http://www.zumu.com/illich/Others%20on%20Illich Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:41:39 EDT http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htmhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htmKnown for his critique of modernization and the corrupting impact of institutions, Ivan Illich's concern with deschooling, learning webs and the disabling effect of professions has struck a chord among many informal educators. We explore key aspects of his theory and his continuing relevance for informal education and lifelong learning.Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/111-7.htmlhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/111-7.html"Reflections on a seminal cultural critic/intellectual gadfly, by Carl Mitcham, Peter Warshall, Jerry Brown, Vijaya Nagarajan, Lee Swenson, David Cayley, and Lee Hoinacki."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.com/illich/Others%20on%20Illich/From%20The%20Guardian.htmlhttp://www.zumu.com/illich/Others%20on%20Illich/From%20The%20Guardian.html"Best known for his polemical writings against western institutions from the 1970s, which were easily caricatured by the right and were, equally, disdained by the left for their attacks on the welfare state, in the last 20 years of his life he became an officially forgotten, troublesome figure (like Noam Chomsky today in mainstream America). This position obscures the true importance of his contribution. His critique of modernity was founded on a deep understanding of the birth of institutions in the 13th century, a critical period in church history which enlightened all of his work, whether about gender, reading or materiality. He was far more significant as an archaeologist of ideas, someone who helped us to see the present in a truer and richer perspective, than as an ideologue. "Fri, 1 Aug 2003 9:19:15 EDT http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/jan03/illich.htmhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/jan03/illich.htm"In like manner, Illich saw pain as more than a mere technical problem to be solved by drugs and surgery. The medical profession, he said, holds out the false hope that pain (and other forms of suffering) can be eliminated by its ministrations. In the past, however, before the medical profession achieved its current importance and simulacrum of efficacy, pain and suffering were understood to be an intrinsic and unavoidable part of human life, that had inevitably to be faced and given meaning. In practice, it was religion that gave cosmic meaning not only to pain and suffering, but to the rest of life. Not to accept pain and suffering, when in fact they are as ineluctable as ever, whatever the medical profession might claim or encourage its clientele to hope, is paradoxically to increase their dominion: for without meaning, they are either arbitrary and meaningless, or unjust. To fight against suffering is therefore to increase suffering."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.com/illich/Others%20on%20Illich/From%20Jordan%20Bishop.pdfhttp://www.zumu.com/illich/Others%20on%20Illich/From%20Jordan%20Bishop.pdf"And in fact, if we may recall Max Weber, we might say that Ivan Illich spent his life breaking out of the iron cages of conventional wisdom. Ivan revelled in the unorthodox, yet he was at the same time the most traditional of men. He preferred to sing the psalms in the Latin of Jerome’s vulgate, which has been criticised as being best sung by ploughmen. He revered scholarship and learning, and detested schools, precisely because these were often, he contended, the death of scholarship and learning."Thu, 31 Jul 2003 8:1:10 EDT http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.geocities.com/combusem/ILLICH.HTMhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://www.geocities.com/combusem/ILLICH.HTM"Illich practically predicted another tenet of globalization with the assertion, "...(there is) little challenge as executives claim services for the sake of greater production" (1973, p. 70). This has its effects on inequity as bureaucracies are pulled into the support of industries and hierarchies of knowledge capital are formed that legitimize growing disparities of income. Education and professionalization currently reinforce sexism, racism, and ethnocentrism in a society. The deeper questioning of the long-term sense of the industrial system that these minorities might ask is deflected as the system is actually reinforced by the aspirations and efforts of minority individuals to gain "equal pay for equal rank" (p. 71). Illich notes that nevertheless, most members of minorities remain outside the industrial power structure."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2003/01/PAQUOT/9866http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2003/01/PAQUOT/9866"Il est mort, et son oeuvre complète va prochainement faire l'objet d'une réédition (1), permettant aux uns de la découvrir et aux autres de la revisiter. Oeuvre exigeante, foisonnante, dérangeante, difficile à classer, à l'image de son auteur qui se trouve rarement là où on l'attend."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.comhttp://somawake.com/illich.htmhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://somawake.com/illich.htm"In his well-known and widely acclaimed critiques of education and health care, Ivan Illich repeatedly denies that he is a romantic, which he contrasts with being a realist (Illich 1994; hereafter, HO). Indeed, he is very much the realist, both because of his trenchant criticisms and because of his refusal to resurrect a past that he sees is irretrievably lost. Nevertheless, he remains a romantic in three senses: he is tendentious, melodramatic, and impractical."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.comhttp://agora.qc.ca/mot.nsf/Dossiers/Ivan_Illichhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://agora.qc.ca/mot.nsf/Dossiers/Ivan_Illich"Illich est tout d'abord un penseur qui se situe dans un contexte historique particulier, celui des années 60 - période caractérisée par une critique radicale de l'ordre capitaliste et de ses institutions sociales, et notamment de l'école."Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST http://www.zumu.comhttp://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0303/opinion/berger.htmlhttp://www.zumu.comhttp://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0303/opinion/berger.html"Illich called me from New York, telling me that he had forgotten the scarf in the office of his publisher, who was going to mail it to me; he would then pick it up on a forthcoming visit to Boston. Illich arrived, but the scarf did not. Next, he asked me to forward it to Atlanta where, he informed me, he spent every New Year’s Eve with the widow of Erich Fromm (Fromm lived in Cuernavaca for a while and had become a friend). The scarf arrived, some days after Illich’s visit, and I duly sent it on to Atlanta. But a quick recapitulation of Illich’s itinerary made me doubt that the scarf would reach him in Atlanta either. I then had a vision of the scarf following Illich, from continent to continent, never reaching him—a metaphor of unending pilgrimage. (I never did learn where the scarf ended up.)"Mon, 6 Feb 2012 8:49:46 EST