Rhetoric of Ivan Illich

An Illichian Motto - Until Next Time

2010-12-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

Image by tonyhall via Flickr

I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.
-Ivan Illich, 1973

Thank You For a Great Semester

2010-12-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

Every four or five years I teach this course. Every time I do I learn new things from Ivan Illich as well as new things from my students.

I shared during the last class a couple of new things I have learned and how I am applying them to my life. I won't repeat that here, because it really needs to be done in an "atmosphere" of friendship like we have created in this seminar.

I was very moved and impressed by the things that all of you, the students, said on the last day as well. I think we have all grown.

I just wanted to say a few things about the class this semester and you, the students:

You were always prepared. You had always done the reading, taken notes on the reading and given it a lot of thought.
You had many insightful things to say. Several times in each of our three-hour meetings I would be struck by how one of your comments was insightful and very new to me.
You did a good job of taking these ideas and applying them to your lives and your experiences. That is important, because education and learning needs to be for you to use, not just spew back on a test.
You were tough on Ivan when he deserved it and praised him when he deserved it. You showed yourselves to be excellent and productive critics of ideas and thoughts, and that will serve you well throughout your lives.
You humored an old professor with a love for radical ideas, and you did it in a way that did not even seem condescending.

Thank you so much for making this one of the best classes I have been involved in during my 28 years here at the University of Vermont. I hope to see you again and at a place of "rest."

ABC by Ivan Illich and Barry Sanders

2010-12-02T18:53:00.001-08:00

ABC by Ivan Illich and Barry Sanders

Notes by Alfred Snider

Overall concepts

History and writing go together.

Plato: writing is a threat to the meditative search.

In the oral tradition an oath is a contract, now it is profanity.

Documents became elements of ownership, deeds, wills.

Uniform grammar is used as government oppression.

The lie is a western, modern creation.

Now we live in a world of uniquack.

The transitions involved in the oral to written relationship…

Knowledge = All oral

Knowledge = Oral and written

Chant to prose

Oath to contract

Dictation to copying

Scribe to translator

Fable to lie

Language to code

Code to uniquack

Silence to zero

I to we

SILENCE AND WE

Silence was different pre and post alphabet.

The roles of genesis and silence p. 120

Silence develops with alphabet, like anatomy, bottom p. 121

Then it creates a standoffish reader.

The ethnic we and the analytic we.

I speak to you. You can answer.

I speak to you about them, the other. You and I are specific, but the enormous scope of “them” otherizes.

Other forms of I p. 124

We = I and… p. 125

Other forms of we. Pp. 125-126.

The general we is a tool of propaganda, p. 127. It indicates belonging and that the others are being spoken for.

Specific notes:

p. x-xi Literacy as a good institution is decaying.

I. WORDS AND HISTORY

p. 7 there is no prehistory as a result.

p. 8 Language is neutered, speech is gendered.

p. 9 Phonetic writing is very unique and unusual.

p. 10 Emergence of north Semitic alphabet 1400 BCE.

p. 12 Semitic became Greek.

II. MEMORY

p. 15 Alphabet and memory

p. 18 The Iliad and memory

p. 19 Now we are not able to compose aloud, but must write.

p. 23 Age of Plato involved the change from chant to prose speech.

p. 24 Plato: writing is a threat to the meditative search.

III. TEXT

p. 31 letters change for business, prayer, and justice.

p. 33 Oath becomes contract

p. 34 the Bible as oath object made a real difference in truth telling.

p. 35 Documents of ownership, now you held, you did not possess.

p. 36 1250-1350 writing conquers England.

p. 38 The emergence of Wills.

p. 39 So, copies were needed, identical and legal. P. 40

p. 44 The Book of Life concept.

pp. 44-45 Dictation, but still must speak aloud.

p. 46 800’s dictation became copying.

p. 51 By 1300 libraries become places of silence.

IV. TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE

p. 53 From scribe to translator, understand vs. fix.

p. 54 BCE no translation.

p. 60 Roots of universal pronunciation.

p. 65 Nebrija

p. 68 Nebrija, education, and the emergence of taught mother tongue.

V. THE SELF

p. 71 Alphabet and creation and narration.

p. 72 “I” is oral, all else is written.

VI. UNTRUTH & NARRATION

p. 84 Lie is a western, modern creation.

p. 85 By 1300 truth is no longer displayed through action, but is the outward expression of inner meaning accessible only to the self.

p. 86 The lie is only when one intends to deceive to Augustine in 500.

p. 93 In 1702-04 the novel, newspaper, and magazine appear in England.

p. 100 Current spelling: in writing to others is more important than in hearing others.

VII. NEWSPEAK AND UNIQUACK

p. 107 Newspeak and uniquack.

p. 108 Basic English proposal is spoken into written.

p. 112 Humans become machines as they are programmed with language code.

p. 114 Room 101 in 1984. Accepting how and forgetting about why.

POSTSCRIPT: SILENCE & THE WE

p. 126 We for others can involve hope and different levels of membership.

p. 127 We can create emptiness.

H2O and the Waters of Fogetfulness

2010-11-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

IVAN ILLICH

H20 and the Waters of Forgetfulness: reflections of the historicity of stuff

1985

Notes by Alfred Snider

“Only Ivan Illich thinks through our public delusions so radically, and so rightly. The force of his mind and the daring with which he demolishes our idealized stupidities may be the most useful constructive work now going on in the world of psychology and the psychology of the world.”

-James Hillman (1926- ) is an American psychologist, considered to be one of the most original of the 20th century (Moore, in Hillman, 1989).

Lake project in Dallas, lake as uplifting morally and beautifying aesthetically. P. 1

Do not criticize a body of water, for it represents many things. Originally it was a feminine element of nature, but ion the 19^th Century became a new “hygienic” feminine element. Female nudity was tied to the water in the bathing chamber. Water and suds domesticated water and flesh. Water became the contents of indoor plumbing and the nude a new fantasy of sexual intimacy in the newly created domestic sphere. P. 1

Shown in paintings of the period. Woman as bather became a part of nature, where previous nudes were shown in the context of mythical or religious settings. P. 2

Nudes were tolerable in water connections because they became innocuous. It is the relationship of the water to the body that becomes an excuse for nudity. P. 2

There is a contradiction. We cannot question the sanctity of such water, even though it is simply recycled toilet flush. P. 3

Lake idea comes from Gaston Bachelard’s Water and Dreams. It deals, as does much of his work, with the way in which we take “stuff” and imbue it with imagination and shape. P. 3

Both urban water and urban space are not rigid entities, but things that we give meaning to with our imaginations so that they become social creations. P. 4

Illich attempts to explore the historicity of matter and specifically water and space. P. 4

WATER AS STUFF

Water is usually dual in cultural meaning, but different in different cultures. Water may be sea, blood, etc. But it is always primal. p. 5

Dead in Venezuelan border turn to water or return as dew. P. 6

Even non-water that appears “watery” (alcohol) can be watery. P. 6

Bachelard argues that all stuff has two elements: a formal element and a material element. They are inherently intertwined. Fire can be love, hearth, rage, and war as all can be kindled. Likewise, passion for a woman in one Mexican group is thought of as fire, the other as liquefying the innards. P. 6

These archetypal waters cannot be mixed with the industrial waters that now gurgle through our pipes. We have lost access to the waters of our dreams through exposure to the waters of our pipes. P. 7

Recirculated toilet flush, which pretends to be an aesthetic wedding between water and urban space, may well fail. P. 7

DWELLING SPACE

Space, as Durkheim put it, is not the homogeneous environment philosophers have imagined, but is a social creation resulting from the all-embracing complementarity in each culture. P. 8

Living an dwelling. One is temporal, the other spiritual. P. 8.

Dwelling is constantly growing and changing. P. 8-9

Dwelling is a vernacular commons, while industrial buildings are an economic commodity that can be regulated by formal laws. Dwelling space is:

1. Confining – live within it

2. Concentric – divides up space

3. Gendered – divided into man and woman domains

4. Governed by custom and rituals

Housing is where people are stored, in an industrial sense. P. 9

Dwellings vs. nests and lairs. P. 10 Dwelling is cultural nest is biological.

Now we have lost the sense of dwelling and are in housing. Dwelling is experienced, housing is consumed. We do not dwell where we spend our days (work) and we leave few traces in where we spend our nights. Traces are perceived as dirt and erased when the spaces changes hands or is prepared. P. 10

Dwelling now only remains in developing countries, and are seen as slums and shanties. P. 10-11

Water has been lost as a dreaming element of the city. Water can be well, piped or circulating. P. 11

RITUAL CREATION OF SPACE

Imagination does not form reality, it “sings of reality.” A town becomes one when it has a ritual that divides it and celebrates it from the rest, from the outside. P. 11-12

A town often begins in a dream of its founder. Often they are led to a specific site by a dream or vision. Often an animal may give a sign or a lightning bolt. P. 12-13

An augur must inaugurate towns. This involves a rough plan. The plan divides the living space from the common space. P. 13

PLATO’S MOTHERLY SPACE

Modern people do not perceive space as stuff. P. 16

Plato’s three conceptions of space:

1. The tangible reality pf the place

2. The founded space in which it comes into being

3. The idea of the place, which is prior. P. 17

To destroy city, the second sense had to be eliminated. Scipio in 146 BC, Troy, etc. Soul must be snuffed out, plowed under. P. 18

Bulldozers in Brazil vs. plowing under of Carthage. The same but different. In Brazil two different worlds meet. Yet, the favela comes back, almost immediately. To be buried like Carthage it must be cemented over and its space taken. Then the dwelling space is gone. P. 19

Discrete created natural space becomes indiscrete, homogeneous and commercial space. Dwelling space is unique and created by the people who dwell there, non-discrete space musty be created and then assigned to garage people. P. 20-21

New homogenous space is neither inside nor outside, neither interior nor exterior, right or left, male or female, just homogenous space. P. 21

People can be located and given an address, but they cannot dwell. P. 22

Italo Calvino and the Marco Polo story, concluding remark about this is hell. P. 22

Inner space and outer space. Our personal space only we can know. Geometry exists and operates outside of us, not inside. P. 23

Water is just as difficult to understand as space. The water we seek is the fluid that drenches the inner and outer spaces of the imagination. Water is even more difficult, because it: has an unlimited ability to carry metaphors, always possesses two sides. P. 24-25

Water is almost always an important part of creation myths. P. 25

Judaic creation myth explored. P. 26

Water’s dual character in myth. P. 27

Water contains purity and cleanliness: Water communicates purity by touching and waking; it cleans by washing dirt from the surface. P. 27

The focus here is not on purity, but on water’s power to clean – to detach what sticks to people, to their cloths and to their streets. P. 27

Water can cleanse lots of things: miasma, soil, shit, dirt, foulness, dung, glue, sap or mud. P. 28-29

Bodies after death are washed so that they will no longer be glued to their environment. P. 29-30

Most Indo-Germanic deaths take a water journey. They reach a body of water that separates the worlds. The water crossed is a stream of forgetfulness that washes away memory. Memories are carried away to other shores. Some can drink of those waters, as some say poets do. Thus, it nourishes the world of the living with the memories of the dead. P. 30-31

Writing tends to destroy this fluid nature of memory by fixing meaning and sound. P. 32-33

Memory as focus of literature made water an ideal metaphor. P. 33

Water began to come to cities through aqueduct and tunnel as opposed to only wells and cisterns. P 36

Rome’s water system. P. 36-37

Rome used fountains to break the symbolic circle around the city. P. 38

City of Rome became non-discrete space, encompassing the entire known world. P. 38

Idea that piped in water leaves via sewers is a new one, not applying to Rome. P. 38-39

Harvey invented the idea of circulation of water – into the city, used, and then back out. P. 38-39

Before Harvey circulation meant evaporation of distillation. P. 40

Blood circulates in this new way. p. 40-41 West was not ready for this in blood or water.

In the 18^th Century lots of things started to circulate – money, goods, knowledge, etc. p. 43

In the 19^th Century cities were analyzed using the circulation model, including sanitation issues. P 44 It was analogized as a body.

THE DIRT OF CITIES

Genesis of bathrooms, Knossos. P. 46

Toilets only seemed relevant when the ground is covered. P. 46

Romans began requiring a hole at the bottom of staircases for this purpose. P 46

Sacred scavengers were used to clean the streets, where waste was dumped. P. 46

In 1772 in Madrid there was not one formal toilet in the royal palace. P. 46-47

Evolution of toilets in London. P. 46

Thus, the city became a place that needed to be constantly washed. P. 47-48

The utopia of the odorless city emerges during the Enlightenment. P. 48

Evolution of smell - did not really notice it, hard to share it across time. P. 48

No all developing slum cities small like old cities of Europe, but new cities all smell the same, like gasoline, detergent, junk foods and smog. P. 49-50

THE SMELL OF THE DEAD

Dead were disposed of in shallow graves or open pits. The smell did not seem to be a problem. Then, in the 18^th Century people became concerned about the smell of the dead. Aries showed that this coincided with a growing fear of death, something to be avoided. P. 50-51

Living refused to share space with the dead, at the same time that the dead body was seen as a dysfunctional machine. P. 51

In church burials stopped, cemeteries were created, and the dangerous dead were banished. P. 51

No more cemetery parties after 1780. p. 51

The smell of shit was acceptable, but not the smell of death. P. 51

New burial methods removed the death from myth and from the city; their existence became a fiction. P. 53

After exiling the dead, the next war on odor was to deodorize the living. P. 53

Architects designed for lack of smell, condemning smelly housing, designing new ways to remove cause of odors, and creating open spaces. P. 54

Aura and stench were seen as the same. P. 54

MIASMA AND GAS

There was a specialty of studying airs, spirits and gases. These said that such smells were very bad and needed to be eliminated. P. 54-55

There were no ways to study gases, so it was done in the abstract/ p. 55

Fire was not understood as combustion, but the release of phlogiston. P. 55

Study of odors became very important. P. 56

The war against odors continued: Kings and queens now shit in private, it became a sex-segregated activity, it becomes an intimate function as Marie Antoinette dos it in private. P. 56-57

French and British elites handle it differently, stools vs. Wcs. P. 57

BODY ODOR

Underwear was for keeping warm, now it was for absorbing body sweat and bad odors. Bidets, changing bed sheets and clothing, separate beds in hospitals, 1793 right to own bed; private bed, stool and grave were united. P. 58

Deodorization of the entire city. Start with bedlams and prisons, beginnings of removal of night soil instead of harvesting it. P. 59

Race and class became important: Europeans smelled less, the poor smelled more, you move up in class by deodorizing. P. 59

Body contact with water is different in different cultures. P. 59

Precious soap was now used on bodies and not just on clothing. P. 60

New ideal: spaces have no scent, and each person must keep their scent to themselves. P. 60

Shame at uncleanliness, anger turns within (blushing). Each person’s smell becomes a skunk for the other. 61-62

PERFUME

Odorless privacy gives was to a false pleasing aroma, perfume. 62 Perfume by women becomes a sex worker. Female roses and violets, men leather and tobacco. Personalized odors.

Smells varied from rodent glands to vegetable extracts. 64

By the middle of the 19^th Century, the rich are lightly scented with perfume, the middle class are well scrubbed and odorless, and the poor need to be deodorized, 64

WATER AND THE TOILET

Toilette vs. toilet. P. 65

Slowly water increased in role: none, sponge bath, tub bath, toilette increasingly involved water. 65

Galvanized iron was available so baths for all, then showers. 65

New bathroom fused three functions: bathing, body cleaning, dressing for day or night. Occurs in private. Men shave themselves. Water washes it all away. 65

New circulation: water and traffic, as cities are designed around cars and sewage. 66

Bathroom word originates in 1888. 66

Paris did not follow the example of London, not washing all waste into the river, because it was an economic resource. Gardens flourished and fed many. 67

France and England clash over the uses of water. 68

London was obsessed by the control of sewage. 69-70

Horrors of the Thames. 70

USA WATER AND FLUSH

Wood housing necessitated water to fight fires. 71

Once piped in, water use goes up 20x to 60x. 71

USA reached piped water levels of ancient Rome. Well-flushed house was a status symbol. 72

In 1893, 80% of Baltimore used outdoor privy, 50% in NYC. 72 After Ww1 bathrooms no longer were luxuries. 72

Water disposal soon became overburdened. 73 Storm water sewer combination. 74

Fecal borne infection spread by water use. 74

First half of 20^th Century would not drink from unapproved faucet or fountain, bathing in public spaces very unusual and often just on scouting trips. 75

Then, water became not a drink, but a cleaning fluid, totally. 75

Water went from a touch of spiritual purity, to H20 that you would not drink. 76

Shadow Work Part Two

2010-11-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

Image by Perfesser via Flickr

Shadow Work notes part 2

Alfred C. Snider

Research by People

Science for vs. science by people p. 77

“Research by people” defined p. 78

Illich as historian leads to bias p. 79

Hugh of St, Victor, 1096, Ivan’s hero p. 79

Hugh – science makes up for bodily weakness, not domination of ecology p. 84

Humans are the naked animals, with reason as equipment p. 87

Evolution of the “mechanical” p 88

Greek: outwitting nature

Early Middle Ages: complement to astrology (art)

High Middle Ages: artful imitations of nature, not of god (science)

After Hugh: Exploit nature. First wage laborers. Pp. 90-91

We need to restudy how tools influence people. P. 92

In 1000, tools created enough surpluses that exchange was called for. P. 93

Greek texts were translated for the West, Aristotelian “science” was revealed as “what makes things tick,” replacing how to “help human weakness.” P. 93

This led to the domination of nature, and humans, with nature as instrument of domination. P. 93

Bacon: use science & technology to dominate nature. P. 94

New ecological R&D forms tries to help people exert self-control, not domination of nature. P. 94

SHADOW WORK

Society based on scarcity must have a form of Apartheid. P. 99

What shadow work is vs. what traditional cultures do. Modern society convinces people that shadow work is satisfaction of needs, not work. P. 100

Shadow work is not: p. 100

-Subsistence activity

-Under paid wage labor.

Difference between wage labor and shadow work explained, bottom p. 100

Shadow work is not the major form of discrimination. P. 101

History of the terms “job” and “work” p. 101

People separated from subsistence cannot be generous p. 104

1700-1900 wages go from good to bad, previously wage labor was good, then later it was a bad thing to have. P. 104

Work pictured as the stone of wisdom – it transmutes base materials into gold. P. 106

Almshouses become workhouses pp. 105-106

Police action against poverty. P. 106

Victimized riot in favor of their victim age, their moral economy p. 106

In the transition to the modern economy men were given wages, and women were given shadow work suited to their purpose.

107-108 The war against subsistence explained pp. 107-108

How shadow work was justified for women: p. 108

-Biological nature

-Social reproduction

-Informal economy

-Feminists said, just pay us for housework

How USA housework changed around 1810. p. 111

Shadow work and wage labor go together p. 113

Conclusion: concern about women and about workers without new thinking only makes things worse. P. 116

Shadow Work Part One

2010-11-10T08:09:00.001-08:00

SHADOW WORK by Ivan Illich Part One

Notes by Alfred Snider

INTRODUCTION

Definition of Shadow Work p. 1

Shadow work essential for dependence on commodities p. 1-2

THREE DIMENSIONS OF PUBLIC CHOICE

Development as a key word p. 9

Rising externalities, plastic buckets p. 9

Counter productivity found within each commodity p. 10

Avoiding counter productivity is now the new privilege pp. 10-11

Three dimensions of public choice: p. 11

X = who gets what

Y = legitimacy of judgment on means of production

Z = trade off between growth and freedom

New feminists and others are merely trying to put money into everything p. 13

Full employment is now seen as a bogus goal p. 13

Housework is not salaried and is not subsistence p. 14

What development does p. 15

Movements to subsistence p. 16

Grassroots action p. 17

How the west views the rest of the world… p. 18

Greek outsider exclude

Roman pagan convert

Middle ages infidel fight

Colonial wild man subjugate into econ

Neo-colonial native master, break vernacular

Contemporary underdeveloped develop them

Soft path is, and may be --. 20-21

Vernacular work is at the top of Z p. 24

The change back to subsistence, must involve: p. 25

1. Knowledge of the nature of the human

2. Cannot be imposed

VERNACULAR VALUES

Shadow dimensions of the economy pp. 29-30

Confusion of the vernacular domain with the shadow economy p. 31

Language and empire p. 34

Nebrija’s grammar 1482 p. 35

Grammar stops reading p. 49

Caxton’s vernacular books 1470s p. 40

What the death of vernacular language does p. 44

WAR AGAINST SUBSISTENCE

Definition of vernacular language and taught mother tongue p. 57

In vernacular society, can use several languages p. 61

Energy intensive nature of industry as compared to other societies p. 64

Pre-industrial societies did not teach everyday language p. 66

How taught language is socially different p. 67

Imposed language is a European phenomenon p. 68

Vernacular language and non-elite language is different p. 69

Printing press triggered the death of vernacular language p. 70

Taught language is inhuman p. 71

Helping the poor is not the same as creating subsistence pp. 72-73

Gender Part Two

2010-11-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

GENDER, by Ivan Illich PART TWO

Notes by A. C. Snider

CHAPTER FOUR

Gender characterizes a world that is now lost to us. P. 91 tool example

Gender indicates specific tasks p. 93

We think gender and division of labor is primitive because ALL subsistence societies have it and ONLY ours does not.

Gender and rent p. 95

It is possible to have gender in a highly developed civilization. P. 98

Anthropologists miss gender because they see kinship instead. P. 99

Anthropologists miss gender because they see conjugal couple instead. P. 100

“Marriage” is a genderless key word p. 101

Taxable income of the conjugal couple begins the decline of gender. Pp. 101-102

First phase, gendered but conjugal units in Europe. P. 102

Second phase, 19^th century gender decline. P. 103

CHAPTER FIVE

Gender is vernacular, you see it and sense it but it is not taught to you.

Space and time domains. Pp. 107-108

Roles, status, and rank IS NOT GENDER! P. 108-109

Misidentified terms for gender. P. 1112

The Domus p. 117

Modern apartments are like a garage. P. 119

Genderless space threatens women. P. 122

Gender has been rubbed out of the body. Abortion example. P. 123

Gender is something you are born into. P. 127

The genderless gaze of sex always constitutes the male vision. P. 128 bottom

Gender promotes diversity, there are always different sides of everything. P. 128

Men and women anthropologists tend to be sexist in analyzing other cultures. P., 128-129

Focus on power sees things from a perspective of scarcity and thus must be sexist. P. 129

Bakweri women see themselves more identified with nature than with men. P. 129

Science destroys gender. Pp. 131-132

Language can be strongly gendered, Madagascar example. Pp. 137-138

Gendered language is delicate and can be easily destroyed. P. 139 Example of Kosati in Louisiana.

Grammatical genders irrelevant in the shift to male dominance in language. P. 139

CHAPTER SIX

The heterosexual p. 147.

Few societies classify individuals based on the gender of those to whom they are erotically attracted. P. 147

Homosexual as a term has diagnostic power, making sex the defining characteristic, not just another preference and behavior. P. 146

Religious rituals that involve gender reversals have magical power because they cross gender borders that are very clear. P. 146

Homosexuality has never been viewed as a sexual disorientation characteristic until the scholastic Christian era. P. 148

This shows barrier between sex and gender. Women who were erotically attracted to women were still gender women, until now, when they become lesbians in a triumph of sexual language. Likewise with men. P. 148-149

The rise of the “homosexual” traces the conquest of the West by the regime of sex. P. 149

Story of Arnaud the sodomizer. Pp. 149-150

“Buggery” originally meant those Christians separated from the main faith (Gnostics), but became a label of monstrosity. Pp. 150-152

Marriage became a sacrament in the high middle ages as the church tried to take control of gendered life and change it. P. 151

Clerical care became professional care. P. 151

Confession as a way to promote the care role of the clergy. P. 153

Confession vs. public penance. P. 154

Adultery loses its gender difference and becomes a sexual sin of similarity. P. 155

Regime of sex acted to de-gender iconic images, the squatters. Pp. 163-165

The witch becomes the priestess of the epoch of broken gender. P. 167

Civilization of broken gender p. 167-18

1. Middle ages, wedding joined extended kinship groups, not just two people.

2. 11^th century, marriage united two people as co-payers of rent.

3. Marriage becomes a sacrament, and thus an institution, not a relationship.

4. Conjugal couple creates adaptable labor units, increased marketable commodities, but still a lot of subsistence.

5. Genderless economic partnership.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Subsistence behavior shows gender, shift from subsistence creates broken gender, and capitalism demands the regime of sex. P. 169

Charting divorce proceedings pp. 173-174

Rise of divorces showed how stress was being put on women. P. 174.

The past has been repackaged for us to preserve the regime of sex. Pp. 176-177

Two lies p. 178

1. About sexual ancestry of society.

2. About the supposed move to equality.

We must reject the comforts of economic sex in order to reclaim gender. P. 179

Gender Part 1

2010-10-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

GENDER, by Ivan Illich PART ONE

Notes by A. C. Snider

Gender vs. sex pp. 3-4

Hard to talk about because gender is largely dead in speech p. 5

KEY WORDS: unquestioned, imputed need pp. 4-5

VERNACULAR LANGUAGE VS. TAUGHT MOTHER TONGUE pp. 7-8

Dangerous topic pp. 8-9

Industrial society needs the assumptions of unisex and scarcity. P. 11

Three dreams: p. 9

1. Feminist genderless society

2. Leftist technological plastic society

3. Return to gender

1 & 2 involve genderless economics.

FOUR REGIMES

1. Reign of vernacular gender

2. Regime of broken gender

3. Regime of economic sex

4. Return to gender

Must stop industrial expansion:

1. Environmental degradation as the commons become resources

2. Paradoxical counter productivity – schools and medicine

3. We must end sexism. P. 16-17

Definitions:

Social gender p. 20

Economic sex p. 20

Example: how eggs get cooked p. 49

The net result of the regime of economic sex is the victimization of women

IN THE REPORTED ECONOMY

Women get 60% of the money that men get, stable since 1880.

Women college grads make as much in a life as a male high school drop out

Economic development leads to violence against women p. 31

IN THE UNREPORTED ECONOMY

Victimization of women through prostitution, sex industry, drugs, bottom rungs of crime, unreported work linked to crime.

IN THE SHADOW WORK

Definition p. 48

Women do more of it, and it is mechanized boredom p. 49

How shadow work became sexist p. 50

More goods mean more shadow work

Men can do shadow work as well p. 53

Discrimination against women is not cultural but economic. Different nations show it. P.36

Housework is unreported economic discrimination p. 41

History of housework p. 47

GENDER IS

Ambiguous complementarity, like right and left hands p. 74

Gender is polarity p. 68

Not bio-determinism

Not social science sexism of sex roles. Gender is not just another role. You are born into gender, while a role is an acquired plastic.

No set gender domains p. 87

Tools for Conviviality

2010-10-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

TOOLS FOR CONVIVIALITY

Hard Cover edition

Notes by Alfred C. Snider

TWO WATERSHEDS

1. When professional services come to dominate;

2. When they become counterproductive and this demands more of the same.

CONVIVIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Conviviality defined. P. 11

Conviviality is possible; technology and science do not demand that tools not be convivial. It is a political decision.

Worldwide crisis of modern institutions allows us an opportunity to create something better. P. 12

Convivial society is the result of social arrangements that guarantee for each member the most ample and free access to the tools of the community and limit the freedom only in favor of another member’s equal freedom. P. 13

Transition to a convivial society is not without risks and victims. P. 13

Methodology for this study:

1. Will not describe the fictional community of the future, but give guidelines.

2. Will not create an engineering manual for a convivial society, but establishes criteria by which to recognize now tools are manipulating people.

3. The focus will be on the structure of tools, not on the character of those who use them.

4. No political strategy or tactics. There can be surprising multiplicity of governance.

5. Recognizing the destructiveness of tools requires the recognition of the value of distributory and participatory justice.

6. Economics of convivial societies cannot be taken for granted. It needs to utilize the limiting criteria.

Learning and education become schooling, and thus not convivial. P. 18-19

Convivial society must recognize that it should not treat its machines like slaves. Not all machines are evil, but some are not convivial. P. 20

Tools are not just tangible implements, but productive systems like factories and productive institutions like schools and hospitals. P. 20

Individuals relate to their society through the way they use their tools. P. 21

Three levels of physical tools: hand tools, harnessing tools (plough with ox), and power tools (jet plane)

Standards for conviviality: (p. 22)

Easily used

Used by anybody

As often or as seldom as desired

For the purpose chosen by the user

Does not restrain others from using it equally

Does not require previous certification of the user

Does not impose an obligation to use

User expresses meaning through action.

EXAMPLES: Telephone, hand tools, mails, Mexican market.

Not every tool in a convivial society will meet these standards strictly. P. 23

Need a balance between convivial and non-convivial tools, at least. P. 24

Examples p. 24 middle.

Underdeveloped society = people depend for most of their goods and services on the personal whim, kindness, or skill of another.

Advanced society = living is a process of ordering from an all-encompassing store catalog p. 25

Focus on most issues (bad management, corruption, lack of technology, etc.) blinds us to the real question, understanding the basic structure of tools as means. P. 25

Certain tools are destructive no matter what. Networks of multilane highways, long-range wide bandwidth transmitters, strip mines, compulsory school systems. P. 26

When muscle was the main power, it was more under the control of the individual. P. 28

Oppression only came when it produced more than it took to maintain it. P. 28

New power turned time into a commodity. P. 31

Tools at three levels: p. 32

1. Normally satisfying and independent work

2. Use in activities best expressed as labor

3. Certain machines can only be operated.

Cars are machines that demand highways, highways pretend to be public utilities but they are discriminatory devices because they crowd out others. P. 32

Convivial work cannot be sold, but its results can.

Labor can be bought or sold.

To operate means you have to be certified through training and successive jobs. P. 33

Machines can now be designed to eliminate slavery without enslaving us to the machines. P. 33

Barefoot doctors of China. Pp. 34-35

Mexican roads: better before they got so good. Pp. 36-37

Railroads have different fares but the same speed. Now speed becomes all and defines privilege. Pp. 37-38

Thai canals were replaced by roads. Bottom of p. 38

Building trades and standards example. P. 39

Alliance for Progress example. P. 40

Professional goal setting creates more frustration than satisfaction. P. 41

Convivial society is possible, beneficial, and necessary for all people. P. 43-44

Continuing on this path threatens the survival of mankind. P. 45

THE MULTIPLE BALANCE

1. Biological degradation.

2. Radical monopoly

3. Over programming

4. Polarization

5. Obsolescence – reconstruction defined p. 73

6. Frustration – counterfoil research p. 77 – relationship between people and their tools (p

Idle vs. packaged activities p. 80 – listening to your neighborhood bird or a record of bird calls, going for a walk through a park vs. a guided jungle tour.

Problems of speed p. 80

20 mph constant speed means around the world in 40 days. P. 82

Transition away from growth mania will be difficult but worth it. P. 83

STEPS TO RECOVERY

1. Demytholigization of science

2. Rediscovery of language – having work vs. doing work. Explained p. 90.

3. Recovery of legal procedure. Formal process can be a convivial tool. P. 97.

POLITICAL INVERSION

1. Myths and majorities

2. From breakdown to chaos

3. Insight into crisis

4. Sudden change

Disabling Professions Week

2010-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

DISABLING PROFESSIONS

Notes by Alfred Snider

Illich, “Disabling professions”

p. 12: Age of professions defined.

p. 14: Dependence on commodities legitimizes needs.

p. 16: Needs are equal, but the game is zero-sum.

p. 17: Guild, union, gang vs. profession.

p. 17: Only professions also control demand.

p. 21: Professions violate hearsay rule.

p. 23: 80% of 1500 new products die within a year.

p. 24: verb => noun = need.

p. 25: Needs become multi-disciplinary.

p. 26: Workplace essential because of services.

FIVE ILLUSIONS:

p. 29: 1. Discounting use value versus exchange value.

p. 33: 2. Technological progress dictates more professional servicing.

p. 34: 3. Self-help tools must be certified for use.

p. 35: 4. Professionals define what is NOT needed.

p. 36: 5. People must be certified for self-help.

Zola, “Healthism and disabling medicalization”

p. 47: Medical science in the USA had no organized opponent.

p. 48: Medicine accessed all other sciences AND a rising humanism.

p. 50: Darwinism set the stage for medicine – all is science, God is not in charge, evolution proves the law of progress.

p. 52: The process of medicine attaching itself to everything else happens through:

1. Expansion of that in life which is relevant to medicine;

2. Retention of absolute control over certain technical processes (surgery, drugs, etc.);

3. Retention of near absolute access to taboo areas (anything happening inside the body or the mind);

4. Expansion of what in medicine is deemed relevant to the good life.

p. 55: Psychosocial states become medicalized.

p. 61: Health problems list – colonization.

McKnight, “Professionalized service and disabling help”

p. 72: Professional services are a universal good as they are related to love.

pp. 72-73: educare and judicare as employment programs.

p. 74: A central need becomes adequate income for service professionals.

p. 75: Contradictions of professional servicing. Everything is getting worse, or certainly no better.

p. 78: Disabling effects of professionalized assumptions of need:

1. Need becomes a deficiency.

2. Deficiency is always placed within the client. Children as wards of the state example.

3. Specialization results, massive cost, bureaucracy, a system of managed parts and the patient becomes a system of managed parts.

p. 85: Inventing new needs – baldness soon to be seen as a disease.

PROFESSIONAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT NEED:

p. 78: 1. Need is the absence of something. You are deficient.

p. 79: 2. The deficiency is in the client. You are the problem.

p. 80: 3. Specialization chops up the whole person. You have lots of different problems.

p. 88: You are the problem, I am the answer, you need me (your deficiency is made up by what I offer), you cannot understand what I do, and my services succeed when they satisfy me.

p. 89: Professionals and your needs.

p. 89 top: Consummation of a service society.

Caplan, “Lawyers and litigants”

p. 93: You create a monopoly by inventing a language and procedure that will be unintelligible to most people.

p. 94: Law becomes a great social leveler, something everyone can agree with.

p. 94: Legal assistance gains the rank of medical assistance.

p. 95: We need lawyers to transfer property and to conduct business. It begins encroaching into new spheres.

p. 96: Lawyer’s role is not limited, so they colonize.

p. 97: Need lawyers for criminal cases, but we should question all non-criminal uses.

p. 98: Increasingly one needs a “lawyer’s advice” for things not strictly legal.

p. 99: 90% of the time cases are decided by the facts, not by points of law. Also, every decision has major value characteristics. Neither are exclusive provinces of lawyers.

p. 100: Infrequency of formal legal contact makes people uncritical of the legal process.

p. 102: The cult of lawyerism is reinforced by:

1. Not self-service cafeteria, but waiter service.

2. Laws become more complex and thus lawyers are more needed.

3. Disputes resolved in a ritualistic and formalized atmosphere.

4. Citizens are discouraged from learning to defend themselves.

5. Lawyers become judges.

p. 108: Cannot resolve disagreements without a lawyer. “Solutions to human affairs ought to be worked out in a human atmosphere and not in an orator’s arena baited with procedural traps.”

pp. 108-109: Justice should become more committee-like: litigants state their own cases (to be taught in schools), rules and regulations easy to understand and reference, committee is made up of normal citizens of good will.

Medical Nemesis Part 2

2010-10-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Image by RTP (Really Terrible Photographer) via Flickr

IVAN ILLICH

MEDICAL NEMESIS NOTES

PART TWO, PP. 87-END

Values of coping – medical civilization deprives us of that p. 90

Three regressions from medical civilization: 1. healing power in sickness, 2. patience in suffering, 3. fortitude in the face of death.

PAIN:

· Pain as growing, development of character: patience, forbearance, courage, resignation, self-control, preserverence, and meekness. P. 93

· Others respond with: duty, love, fascination, routines, prayer and compassion. Now replaced with technical management.

· Now a political issue for anesthesia users who seek artificial insensibility, unawareness and even unconsciousness. P. 94

· Four aspects of how we feel pain: culture, anxiety, attention, interpretation. P. 95

· The doctor is responsible for dealing with pain, not the individual.

· Pain killing as alien to most culture, it did not exist as a separate malady beyond grief, guilt, anguish, etc. p. 97

· Language of pain has shifted significantly. P. 97

· Common experience of pain brings us together.

· Our experience of pain makes us understand social conditions that breed pain and the suffering of other people. Pp. 99-100

· Pain causes us to ask questions we need answered. P. 100

· Doctors, on the other hand, focus on those aspects of pain best manipulated from outside.

· People unlearn how to deal with pain. P. 101

· Experience of pain moves us more responsible for our own health. P. 101

· Pain in European tradition was a reminder of evil. P. 103

· Pain was an occasion for heroism, purification, toleration, and alcohol and opium were used, but never the complete alleviation of pain. p. 104

· Reasons elimination of pain was alien to European civilization: human experience of an imperfect universe; an example of corruption in nature; pain was an experience of the soul throughout the entire body. P. 104.

· Descarte separated body from soul, beginning of the war against pain. p. 104.

· First drug sold as a pain killer in Wisconsin in 1853.

· Now we flee pain even if it means less aliveness and independence. P. 106.

· People are no longer able to understand the idea of the virtue of enduring pain.

· “Drugs, violence and horror remain the only stimuli that can still elicit an experience of self. Widespread pain-killing increases the demand for painful excitation.” P. 106.

· A world without pain creates the horror of unfeeling. Example of Hiroshima observers. P. 107.

· Pain and body-soul division

· Politics and pain

· Numbness denies joy and pain

IMPAIRMENT:

· Hospitals were originally places no one would go to. P. 110.

· Health becomes a political issue after the French Revolution. Pp. 110-111.

· Hippocrates: no certainty in medical intervention. P. 112.

· Clinic – from bedside to doctor’s detached determination. P. 116.

· Locus of sickness – body or outside

· Sickness – personal or impersonal

· Hospital – museum of sickness

· Need the deprofessionalization of medicine. Pp. 120-121.

DEATH:

· What death images say about our society p. 122

· Differing visions of death. P. 123.

· Role of death in different ages pp. 143-144

· Death and dissection, with dissection as obscene. P. 134.

· Bacon identifies new task for doctors – prolongation of life – thought obscene previously. P. 135.

· Life expectancy increased in the 1800’s for the well-off, but not because of medical attention. P. 136

· New death and the poor. Previously death controlled the time of death, now the upper classes tried to seize the clock

· New death explained pp. 148-149

INSTEAD:

· Character of good care pp. 119-120

· Simple alternative p. 120

· Keep specialized care pp. 120-121

· Personal responsibility recaptured p. 168 middle

· Optimal health world p. 169

Medicalization of death makes medical care as the new world religion.

Medical Nemesis Part One

2010-09-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

Cover of Medical Nemesis

MEDICAL NEMESIS

IVAN ILLICH

PART ONE

MODERN MEDICINE NOT SO VALUABLE

§ 90% of the reduction in the worst diseases had come before widespread immunization or antibiotics. P 16

§ Nutrition and disease link is much better p. 17

§ Environment is everywhere the most important way to control disease and promote health 17

§ Current nutrition levels would have been fatal except for hygiene 17-18

§ Some medical related developments have increased health: contraceptives, treatment of water and excrement, use of soap and scissors by midwives, small pox vaccinations of infants, antibacterial washing and insecticides. 18

§ Rate of doctors in a population, number of hospital beds, nor their clinical tools relates to increasing health if other factors are considered. 18

§ Supply of doctors does not relate to prevalence of disease, rather doctors live where they like and they like to live where it is healthy, where people work and are healthy and can pay them. 19

USELESS MEDICAL TREATMENT

§ Some medical treatments have been useful, but they are generally inexpensive.

§ Infectious diseases: drugs reduce deaths by pneumonia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. 19

§ Malaria and typhoid are easily cured now. 19-20 Coming back because of pesticide resistant mosquitoes.

§ Vaccines have contributed to big declines in: polio, whooping cough, and measles. 20

§ Non-infectious diseases: tooth decay through fluoridation. 20

§ Cancer: cervical cancer, skin cancer highly effective. 20

§ Breast cancer stays at 50% no matter what. 20

§ Early detection increases the amount of time you survive because it is early detection. 21

§ Some heart treatments increase activity levels after diagnosis, but not necessarily survival rates or longevity. 21

§ High blood pressure medication helps some but not most. 21

DOCTORS DO DAMAGE

§ What kills people? Malnutrition, traffic, work, war. Medical damage is up there with all except war. 22

§ Medicines can be poisonous 22 arm, addiction, and mutagenic effects.

§ Antibiotics can work, but then increase resistance. Many now are no longer helpful. 23

§ Unnecessary surgery: more cardiac damage to children than cardiac disease. 24

§ Professional callousness, negligence and incompetence. 24

§ Malpractice now has a new respectable status. 24

§ Malpractice only applies when you go against the accepted medical code, specified by doctors. 25

§ 7% of all patients suffer compensatable injuries but few report them. 25

§ Accidents kill children, most accidents are in hospitals. 25

§ 2% of children in hospitals suffer an accident requiring additional treatment 25

§ 20% of patients in teaching hospitals are injured. Half from drugs, 10% from diagnosis damage. 25

§ With a similar record of performance a military commander, restaurant or amusement center would be stopped. 25

Deschooling Society Part 2

2010-09-16T04:47:00.000-07:00

Notes by Alfred Snider.

CHAPTER FIVE: Irrational consistencies

· Need to reevaluate publicly prescribed learning p. 65

· Student drop out rate

· Teacher desertion and attraction

· Reform is not the solution

o Free schooling is still schooling p. 67

o New technique leads to the success of the current model

o Sill makes all learning the result of institutionalized teaching

o Reform movements become co-opted

· Teachers have become therapists that we all need

· Reforms within the institution must fail p. 69 bottom

· Education revolution requires:

o New focus for research: not assume status quo framework

o New style of education: list at bottom of p. 70

CHAPTER SIX: Learning webs

· We learn more from experience than from school p. 72

· Problem is in visualizing the alternative p. 72

· No change possible within current school system p. 74

· New system must have three purposes p. 75

· All who want get access to resources

· Empower people to share

· Enable all who want to present an issue to the public to do so

· No more division based on curricular goals

· New educational system:

· Reference service to educational objects: access to normal, normalize specific materials

· Skill exchanges: schools = skill shortages, no certification discrimination

· Peer matching: create networking norm, meetings p. 135

· Reference services to educators at large: independent educators. Create and operate this system. Guide students and parents. Direct instruction.

· Edu-credit concept

· No discrimination based on certification

· Education becomes life long

CHAPTER SEVEN: EPIMETHEAN MAN

· Institutionalized values bad

· We must deinstitutionalize values

Ivan Illich Extra Readings

2010-09-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

IVAN ILLICH EXTRA READINGS
FALL 2010

Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich, as told to David Cayley
Anansi Press: Toronto, 2005
• The Criminalization of Sin, pp. 80-94
• Fear, pp. 95-103
• Friendship, pp. 147-152
• Age of Systems, pp. 157-168

Ivan Illich in Conversation
David Cayley
Anansi Press: Toronto, 1992
• The Last Frontier of Arrogance, pp. 153-171 (Shadow Work)
• The Double Ghetto, pp. 172-198 (Gender)
• A Generation Rid of Stuff, pp. 244-251 (H2O)

The Challenges of Ivan Illich: a collective reflection
Lee Hoinacki & Carl Mitcham, eds. State University of NY Press: Albany, 2002
• David Schwartz, Ivan Illich’s Concept of “rests”: Glimpses of a World Past, pp. 101-126
• Aaron Falbel, The Mess We’re In: How Ivan Illich Revealed to Me That the American Dream is Actually a Nightmare, pp. 129-140
• Pieter Tijmes, Ivan Illich’s Break with the Past, pp. 205-218
• Ivan Illich, The Cultivation of Conspiracy, pp. 233-242

Deschooling Society Part 1

2010-09-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

DECSCHOOLING SOCIETY, NOTES

BY ALFRED SNIDER

Different page numbers may indicate different editions.

Education is not schooling p. 15

“Learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others.” P. 56

CHAPTER ONE:

· All of society is “schooled”

· Institutionalization of values is the problem

· More money will not improve education

o Goes to custodial, indoctrination, social service roles

o Poor kids never catch up

· Classical vs. modernized poverty

· A bad school system makes education more important to each individual

· Failure of school becomes the failure of education. The real problem is linking “learning” (a value) with “school” (an institution). P. 11

· Rich get ten times the educational funding of the poor. P. 13 p. 9

· Education in its current form creates a caste system

· Government should get out of education, stop certification, stop discrimination based on education

· Caste is traditional. Now, school serves all caste assignment functions p. 17

· Learning is not necessarily linked to teaching. We learn far more out of school. P. 18 p. 12

· Drill is good. Has been lost. List of good drills p. 19

· Edu-credit system

· Skill teachers: Spanish language example pp 21-2, p. 15

· Certification is bad

· Tuition credits for school is bad

· School fail: to teach skill (don’t), non-skill (best done individually)

· Freire: reading and politics

· Intellectual matching example p. 28

· Leads to less intimidation by certification

· Giving state control; is bad… example of the problem of institutionalized values p. 35 top down

CHAPTER TWO:

· Schooling and teaching become evil key words

· Definition of school

o Age specific. The myth of childhood

o Teachers & pupils – roles

o Full-time attendance, custodian, moralist, therapist, domains blur together

CHAPTER THREE: Ritualization of progress

· Modern university is the worst of all

· Modern university is the same as a powerful church:

· Repository of myth

· Institutionalization of myth’s contradictions

· Locus of ritual to dispel these myths

· Myth of institutionalization of values:

· Myth of unending consumption, transfer of needs to institutions

· Myth of measurement of values

· Myth of packaging values: disciplines, curricula

· Myth of self-perpetuating progress: escalation is the answer

· Coming universalization of expectations

· New alienation p. 67

· Evil future like Orwell’s 1984 pp. 69-70

· School is the critical agency causing current problems

CHAPTER FOUR: Institutional spectrum

· Desirable future depends on X pp. 75-75, p. 52

· Left right axis: convivial vs. non-convivial institutions p. 53

o Non convivial institutions pp. 77-78

o Convivial institutions p. 74

· Transportation plan pp. 83-85 pp. 58-59

· Schools like highways p. 87 p. 60

· Schools relatively uniform globally p. 60-61

· Centralized to promote manipulative tools p, 62

o Making vs. doing p. 62

o Making is end focus

o Doing is focused on the act

· Empty space is taken up by consumption

· Need institutions that increase social interactions

· Need to educate for: action, participation, and self-help

Fall 2010 Semester Begins, Here is the Syllabus

2010-09-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

THE RHETORIC OF IVAN ILLICH

Alfred C. Snider, Instructor

Fall, 2010, Wed 4:05-7:05

Lafayette 411

http://rhetoricofivanillich.blogspot.com/

This course will focus on the non-fiction works of Ivan Illich (1926-2002). For over 35 years he was an influential social critic who questioned the assumptions of our daily lives. The UTNE Reader named him as the most important social philosopher of the 20^th century. One of his main methods is to identify concepts that we almost universally accept and show how they work to actually become the sources of our failures. His works are also closely related to the field of communication, in that they deal extensively with symbols in politics, language use and social perspective, the dangers of linguistic formalism, and communication and gender. Ivan Illich provides in-depth and scathing criticisms of most of the major institutions and values that comprise our civilization. The role of the student and the instructor is to engage these criticisms and respond in kind -- agreeing, disagreeing, and justifying our own ideas.

The format of this course will be the seminar. Here the aim is to discuss with each other the concepts introduced in a thoughtful, open, and prepared fashion. Energy in the classroom alone is not enough to guarantee a successful seminar. It is also necessary for students to review the material thoroughly and think about it in advance for the mutual discovery of knowledge in the seminar to be optimized. It is assumed that students will attend the seminars, will be prepared to deal with the material, and will participate.

If you are not prepared to do this, if you are not prepared to do the reading on time, you should not take this class. The reading can be described as “thick” but engaging.

Requirements include the following:

• Do required reading. In a small seminar with material the instructor knows very well you will not be able to hide the fact that you did not do the reading. It is advised that students take thorough notes on the readings as they read them. http://www.uvm.edu/~asnider/Ivan_Illich/

• Attend class and participate actively and thoughtfully. 25% of grade.

• Present a report on an assigned separate reading. You must also provide a typed handout in the proper format for each student. Your report should last the required time (20 minutes minimum) and include discussion. You must be ready to answer questions from the class and the instructor. 25% of grade.

• Write a 10-20-page paper on the topic, "My Ivan Illich Problem," in which you disagree with some major position taken by Illich. 25% of grade.

• Write a 10-20 page paper on the topic, "What is Ivan Illich Up To?" in which you analyze something Illich is trying to accomplish, why he is trying to accomplish it, and whether he succeeds or not. 25% of grade.

Required reading includes: Les than 100 pages a week

Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, 1971.
Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis, 1975.
Ivan Illich, Disabling Professions, 1977
Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, 1978.
Ivan Illich, Gender, 1980.
Ivan Illich, Shadow Work, 1981
Ivan Illich, ABC, 1988.
Ivan Illich, H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness, 1986

This is a tentative syllabus and may be subject to change.

Alfred C. Snider, 475 Main St., 656-0097 office voice, 238-8345 mobile, 656-4275 fax, Alfred.snider@uvm.edu email.

Short Biography of Ivan Illich

2010-04-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

From http://www.answers.com/topic/ivan-illich

Theologian, educator, and social critic Ivan Illich (born 1926) sought bridges between cultures and explored the bases of people's views of history and reality.

Ivan Illich was born on September 4, 1926, to Ivan Peter and Ellen Illich in Vienna, Austria. His father came from an aristocratic and Christian family; his mother's family was Jewish. His childhood was spent growing up in the homes of grandparents and wherever his parents might be at the time. His father's career as a diplomat politically protected the Jewish members of his family during the 1930s; yet Ivan was classified as "half-Jew" in 1941 and his family secretly fled from a Hitler-controlled Austria to Italy. In Florence at the age of 15, his father and grandfather having died earlier from natural causes, Ivan began taking care of his mother and younger twin brothers.
He entered the University of Florence where he majored in chemistry. At the age of 24 he graduated from the University of Salzburg with a Ph.D. in history on the work of the popular historian Arnold Toynbee. He prepared for the priesthood at the Gregorian University in Rome and became ordained in 1951. It was here that he met Jacques Maritain, the Catholic philosopher, who was to become his mentor and lifelong friend. Through him, Illich discovered the ideas of Thomas Aquinas and built a Thomistic philosophical foundation for understanding the world.

Stretching the Limits of the Priesthood

In 1951 Illich came to America hoping to study at Princeton University, but his interest quickly changed. On his first day in New York he heard through casual conversations about large numbers of Puerto Ricans migrating into other ethnic neighborhoods. After spending a couple days observing and visiting with them he asked to be assigned to a Puerto Rican parish. In his ministry he sought to make them feel at home in their new country by reinstituting their cultural and religious traditions. He sought to have Spanish materials made available to the children. His popularity among the Puerto Rican community grew and after just five years, in 1956, at age 30 he was made a monsignor and accepted the position of vice-rector of the Catholic University at Ponce in Puerto Rico.
During the decades of the 1950s and 1960s Illich continued his work within the church, yet his commitment often brought him into conflict with those in and outside the church who had different agendas. While in Puerto Rico, and later in Mexico, he threw himself into the study of education and was outspoken in his criticisms of formal schooling. He ridiculed the notion of development in U.S. programs such as the Peace Corps, believing that such volunteer programs damaged not only the people in Latin America but the volunteers themselves. He claimed that the Alliance for Progress was an alliance for the middle classes, and he questioned the motives of missionaries who came to him for further study. He refused to withdraw support from a politician who advocated birth control. He withdrew from his role at the Vatican Council in protest over its political timidity. In essence, he sought de-institutionalization of the church. In 1967 he was summoned to Rome before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He refused to answer their questions. Six months later Rome moved against him with documents he claimed were cribbed from U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reports leaked to the Holy See. At that point Illich voluntarily suspended himself from the priesthood, although he never resigned nor was he removed from the priesthood. He insisted that neither his faith, morals, nor theological views were at variance with the gospel and that they were orthodox, even conservative.

Awakening People to New Possibilities

Recognizing that Puerto Rico was perceived largely as a U.S. puppet, Illich moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1961 and established there the Center for Intercultural Documentation. The focus of his work remained unchanged as he sought to establish a bridge linking the two Americas and to train individuals for religious work in Latin America. By the mid-1960s the institute through its research seminars was attracting worldwide individuals concerned with social and economic issues. Illich viewed the center as a place for free, committed, and disciplined intellectual inquiry, yet many participants viewed it as an unstructured forum for political expression. Although still attracting students and economically sound, the center was not accomplishing its original purpose. Therefore, in 1976 it was closed.
The next several years Illich traveled and studied oriental languages and culture with the dream of writing the history of Western ideas in an oriental language. Subsequently, believing the task to be too great, he returned to an old intellectual home, to the study of 12th-century philosophy. Here, while teaching at the University of Marburg in Germany, he sought to find a fulcrum for lifting contemporary people out of their socially-constructed, conventional perspectives and out of a worsening world situation. He sought to enable them to understand how their commonly viewed reality (what is taken for granted or as certain) was historically constructed and can be changed. In the early 1990s Illich taught part of the year at Pennsylvania State University and continued to reside in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Illich became known as a brilliant satirist and critic of contemporary institutions. In the early 1970s he called for a reexamination of existing social institutions. For example, he argued that schools are a lottery in which everyone invests but few win. As a result of perceived failure, those students who don't succeed in schools are stigmatized and suffer discrimination. In contrast, he proposed to correct this unjust situation by de-schooling society and thereby making it impossible to discriminate on that basis. Later, his thought penetrated to new depths when examining the professions, particularly the medical profession and how it leads individuals to become dependent and to assume less responsibility for their own lives.
In the 1980s Illich's thought shifted and again reached new levels of analysis. He stated that changes in our current situation can be attained if individuals "awaken" to the fact that each person's understanding or perspective of his or her world, a world that each of us takes for granted and as certain, is seen as being formulated and handed down over the centuries. Such conventional perspectives lock individuals into certain solutions and prevent recognition of new ways of living in the world. For example, in his work ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind he shows how our way of thinking has made three shifts throughout time. The first shift that changed our ways of seeing resulted from the introduction of the alphabet. A second shift in our thinking came in the 12th century with the development of the written page as we moved from an oral public and a spoken reality to a written reality and a literacy paradigm. And finally, the computer and word processing have created a new watershed of change in which our thoughts were increasingly arranged more by the logic and efficiency of a technical tool than by the natural meanings embodied in a live discourse and spoken tradition.