I think my
| confusion was over mentioning "opt out of medical
| treatments" right after "we don't have to drag out life" in
| a way that sounded to me like it was calling them
| equivalent, and from my perspective, sometimes forgoing
| medical treatments can itself drag life out longer than
| someone might want.
|
| Ultimately it sounds like we mostly agree that people can
| make personal decisions for themselves about their medical
| care; I just found the way you described it above fairly
| confusing.
|
| (edit: I apparently missed that the response was from a
| different person than I originally responded to)
| quacked wrote:
| > You can also opt out of modernity in smaller ways, decisions
| like not owning a car, not watching TV, and so on.
|
| Sure, if you reduce the effects of "modernity" to only your own
| ability to consume goods and services. One cannot "opt out" of
| the degeneration of social will, or the increasing demand for
| control over each part of our lives by unaccountable
| bureaucracies.
| Eumenes wrote:
| I, too, would like an anarchist time machine
| cainxinth wrote:
| > *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 wrote:
| 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.
| jonjacky wrote:
| 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/...
|
| De-Escalating Software
| 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
| nathias wrote:
| critique so radical it isn't philosophical, it's theological
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