Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
New York, Harper & Row [1973]
Original publication date
1973
ISBN
0060121386 / 9780060121389
Description
A work of seminal importance, this book presents Ivan Illich's penetrating analysis of the industrial mode of production which characterises our contemporary world. The conviviality for which noted social philosopher Ivan Illich is arguing is one in which the individual's personal energies are under direct personal control and in which the use of tools is responsibly limited. This book claims out attention for the urgency of its appeal, the stunning clarity of its logic and the overwhelmingly human note that it sounds.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kukulaj
Ach, what to do about all this! This book was written in 1973 but is still well out in front any ideas I have worked up to. But then look at the crazy world around us! If ideas matter, if expression of ideas matters, how could the world have gone in the direction it has, with this book in the
What was the point of the Occupy Wallstreet movement? Well, it didn't seem to have a coherent message. But I heard a lot about the 99% and the 1%, the growing wealth inequality. Is the fundamental problem a matter of how industrial products are distributed? Perhaps the challenge is to increase industrial output so that everyone enjoy the comfortable lives currently enjoyed by but restricted to the 1%?
This is the perspective argued against in this book. The problem is not about who controls industry or how much industry produces or who gets to enjoy the outputs of industry. Instead, the whole structure of industrial culture is itself the problem.
Illich proposes that technology passes two watersheds as it develops. There is a point where technology really enhances the ability of people to engage with the world. Then there is a point where the technology has engulfed the world and comes to rule people. People are forced to conform to the demands of the technology, People become powerless to act, but instead are acted upon.
It's interesting to think about warnings like that of Stephen Hawking, that artificial intelligence could somehow take power away from people. From the perspective of this book, we have long ago passed deep into that territory. How would Illich write about this today! Look at how deeply information technology... mobile internet access... has restructured society, and enforced participation. Basic survival requires constant connection, keeping up with the ever shifting protocols, the browsers, the menus, the add-ons, the apps.
Illich talks about the impending collapse... well, that could take of the form of "B. F. Skinner's concentration camp" - how far have we fallen into that pit?
This is a compact and dense book, like a bullet shot from a rifle. Disturbing, almost shattering - I suspect even more than when it was written. It's like the medicine we should have taken long ago, and without which, yes, the disease indeed progresses just that way.
Now what? I will be reflecting on this book for quite a while!
Show More
world? It's not an obscure book or an obscure writer, either! This is a serious puzzle!What was the point of the Occupy Wallstreet movement? Well, it didn't seem to have a coherent message. But I heard a lot about the 99% and the 1%, the growing wealth inequality. Is the fundamental problem a matter of how industrial products are distributed? Perhaps the challenge is to increase industrial output so that everyone enjoy the comfortable lives currently enjoyed by but restricted to the 1%?
This is the perspective argued against in this book. The problem is not about who controls industry or how much industry produces or who gets to enjoy the outputs of industry. Instead, the whole structure of industrial culture is itself the problem.
Illich proposes that technology passes two watersheds as it develops. There is a point where technology really enhances the ability of people to engage with the world. Then there is a point where the technology has engulfed the world and comes to rule people. People are forced to conform to the demands of the technology, People become powerless to act, but instead are acted upon.
It's interesting to think about warnings like that of Stephen Hawking, that artificial intelligence could somehow take power away from people. From the perspective of this book, we have long ago passed deep into that territory. How would Illich write about this today! Look at how deeply information technology... mobile internet access... has restructured society, and enforced participation. Basic survival requires constant connection, keeping up with the ever shifting protocols, the browsers, the menus, the add-ons, the apps.
Illich talks about the impending collapse... well, that could take of the form of "B. F. Skinner's concentration camp" - how far have we fallen into that pit?
This is a compact and dense book, like a bullet shot from a rifle. Disturbing, almost shattering - I suspect even more than when it was written. It's like the medicine we should have taken long ago, and without which, yes, the disease indeed progresses just that way.
Now what? I will be reflecting on this book for quite a while!
Show Less
Similar in this library
Call number
CA ILL