Ivan Illich

Ivan Illich (IPA pronunciation: [ɪˈvɑn ˈɪ.lɪtʃ]^[1]) (Vienna, September 4, 1926 - Bremen, December 2, 2002) was an Austrian philosopher and anarchist social critic, whose thoughts on various forms of professional authority made him known around the world. Author of an informal series of critiques of the institutions of "modern" culture, he addressed issues such as education, medicine, work, energy use, economic development, and gender. His work was most widely known in the 1970s, yet today is hard to find, and not part of the academic canon. Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Death of Ivan Ilych The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Russian: , Smert Ivana Ilyicha), first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy. ... Ivan illich foto Believed to be fair use Sources http://www. ... Ivan illich foto Believed to be fair use Sources http://www. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... For other uses, see Vienna (disambiguation). ... is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the city in Germany. ... is the 336th day of the year (337th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ...

Personal life

Illich was born in Vienna to a Croatian father and Sephardic-Jewish mother. He studied histology and crystallography at Florence University. In the strictest sense, a Sephardi (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Səfardim, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardîm) is a Jew original to the... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... A thin section of lung tissue stained with hematoxylin and eosin. ... Crystallography (from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and graphein = write) is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. ... This article is about the city in Italy. ...

From 1942 to 1946, Illich studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in the Vatican. He wrote a dissertation with a focus on the historian Arnold J. Toynbee, and would return to that subject in his later years. In the 1950s he asked to be assigned as an assistant parish priest in New York City. In 1956 he was appointed vice-rector of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. There Illich met Everett W. Reimer, and the two began to analyze their own function as "educational" leaders. In 1961 Illich founded the Centro Intercultural de Documentación (CIDOC) at Cuernavaca in Mexico, ostensibly a research centre offering language courses to missionaries from North America. However, his intent was to counterfoil the Vatican's participation in the "modern development" of the so-called Third World. Illich believed that the Third World, in its under-development, should be viewed with envy. He looked askance at the liberal pity or conservative imperiousness that motivated the global rising tide of industrial development. He viewed such emissaries as a form of industrial hegemony, and as such, an act of "war on subsistence." He sought to teach "missionaries" dispatched by the Church to rather identify themselves as tourists and guests of the host country. Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Pontifical Gregorian University (Italian: Pontificia Università Gregoriana) is a pontifical university located in Rome, Italy. ... Arnold Joseph Toynbee (April 14, 1889 - October 22, 1975) was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... The Catholic University of Puerto Rico is the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico. ... Everett W. Reimer authored a number of books on educational policy and was a proponent of deschooling. ... Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. ...

After 10 years, the CIDOC's critical analysis of the institutional actions of the Church brought the CIDOC into conflict with the Vatican. Illich was called to Rome to be questioned. In 1976, apparently concerned by the influx of formal academics and possible side-effects of its own "institutionalization," Illich, with consent from its members, shut the center down. Several members subsequently continued language schools in Cuernavaca, some of which still exist. Illich himself resigned as a priest in the late 1960s.

From the 1980s, Ivan Illich traveled extensively, mainly splitting his time between the United States, Mexico, and Germany. He held an appointment as Visiting Professor of Philosophy and of Science, Technology, and Society at Penn State, and also taught at the University of Bremen. The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related land-grant university in Pennsylvania, with over 80,000 students at 24 campuses throughout the state. ... The University of Bremen (Universität Bremen) is a university of about 23,000 students and 1,500 scientists in Bremen, Germany. ...

During his later years, he suffered from a cancerous growth on his face that, in accordance with his critique of professionalized medicine, he treated with traditional methods. He regularly smoked opium to deal with the pain caused by this tumor. At an early stage, he consulted a doctor about having the tumor removed, but there was too great a chance of losing his ability to speak, he was told, so he lived with the tumor as best he could. "My mortality," he called it.

Deschooling Society

His most celebrated work remains Deschooling Society (1971), a critical discourse on education as practised in "modern" economies. Full of detail on then-current programs and concerns, the book can seem dated, but its core assertions and propositions remain as radical today as they were at the time. Giving real-world examples of the ineffectual nature of institutionalized education, Illich posited self-directed education, supported by intentional social relations, in fluid, informal arrangements:

Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools. Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupils nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software (in classroom or bedroom), nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue's responsibility until it engulfs his pupils' lifetimes will deliver universal education. The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education--and also to those who seek alternatives to other established service industries.[1]

The last sentence makes clear what the title suggests -- that the institutionalization of education is considered to tend towards the institutionalization of society, and conversely that ideas for de-institutionalizing education may be a starting point for a de-institutionalized society. And this is where the true radicalism of the ideas becomes clear. As a holistic thinker, with a formidable intellect and a truly catholic breadth of erudition, Illich always considers his insights in the widest possible terms. Whole redirects here. ...

The book is more than a critique -- it contains positive suggestions for a reinvention of learning throughout society and throughout every individual lifetime. Particularly striking is his call (in 1971) for the use of advanced technology to support "learning webs." His description of these webs was prophetic in many ways, relating to current uses and ideals of Wikipedia, Craigslist and of the Internet more generally. For example, Illich says, "The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad scale for publicly valued activity." Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Craigslist is a centralized network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, internships, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories) and forums sorted by various topics. ...

Tools for Conviviality

Tools for Conviviality (1973) was published only two years after Deschooling Society. In this new work Illich generalized the themes that he had previously applied to the field of education: the institutionalization of specialized knowledge, the dominant role of technocratic elites in industrial society, and the need to develop new instruments for the reconquest of practical knowledge by the average citizen. Illich proposed that we should "invert the present deep structure of tools" in order to "give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency."

Tools for Conviviality attracted world-wide attention. A resume of it was published by French social philosopher André Gorz in Les Temps Modernes. The book's vision of tools that would be developed and maintained by a community of users had a significant influence on the first developers of the personal computer, notably Lee Felsenstein. André Gorz (February 1923 – September 24, 2007), born as Gerhard Hirsch and also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet was an Austrian and French social philosopher. ... Les Temps Modernes was a political, literary and philosophical French magazine founded in 1945 by Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Raymond Aron. ... Lee Felsenstein (born 1945 in Philadelphia) is a computer engineer who was the designer of the Osborne 1, the first portable computer. ...

Bibliography

• Die philosophischen Grundlagen der Geschichtsschreibung bei Arnold J. Toynbee (1951), Diss. Salzburg
• Celebration of Awareness (1971) ISBN 0-7145-0837-3
• Deschooling Society (1971) ISBN 0060121394
• Tools for Conviviality (1973) ISBN 0-06-080308-8 ISBN 0-06-012138-6
• Energy and Equity (1974) ISBN 0061361535
• Medical Nemesis (1975) ISBN 0-394-71245-5 ISBN 0-7145-1095-5 ISBN 0-7145-1096-3
• The Right to Useful Unemployment (1978) ISBN 0-7145-2628-2
• Toward a History of Needs (1978) ISBN 0-394-41040-8 ISBN 0-394-73501-3
• Shadow Work (1981) ISBN 0-7145-2711-4 ISBN 0-7145-2710-6
• Gender (1982) ISBN 0-394-52732-1
• H₂O and the Waters of Forgetfulness (1985) ISBN 0-911005-06-4
• ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind (1988) ISBN 0-86547-291-2
• In the Mirror of the Past (1992) ISBN 0-7145-2937-0
• In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh's Didascalicon (1993) ISBN 0-226-37235-9
• Ivan Illich in Conversation interviews with Cayley, David. (1992) (Toronto: Anansi Press).
• The Rivers North of the Future - The Testament of Ivan Illich as told to David Cayley (2005) ISBN 0-88784-714-5 (Toronto: Anansi Press)
• Corruption of Christianity Illich, Ivan (Author) Cayley, David (Editor) (2000) ISBN 0-660-18099-5
• Power in the Highest Degree : Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order by Charles Derber, William A. Schwartz, and Yale Magrass, Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Silencing Ivan Illich : A Foucauldian Analysis of Intellectual Exclusion. Gabbard, D. A. New York: Austin & Winfield, 1993 ISBN-10: 1880921170

See also

• Deschooling
• Critical pedagogy
• Holistic education
• Credentialism
• Development criticism
• Critique of technology
• Lee Felsenstein
• Medecine: Criticism of medicine
• Alternative Medicine

Deschooling is a term used by both education philosophers and proponents of alternative education and/or homeschooling, which refers to different things in each context. ... Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate. ... Holistic education is based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to spiritual values such as compassion and peace. ... Credentialism is the bias of over-reliance on credentials regardless of qualification. ... Development criticism refers to far-reaching criticisms of modernization and its central aspects : modern technology, industrialization, capitalism and economic globalization . ... Critique of technology is a theory which critizes technology for its negative impact under capitalist conditions (as means of domination, control and exploitation), or more generally as something which threatens the very survival of humanity. ... Lee Felsenstein (born 1945 in Philadelphia) is a computer engineer who was the designer of the Osborne 1, the first portable computer. ... For the chemical substances known as medicines, see medication. ... Alternative medicine is defined as any of various systems of healing or treating disease (as chiropractic, homeopathy, or faith healing) not included in the traditional medical curricula taught in the United States and Britain.[1] Complementary medicine is defined as any of the practices (as acupuncture) of alternative medicine accepted...

External links

• Full text of Deschooling Society
• Full text of Energy and Equity
• Full text of Tools for Conviviality
• A page on Illich on the WikiWikiWeb, with more links
• List of pointers to Illich's writings
• Website of Illich's collaborators in Germany
• To Hell With Good Intentions (1968)
• Obituary from the Guardian newspaper (UK)
• Ivan Illich, 1926-2002
• Ivan Illich with Jerry Brown
• Ivan Illich's writings in Spanish
• An extensive set of Illich's writings and recordings
• Article in The encyclopaedia of informal education
• Collection of Illich documents and MP3s
• Article on pain
• Article on Ivan Illich in the New Indian Express
• Scary School Nightmare - a Pinky Show online video inspired by Illich's Deschooling Society.

References