I've often wondered how it was to be in that room, the day Illich delivered his speech. A friend once expressed that she found herself physically shaking, just reading the text of it, from the force of his words. (I did hear a rumour, not long ago, that a recording from the original event may be in existence.)
I found myself wondering now, as I read this, how one might interrupt the certainties of your imagined audience sufficiently for there to be a chance of them hearing what you (and Illich) are saying? To the extent that the history of Silicon Valley still figures in its collective imagination, that might offer an entry point, thinking of Illich's influence on some of the Homebrew Computer Club folks, not to mention his connection with Stewart Brand. If I found myself addressing such an audience, I'd be tempted to start with that history – and maybe with the time Carl Mitcham told me about Illich announcing with horror (and, no doubt, humour), "People are saying I invented this internet!"
Among your questions, it was this one that got me thinking about those certainties in need of interruption:
"Will this technology generate an experience of real-world competency, or will it undermine the possibility of such an experience by promising to automate essential and meaningful labor?"
Perhaps because I just finished Wendell Berry's The Need to Be Whole, I'm wondering how to awaken the sense that there might be such a thing as "essential and meaningful labor", that labour itself is not inherently a thing from which we need to be "saved". Part of what makes this hard to imagine is that the whole history of industrial society is woven through with the stripping of meaning from labour in pursuit of efficiency, productivity, etc. Once labour has been remade to this logic, who wouldn't want to be saved from it? The idea that the problem might not lie in labour itself, but in the inexorable economic logic of efficiency, is not immediately intuitive, unless there's a direct experience through which we can grasp it.
It's good to be reminded, too, of the language of aliveness at the heart of this speech. I realise that this is one of the sources from which we drew the phrase "the work of regrowing a living culture" when framing what we're up to at our little school. The allegation implicit in the phrase is the one that Illich makes explicitly: this culture, this way of being in the world, is not alive enough to be worth "sustaining". And so, as Neto Leão says, "To hell with sustainability!"
(And it's interesting how many different ways Illich dances with the language of "life", over time, from this speech, to "conviviality", to the anathema on life-as-idol in the speech that he gave at Will Campbell's invitation in Ohio.)
Wonderful observations here, neighbor. I'm curious about what you are "up to" at your little school :). This retired small-town administrator is now refurbishing vintage English bicycles for regular use, to be given away. And, yes, there is a philosophy of Old English Bicycles, from a time when Capital in Old Blighty was exercised to actually make things of actual utility, and employ actual people using hands and actually developed skills. Tim
Great. We'll all have personal digital assistants to perfect our very lives. And the data centers to run all this? There's already coal-fired power plants still on-line, that needed to be retired years ago because of service life issues, just to meet the new demand for 'data centers', much less the load for AI machines. For my part, everyone who's selling this beautiful future would have to take the graveyard shift shoveling coal into those boilers, day after day. But, who am I kidding. I know who's going to be covered in coal dust with a Seymour #11 scoop shovel cramped into their hands, and it won't be Sam Altman. And, speaking of Schadenfreude, the big transformers that get electricity from the generating station to your personal digital assistant? Lead time on your utility provider getting one to boost power to your privileged neighborhood: 120 weeks. Altman's autonomous personal assistant's going to want your neighbor's air conditioning energy. Guess who's rates are going to have to cover the difference?
Just to make clear (I'm still taken aback with just how angry all this greed and connivery and just plain selfishness of the entitled few has me), I really do appreciate the point of view and insights that Ivan Illich brings to what the 'social order' of the West has come to (along with his homily to the beauty of the bicycle), and the manner with which your column illuminates that, Michael. This New Order is NOT what my parents came home to build after the Big War. So, sincerely, thank you for what you share with all of us. This is good material. I plan to 'afflict the comfortable' with this. Tim
Would we want done to us in the spirit in which we intend to do to those we are "helping", from a height commensurate with the distance we see ourselves above them?
What is to be learned of those that “go native”? Lessons to be learned of perspective shifts of lifestyle, religion, even shifts in science understanding. An attitude of attentive listening, observation, reflection. You can always hope and try to learn more than you teach or know.
And aren’t there degrees of “going native” in this regard? It may be that most modern westerners think the Amish are bizarre because of their customs, and vice versa. But what is to stop anyone from using only the technology that they deem useful and/or sane?
Or, even more moderately, as Michael seems to be doing here, using technology that normally results in fractured attention and the shallow surface worship of the latest shiny object to promote deep reflection and understanding?
I've often wondered how it was to be in that room, the day Illich delivered his speech. A friend once expressed that she found herself physically shaking, just reading the text of it, from the force of his words. (I did hear a rumour, not long ago, that a recording from the original event may be in existence.)
I found myself wondering now, as I read this, how one might interrupt the certainties of your imagined audience sufficiently for there to be a chance of them hearing what you (and Illich) are saying? To the extent that the history of Silicon Valley still figures in its collective imagination, that might offer an entry point, thinking of Illich's influence on some of the Homebrew Computer Club folks, not to mention his connection with Stewart Brand. If I found myself addressing such an audience, I'd be tempted to start with that history – and maybe with the time Carl Mitcham told me about Illich announcing with horror (and, no doubt, humour), "People are saying I invented this internet!"
Among your questions, it was this one that got me thinking about those certainties in need of interruption:
"Will this technology generate an experience of real-world competency, or will it undermine the possibility of such an experience by promising to automate essential and meaningful labor?"
Perhaps because I just finished Wendell Berry's The Need to Be Whole, I'm wondering how to awaken the sense that there might be such a thing as "essential and meaningful labor", that labour itself is not inherently a thing from which we need to be "saved". Part of what makes this hard to imagine is that the whole history of industrial society is woven through with the stripping of meaning from labour in pursuit of efficiency, productivity, etc. Once labour has been remade to this logic, who wouldn't want to be saved from it? The idea that the problem might not lie in labour itself, but in the inexorable economic logic of efficiency, is not immediately intuitive, unless there's a direct experience through which we can grasp it.
It's good to be reminded, too, of the language of aliveness at the heart of this speech. I realise that this is one of the sources from which we drew the phrase "the work of regrowing a living culture" when framing what we're up to at our little school. The allegation implicit in the phrase is the one that Illich makes explicitly: this culture, this way of being in the world, is not alive enough to be worth "sustaining". And so, as Neto Leão says, "To hell with sustainability!"
(And it's interesting how many different ways Illich dances with the language of "life", over time, from this speech, to "conviviality", to the anathema on life-as-idol in the speech that he gave at Will Campbell's invitation in Ohio.)
Wonderful observations here, neighbor. I'm curious about what you are "up to" at your little school :). This retired small-town administrator is now refurbishing vintage English bicycles for regular use, to be given away. And, yes, there is a philosophy of Old English Bicycles, from a time when Capital in Old Blighty was exercised to actually make things of actual utility, and employ actual people using hands and actually developed skills. Tim
Great. We'll all have personal digital assistants to perfect our very lives. And the data centers to run all this? There's already coal-fired power plants still on-line, that needed to be retired years ago because of service life issues, just to meet the new demand for 'data centers', much less the load for AI machines. For my part, everyone who's selling this beautiful future would have to take the graveyard shift shoveling coal into those boilers, day after day. But, who am I kidding. I know who's going to be covered in coal dust with a Seymour #11 scoop shovel cramped into their hands, and it won't be Sam Altman. And, speaking of Schadenfreude, the big transformers that get electricity from the generating station to your personal digital assistant? Lead time on your utility provider getting one to boost power to your privileged neighborhood: 120 weeks. Altman's autonomous personal assistant's going to want your neighbor's air conditioning energy. Guess who's rates are going to have to cover the difference?
Thanks for the Illich here, Mr. Sacasas.
Just to make clear (I'm still taken aback with just how angry all this greed and connivery and just plain selfishness of the entitled few has me), I really do appreciate the point of view and insights that Ivan Illich brings to what the 'social order' of the West has come to (along with his homily to the beauty of the bicycle), and the manner with which your column illuminates that, Michael. This New Order is NOT what my parents came home to build after the Big War. So, sincerely, thank you for what you share with all of us. This is good material. I plan to 'afflict the comfortable' with this. Tim
Would we want done to us in the spirit in which we intend to do to those we are "helping", from a height commensurate with the distance we see ourselves above them?
What is to be learned of those that “go native”? Lessons to be learned of perspective shifts of lifestyle, religion, even shifts in science understanding. An attitude of attentive listening, observation, reflection. You can always hope and try to learn more than you teach or know.
And aren’t there degrees of “going native” in this regard? It may be that most modern westerners think the Amish are bizarre because of their customs, and vice versa. But what is to stop anyone from using only the technology that they deem useful and/or sane?
Or, even more moderately, as Michael seems to be doing here, using technology that normally results in fractured attention and the shallow surface worship of the latest shiny object to promote deep reflection and understanding?
Thank you for your fine and successful achievements in keeping Ivan Illich's thinking alive.