Tools for conviviality 1973

Status Illich, Ivan — primary author all editions confirmed Emous, A. Translator secondary author some editions confirmed. Belongs to Publisher Series Anatomie van de toekomst. You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data. Tools for Conviviality. Tools for conviviality. Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language. Naar een nieuwe levensstijl : voorwaarden voor gelukkiger samen-leven.

Introduction: During the next several years I intend to work on an epilogue to the industrial age. I want to trace the changes in language, myth, ritual and law, which took place in the current epoch of packaging and of schooling.

Imperialist mercenaries can poison or maim but never conquer a people who have chosen to set boundariesto their tools for the sake of conviviality. References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in English None. A work of seminal importance, this book presents Ivan Illich's penetrating analysis of the industrial mode of production which characterises our contemporary world. No library descriptions found.

Book description. Haiku summary. Add to Your books. Add to wishlist. Quick Links Amazon. Amazon Kindle 0 editions. Audible 0 editions. CD Audiobook 0 editions. Project Gutenberg 0 editions. Develop your own work, and form lasting intellectual relationships, too. Ivan Illich — was a social theorist and Roman Catholic priest. His book Deschooling Society criticizes institutional education and argues in favor of self-directed education in the context of intentional communities.

Tools for Conviviality analyzes the institutionalization of knowledge and argues that we should "invert the present deep structure of tools" and "give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency. Participants in this course read all of these books. Illich was born in Vienna but spent most of his youth in Dalmatia, Croatia.

He once called himself "an errant pilgrim. Nina Power is a philosopher, critic, and translator. She received her PhD in philosophy from Middlesex University. She writes for a variety of publications, on topics ranging from music, critical theory, film, policing and protests. She was a senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University before deciding to go independent.

You can learn more about Nina at NinaPower. When you enroll, you're given a 7-week reading list on the themes listed above. You're also given 7 pre-recorded lectures videos as well as text and podcast equivalents. All course content is hosted within the course community. If you enroll in a tier including discussion seminars, we meet as a group on Zoom every Thursday for 8 weeks.

From 11am to 1pm Eastern, starting on August 5 Orientation and running until September 30, The final seminar is the Proseminar, an optional public panel discussion see past proseminars on Leo Strauss , Georges Bataille , and Deleuze and Heidegger. What is fundamental to a convivial society is not the total absence of manipulative institutions and addictive goods and services, but the balance between those tools which create the specific demands they are specialized to satisfy and those complementary, enabling tools which foster self-realization.

The issue at hand, therefore, is what tools can be controlled in the public interest. Only secondarily does the question arise whether private control of a potentially useful tool is in the public interest. This is an important point about widespread ideas of progress, they continue so powerful forty years later, even after the massive rise in awareness of environmental issues:.

It has become difficult for contemporary man to imagine development and modernization in terms of lower rather than higher energy use… The illusion that a high culture is one that uses the highest possible quantities of energy must be overcome. The human equilibrium is open. It is capable of shifting within flexible by finite parameters.

People can change, but only within bounds. In contrast, the present industrial system is dynamically unstable. It is organized for infinite expansion and the concurrent unlimited creation of new needs… The ideology of an industrial organization of tools and a capitalist organization of the economy preceded by many centuries what is usually called the Industrial Revolution.

I also thought this point about speed was key, the differences in cost between high speed and regular trains, trains and buses, buses and bicycles, bicycles and walking. He writes:. The knowledge-capitalism of professional imperialism subjugates people more imperceptibly than and as effectively as international finance or weaponry. The final chapters look more deeply at the environmental crisis that looms and how much worse has it become.

Political debate must now be focused on the various ways in which unlimited production threatens human life. The only solution to the environmental crisis is the shared insight of people that they would be happier if they could work together and care for each other. This too, is a key insight, subject of much debate on the left.

I think it highlights the need for a complete transformation to be free of racism, sexism and all isms. It does not matter for what specific purpose minorities now organize if they seek an equal share in consumption, an equal place on the pyramid of production, or equal nominal power in the government of ungovernable tools.

As long as a minority acts to increase its share within a growth-oriented society, the final result will be a keener sense of inferiority for most of its members. Movements that seek control over existing institutions give them a new legitimacy, and also render their contradictions more acute. Changes in management are not revolutions.

The alternative to managerial fascism is a political process by which people decide how much of any scarce resource is the most any member of society can claim; a process in which they agree to keep limits relatively stationary over a long time, and by which they set a premium on the constant search for new ways to have and ever larger percentage of the population join in doing ever more with ever less.

I wanted more postcolonial analysis, but I suppose that is for us to bring to the table. In the meantime, some words of reason in how to think about creating this kind of majority:. There can be no such thing as a majority oppose to an issue that has not arisen.

A majority agitating for limits to growth is as ludicrous as one demanding growth at all cost. Majorities are not created by shared ideologies. They develop out of enlightened self-interest. The most that even the best ideologies can do is interpret this interest.

Ideologies might be a bit more complicated, I think about them a lot. As part of the lack of analysis around race and empire and larger global patterns of exploitation and consumption responsible for environmental disaster, I also really hated some of the rhetoric on population control. But I will end on a final quote I did like:.