Photo by Beverly Illich
Course Readings
Needs
"Thus, the human phenomenon is no longer defined by what we are, what we face, what we can take, what we dream; nor by the myth that we can produce ourselves out of scarcity, but by the measure of what we lack and, therefore, need. And this measure, determined by systems analysis thinking, implies a radically new perception of nature and law, and prescribes a politics more concerned with the provision of professionally-defined requirements (needs) for survival rather than with personal claims to freedom which would foster autonomous coping."
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Disabling Market Intensity
"'Crisis' has come to mean that moment when doctors,diplomats,bankers and assorted social engineers take over and liberties are suspended....'Crisis' now evokes an ominous but tractable threat against which money, manpower and management can be rallied. Intensive care for the dying, bureautic tutelage for the victim of discrimination, fission for the energy glutton, are typical responses. Crisis understood in this way is always good for executives and commisars, especailly those scavengers who live on the side effects of yesterdays growth:..."
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Disabling Professions
"...the Age of Schooling, when people for one-third of their lives were trained how to accumulate needs on prescription and for the other two-thirds were clients of prestigious pushers who managed their habits. It will be remembered as the age when recreational travel meant a packaged gawk at strangers, and intimacy meant training in Masters and Johnson; when formed opinion was a replay of last night's talk-show, and voting an endorsement to a salesman for more of the same."
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Health as One's Own Responsibility
"I am convinced that health and responsibility belong to a lost past and that, since I am neither a romantic, a visionary, nor a drop-out, must renounce both of them. But only if I succeed in unequivocally articulating this renunciation of health and responsibility can I escape the reproach that I am nothing more than a rhetorical critic."
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The Three Dimensions of Social Choice
"...the nature of human satisfaction is at issue. To characterize the two extremes, I shall use terms defined by Erich Fromm. At the bottom, I place a social organization that fits the seeking of satisfaction in having; at the top, in doing."
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Reflections on 'Health as One's Own Responsibility' by Lee Hoinacki
"In earlier writings, he (Illich) said that modern certainties -- the unexamined axioms on which the West rests -- must be questioned and, in various books, tried to show how this can be done. Now, for the first time, he baldly states that the certainties must be renounced, and begins with a denial of health and responsibility. And, of course, these are not the only modern certainties for Illich. But this is an appropriate place to start."
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