WATCH AS VIDEO One of the initial criticisms of the pre-Industrial world was that the individual was squashed by his responsibility to the wider society in which he found himself. The Enlightenment, and the subsequent liberation movements that it inspired, focused on the rights of the individual often at the expense of the individual’s responsibilities…
Watch As Video Is there some way to avoid the influence of technological development? In the modern world, alas, this is more or less impossible. If Jacques Ellul, writing nearly a hundred years ago, was pessimistic about this possibility, how much less possible is this today? Today’s quote from Ellul reflects this pessimism: “Modern technology…
How do we decide whether or not to adopt a new technology? What criteria do we use when we encounter a new product, new service, or a new way of doing or thinking about something? Unfortunately, many of us do not have clear criteria and so we do not have the necessary filters for making…
WATCH AS VIDEO The next great thinker in our series is the French philosopher, sociologist, and Reformed theologian, Jacques Ellul. Ellul was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1912. He was professor of history and the sociology of institutions at the University of Bordeaux. Among the many topics he discusses in his more than 60 books…
WATCH AS VIDEO In previous installments, inspired by the thought of the great cultural critic Ivan Illich, we considered what human freedom means and discussed the importance of maximizing for human agency. We also looked at, among other things, Ivan Illich’s critique of the modern education and health systems. I wanted to end our…
Watch As Video While the work of Ivan Illich offers remarkable and counterintuitive insights into a variety of aspects of the modern world, he is best known as a critic of both the modern educational system and the modern health system. In one of his most influential works, Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis, The Expropriation…
Watch As Video The quotes from Ivan Illich that we have looked at thus far might suggest that he was a pessimistic and unhappy person. The truth, however, is that Illich does more than simply offer a critique, he also provides a vision and a path forward, as the title of his seminal work, Tools…
I have referred to the concept of human flourishing a lot recently, and I’m sure that I will continue to do so. In today’s quote from Ivan Illich, he addresses two often unconsidered side effects of modern consumer society: “In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and…
Watch As Video Ivan Illich’s second significant, and perhaps most influential, work was Tools For Conviviality, which was published two years after Deschooling Society. In this work, Illich expands his critique of modern institutions, of the dominant role played by technocratic elites in industrial society, of the institutionalization of specialized knowledge, and ultimately argues for…
Ivan Illich’s first influential work was Deschooling Society, which he published in 1971. In this work, among other things, Illich argued that the institutionalization fostered by the educational system has led to the general institutionalization of society, and that if we could de-institutionalize education, that this would help to de-institutionalize society. The first quote we’re…
