The International Journal of Illich Studies
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A Reflection on “The Idea of a Town” and on the Reality of Cities in an Uncertain Time
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He Is Not a (neo)Liberal: Revelations of a Pandemic and the “Prophecies” of Ivan Illich
Full text linkIn this paper, I show that Illich’s core arguments and his analytical diagnosis of industrial society does not conform to either the liberal or the neoliberal position. Only a careless reader can mistake Illich for an intellectual companion of Milton Friedman, and his writings as supporting the program to dismantle education in Brazil which Bolsonaro has started since 2019. It is precisely this confusion that accounts for the rediscovery of Illich, after 50 years of ostracism, in the form of Deschooling Society, published by Vozes in 2018 as Sociedade sem Escolas (Society without schools). I argue it is the inability of both the liberal and neoliberal thought collective to escape their mental categories that make them blind to Illich’s convivial dimension, a radically distinct third way. In presenting this argument I suggest that Illich can be read as if he were a prophet. Todd Hartch, in The Prophet of Cuernavaca, has explicitly recommended such a reading (HARTCH, 2014). I do understand Illich as a prophet of modernity, but on a register quite different from that adopted by Hartch. The prophetic vision of Illich is not because he could see into the future. Instead, I understand Illich as a prophet in the sense of one who reveals what he sees in the present. I believe that the prophet makes visible what is not widely acknowledged, exposes what is papered over by the shiny surfaces of the present and is therefore generally neglected. Illich did not predict the coronavirus. What Illich saw was the underlying shape of contemporary society now exposed by the coronavirus
Towards Illich\u27s \u27Legibility\u27: Returning to Ivan through the Mirror of the Past
No full textTowards Illich\u27s \u27Legibility\u27: Returning to Ivan through the Mirror of the Pas
Learning from Ivan Illich to Embrace Vision and Eschew Plans
Full text linkWe live in the midst of ecological collapse, and that collapse is brought on by a system that has poorly served humanity by creating institutions that indocrinate rather than liberate us and function primarily to maintain their own existence. Illich and others have vigorously pointed this out, but their calls for a more convivial society have gained little traction, largely because their critique of society is so fundamental and universal that they have been unable to gain many allies. The problem lies in the current paradigm, put in place since the Enlightenment, that only allows us to see the world in terms of problems, solutions, and plans. I argue that we should be open to Vision, and I discuss my own struggle to step out of the soul-killing paradigm in which I formed my identity