Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

noemamag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 183 posts

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#111

Post by pas »

markhahn wrote: post #105
walleeee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would contest the notion that a lack of religiosity must magnify discontent with death. Also it remains rather difficult to "opt out" of a protracted, likely intubated decline, at least in the US. Moreover there is no opting out of modernity writ large. This is the nature of multi-polar traps: choosing not to join an arms race is a local, temporary reprieve. The optionality modernity seems determined to optimize fo…

isn't it more that people cleave to magical thinking, archaic though it is, because they have trouble dealing with the despair of poor health and final death? one big support for this is the gradual decline of religiosity in areas of the world where life is improving. conflated, of course, with the hegemonistic aspect of organized religion.

One argument is that we simply replaced the archaic (religion-focused) dogma with a modern (consumerist, individualist, hyperpoliticized) one, but their function is the same, to serve as complex death denial rituals.

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#112

Post by [deleted] »

indigo945 wrote: post #83
narinxas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he's a westerner, clearly; nobody has contested this. it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response already to enact certain behavior. the difference is between "inner impulse from the individual outwards to their environment" and "external en…

> it's interesting how you not see any distinction between an autonomous > creative impulse from the self outwards to the community and environment AND > the enviroment prompting some person who was taught a conditioned response > already to enact certain behavior. Of course I see it, but, again, understanding this as a meaningful distinction is a cultural prejudice. Besides, in Confucian thought, moral behavior is t…

[deleted]

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#113

Post by UncleOxidant »

indigo945 wrote: post #72

> Illich defined conviviality as “autonomous and creative > intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons > with their environment.” He contrasted this to “the > conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon > them by others” from above and afar in the name of > advancing progress. For someone who claims to criticize "Western" thought, this appears to be quite deeply steeped in a particular Wes…

What about this quote of Illich from the article:

> “I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value,” he wrote in “Tools for Conviviality.”

He doesn't seem to define conviviality outside of community or to put it another way, community seems to be an important requirement for conviviality. This stands in contrast to modern western individualism.

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#114

Post by lacrosse_tannin »

slibhb wrote: post #75

Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Si…

You only get so much time on earth either way!

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#115

Post by ogurechny »

slibhb wrote: post #75

Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Si…

It's a bit offensive to give us all “non-believers” zero metaphysical depth

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#116

Post by peter_retief »

toyg wrote: post #69
peter_retief wrote: post #3

This is great, "The Virtue Of Enoughness" Kind of how I try and live, there are some things I kind of need like coffee and internet.

The problems typically arise when someone decides that everything everyone needs is coffee and internet. What is enough for you might not be enough for someone else, particularly people who grew up resenting the fact that they only had a few things.

It is how I want to live, I don't want to impose it on others and don't even do it that well myself. The early Stoics were influenced by the Cynics, the word Cynic apparently means stray dog in Greek. Various philosophers, such as the Pythagoreans, had advocated simple living in the centuries preceding the Cynics. So it is a very old idea.

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#117

Post by ttoinou »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #20
ttoinou wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Ellul unfortunately he is much more cloudy in his statements and analysis, it takes much more energy to decipher (even in French) and make your own what he's saying. I'd rather recommend reading basics stuff like Guy Debord (Society of Spectacle), André Gorz (Métamorphoses du travail), Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Kohr (The Breakdown of Nations). A little bit of Bourdieu cannot hurt either

Mumford and Postman also expand that list. Of Illich I've only fully read "Tools for Conviviality", which I'd say is a manifesto for Humane Technology of a kind.

Thank you for the recs ! Would you have one book per author to rec ?

And indeed Illich is not anti-tech, he's not a luddite

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#118

Post by [deleted] »

slibhb wrote: post #75

Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Si…

[deleted]

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#119

Post by saghm »

slibhb wrote: post #75

Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death. For non-believers, though, earthly life is all there is, so reducing suffering, disease, and poverty are much more pressing goals -- goals that might be worth a little alienation. I would emphasize choice: people can (and do) embrace alternative ways of life, from the Amish to kibbutzim. Si…

> Criticizing modern medicine makes a lot of sense if you're a devout Catholic because the afterlife tempers the sadness of death > Similarly, we don't have to drag out our final years: we're free to opt out of medical treatments

OTOH, Catholicism also is strongly against euthanasia, which is arguably at odds with the sentiment of not having to drag out final years. I think there's plenty of room for a philosophy to "not drag out final years" as a non-believer who doesn't need to rule out certain measures like that.

Re: Ivan Illich’s radical critique of modern certitudes (2021)

#120

Post by hudon »

jhbadger wrote: post #68

Something that goes without comment by the uncritical author is Illich's vile comment that medical science and its quest to extend life at all costs "extends the suffering of cripples". In other words, he doesn't see the life of disabled people as having value.

To say that disabled people's lives have no value is vile, but that is not what he's saying. It's the unnecessary prolonging of suffering that Ivan Illich speaks against, the pressure to do everything humanly possible to eek out any extra week on one's lifespan, even if that extra week is a miserable one spent in agony. Now that is not to say that we should just jump off a bridge at the mere sight of suffering, but rather discern how our life is meant to be lived while letting go of our need to control everything.
Post reply on HN