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

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

#41

Post by gumby »

tazjin wrote: post #26

I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.

The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained.

I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.

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

#42

Post by coldtea »

tazjin wrote: post #26

I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.

Perhaps they're just using words that they think every person with a well-rounded (as opposed to exclusively vocational or STEM focused) education and/or interest in humanities would/should be familiar with?

I mean aside from, say, pleonexia (greed) and iatrogenic (harm caused by medical intervention), I don't see anything out of the reach of an average well read person - and English isn't even my first language.

I mean, what would the difficult terms be? Paternalism? Credentialism? Interlocutor? Cascading? Certitudes?

(We want them to take down those "difficult" words, and then we go off lamenting how "Idiocracy was a documentary")

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

#43

Post by paganel »

palata wrote: post #36
di4na wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have. And I think it is definitely worth it to read it, because he brings a lot of clarity to a lot of things. Buuuuuut. In the end, I think Illich fail his own test. He claims to analyze systemic impacts, but fail to recognize the systemic impacts of his own solutions. I always use the "speed" example for this. Illich basically advocate for more or less banning the use of any mean of transportation faster than a b…

> Not only it is cost prohibitive (because of reuse of means of production, mass production impact on cost, etc) but also it is really hard to actually engineer this stuff without a lot of experiments and needs for it, which do not happen if you restrict the use of these stuff to a limited niche. Couldn't one argue that there is not that much engineering needed to keep producing emergency vehicles that we already hav…

It's not only emergency vehicles, it's also stuff like mini-vans and lorries that keep us well-fed. It's about who's going to pay for those highways once the personal cars are gone? How are you going to keep a Western logistics network in place without those highways and roads? No, extending the railway network to its past glory days (like the left-hand map in this photo [1]) won't work and will definitely not happen anymore. Do we really want to go back to stuff like this [2]?

[1] https://64.media.tumblr.com/81242bedb09cc3087fc0855deb381f50...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e02ilyAatbM

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

#44

Post by wrycoder »

dang wrote: post #19

Related. Others? Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28431541 - Sept 2021 (17 comments) Silence Is a Commons (1983) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26007100 - Feb 2021 (31 comments) Deschooling Society (1970) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23821855 - July 2020 (195 comments) Deschooling Society - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21578620 - Nov 2019 (1 comment) Tools f…

Thank you for taking the time and effort to produce these summaries. The comments on HN are such a useful resource, often exceeding the value of the cited sources!

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

#45

Post by smokefoot »

gumby wrote: post #41
tazjin wrote: post #26

I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.

The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained. I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.

Not so much the vocabulary but the excessive use of adjectives and the overall verbosity. It took ten paragraphs for me to understand anything new about who this guy was and what his worldview was.

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

#46

Post by truculent »

ggpsv wrote: post #30
truculent wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A touch less related perhaps, but there are many links from The Convivial Society newsletter whose name is taken from Illich’s work: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=convivialsociety

This is a great resource to get into Ivan Illich. The writing refers a lot to Illich's work, and there are a couple of episodes where it is discussed with people close to Illich. Quite related, I'd say! The name, however, is a play of Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" and Jaques Ellul's "The Technological Society".

Ah yes, thank you for the correction!

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

#48

Post by coldtea »

gumby wrote: post #41
tazjin wrote: post #26

I dislike reading this kind of article, where it feels like the author swallowed a thesaurus and is using every second word to (often unnecessarily) display how clever they are. Note how actually clever texts (probably including the source texts that this is about!) are rarely written like that.

The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained. I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.

Pleonexia might be used in some certain way by Illich, but it's not his neologism. Or particularly new either. It's an ancient Greek word meaning greed or literally "apetite for (ever) more", where pleon = more, coming from PIE root for the same meaning.

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

#49

Post by gumby »

coldtea wrote: post #48
gumby wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vocabulary does not seem extraordinary to me. The only oddball words are actually neologisms of Illich’s (e.g. “pleonexia”) which are quoted and explained. I doubt someone like, say, Orwell, who complained about the stultifying use of language, would have any objection to this essay.

Pleonexia might be used in some certain way by Illich, but it's not his neologism. Or particularly new either. It's an ancient Greek word meaning greed or literally "apetite for (ever) more", where pleon = more, coming from PIE root for the same meaning.

Thanks. Makes the point better than my misunderstanding did (or should have): words the author thought the reader might not know were called out.

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

#50

Post by coldtea »

hcks wrote: post #28

> critique of modern certitudes > it’s bottom of the barrel degrowthism Every. Single. Time.

Rather this is a typical HN religous-substituting faith in "progress" (of the non-reflective "just more of everything" variety), and a knew-jerk reaction to any mention of limits to growth and other concerns aside from enlargement.

Every. Single. Time.

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