Interesting (Ivan Illich)

[Bandidoz]

http://todd.cleverchimp.com/tools_for_conviviality/

in a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

[skeptik]

yes... fascinating

[Cycloloco]

yes... fascinating

Are you suggesting that this heavy theory is too complicated for readers to understand or are you saying the peakoilers should stick to practical subjects?

[snow hope]

http://todd.cleverchimp.com/tools_for_conviviality/

in a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

Can anybody summerise this as I just can't find the time to read it at the moment.......

As for the comments by Sceptic and Cycloloco - I am completely lost - I didn't realise that I was so thick.....

[skeptik]

yes... fascinating

Are you suggesting that this heavy theory is too complicated for readers to understand or are you saying the peakoilers should stick to practical subjects?

Well... I find trying to extract any meaning from that sort of stuff is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.. it just slips away. Perhaps you could summarise in a few paras... what you got from it. . I havent't read it all. My eyes just start to glaze over after a page or two.

I keep asking myself, now 'what does he actually mean?' or 'what's an example of that in the real world' - and coming up empty. If I cant rephrase something in 'so many words' then its either too complicated for my small brain or meaningless bullshit. And there is a huge industry turning out meaningless bullshit that reads very much like this. Google "Sokal Affair"

Some of it I jumped into at random just seems plain silly, wrong or strangely dated - when was this written?

"Above all, political discussion is stunned by a delusion about science. This term has come to mean an institutional enterprise rather than a personal activity, the solving of puzzles rather than the unpredictably creative activity of individual people."

Delusion? Sez you Ivan. In my book ( and that of most intelligent people whove actually thought about it, I'd warrant) science is a methodology that works (as demonstrated by its application in technology) , an approach for elucidating demonstable truths about and explainations of physical reality. The sun is the center of the solar system and, contrary to 'common sense' here's the evidence and logic to support that ... Its not neccessarily an 'institutional enterprise' and I dont see any 'political discussion' being 'stunned' by a 'delusion'. What on earth are you on about? And yes, creativity is also involved as a neccessary part of the process and so is solving of puzzles. So your point is?

"The operating code of industrial tools encroaches on everyday language and reduces the poetic self-affirmation of men to a barely tolerated and marginal protest."
OK Ivan , If you say so.. ( thinks. Must remember to poetically self-affirm after I've had a shave tomorrow morning)

So whats the central thrust of Mr Illich's disertation? What point is he trying to make? I think its the vagueness of his style, vagueries without specific example, that bothers me as much as anything - you can make the words mean whatever you want them to, especially at the end where he seems to veer of into meaningless leftwing political rhetoric.

Over here Mr Illich... about your final words...

con?viv?i?al Audio pronunciation of "convivial" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-vv-l)
adj.
1. Fond of feasting, drinking, and good company; sociable. See Synonyms at social.
2. Merry; festive: a convivial atmosphere at the reunion.

"Defense of conviviality is possible only if undertaken by the people with tools they control."
I'll go with that. My favourites are a corkscrew and a bottle opener.

"Imperialist mercenaries can poison or maim but never conquer a people who have chosen to set boundaries to their tools for the sake of conviviality."

That's nonsense, Now go away and choose another word. We're obviously on different wavelengths regarding 'conviviality' I haven't got a clue what you're on about. That sounds like a vague hope about something or other, a desire to wind up on a 'correct' political note.... example? evidence? Sounds like - The peepul... united... will never be defeated...

Right on, Ivan...


Any more for any more?


...who the hell is this Illich bloke anyway? any relation?

[Bandidoz]

From what I read he mentioned the term "convivial tools" which I took to mean "tools that allow someone to make things for himself", thus empowering everyone (who uses them), as opposed to the "tools of mass production" (oo-err) which empowers the few (usually "non-local") very well and disempowers the many (usually "local"). Perhaps like the point Kunstler makes about rural communities "being local and interdependent", using "convivial" tools as it encourages the community to work with one another, "sociably", as opposed to Wal-Mart trucking in toilet seats from China, to be handled by checkout staff who don't talk to anyone when on duty, or trade anything they've made with their own hands (except maybe rolling a spliff during a quiet moment )

I also got the feeling that he's coming from the position of "small is beautiful", and that activities within industrial society (e.g. medicine) to solve problems inevitably create bigger problems through unintended consequences (e.g. superbugs and overpopulation) thus requiring further solutions that are larger in scale and/or complexity than the original problem. Growth and Entropy.

Yesterday a few of us were in a cafe chatting about Peak Oil when someone on an adjacent table joined in. He is an ecologist who lectures about C&C, found what we were discussing interesting, and mentioned Illich, who I'd never heard of. The lecturer had an interesting theory in that large-scale production is only economic because the costs of energy, non-renewable resources and pollution are not accounted for; when they are, small businesses (in any form) became more economic in every simulation.

It looks as though Illich's work is from the 70s as he mentions the Vietnam War, Ehrlich, and Population/Affluence/Technology. I haven't read the whole thing in detail yet, and although he does go abstract a bit too much I can see what he's getting at in most of what I looked at. Not quite as difficult to read as Brezinski's "The Grand Chessboard", which was annoyingly full of ambiguous writing.

[skeptik]

From what I read he mentioned the term "convivial tools" which I took to mean "tools that allow someone to make things for himself", thus empowering everyone (who uses them), as opposed to the "tools of mass production" (oo-err) which empowers the few (usually "non-local") very well and disempowers the many (usually "local").
.

Theres some lovely irony in that 'convivial tool' concept as youve described it, and once you start ot unpack it, which I dont really have time to explore. How would a laptop PC fit into that scheme of things, I wonder?

I also got the feeling that he's coming from the position of "small is beautiful", and that activities within industrial society (e.g. medicine) to solve problems inevitably create bigger problems through unintended consequences
.

"During his later years, he suffered from a cancerous growth on his face that, in accordance with his critique of professionalized medicine, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to treat with traditional methods."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich

More Irony. Skin cancers are (usually!) successfully treatable as, being visible, they most often get diagnosed early.

If this wasnt so tragic I'd be laughing. I think I'll stick with the 'unintended consequences' .

[Bandidoz]

Well it is always unfortunate when people stick to their rhetoric rather than back down, "cut off their nose to spite their face" springs to mind.

The full quote paints a slightly different picture....

During his later years, he suffered from a cancerous growth on his face that, in accordance with his critique of professionalized medicine, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to treat 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.

Personally I'd rather be mute than dead. And when scoring opium I'd doubt that he'd be able to speak very well in any case.

[skeptik]

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.[/b] "My mortality," he called it.

Dumb and dumber. An attitude almost understandable in an actor - but in a writer?
He must have lived with it for quite some time before seeing a doctor if its removal could threaten his ability to speak. Prat. I'm exactly the opposite. Soon as I get a slightly itchy mole I'm off round to the doctors. Theres a hist ory in the family. My father has had several go bad on his back which have had to be removed. Mainly I think as a result of A bomb flash from just a few miles away. (Google 'Montebello Island bomb test' if you're curious). Fortunately he wasnt one of those who went onto the island afterwards. I know melanoma as a result of atomic bomb exposure is not heritable, its just made me more aware and slightly hypochondriacal about skin cancers.

[Cycloloco]

yes... fascinating

Are you suggesting that this heavy theory is too complicated for readers to understand or are you saying the peakoilers should stick to practical subjects?

Well... I find trying to extract any meaning from that sort of stuff is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.. it just slips away. Perhaps you could summarise in a few paras... what you got from it. . I havent't read it all. My eyes just start to glaze over after a page or two.

Illich was a part of the 'small is beautiful' group and also the 'deschooling' group in the 1970s.
I read the start of the first reference then the end and noted the size. I wasn't prepared to read all that.
I noted the same for Skeptik's reference and noted that it was honest enough to tell us it was a spoof. I didn't read all that.

I don't see the sense of posting that much stuff from Illich on this forum. It is too abstract/specialised to be any use for most of us.

[Bandidoz]

I don't see the sense of posting that much stuff from Illich. It is too abstract to be any use for most of us.

The point of it is this:

Yesterday a few of us were in a cafe chatting about Peak Oil when someone on an adjacent table joined in. He is an ecologist who lectures about C&C, found what we were discussing interesting, and mentioned Illich, who I'd never heard of.

Peak Oil and Climate Change activism is a small world. Sooner or later one of us will run into someone who will ask, "Have you heard of Illich?". By knowing what the guy was on about we'd be able to say, "Yes I've read a bit about him, wasn't he the guy who scored Heroin instead of seeing a surgeon..." etc.