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 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…
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…
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…
Watch As Video Today’s quote from Hannah Arendt is particularly timely as academics (and others) in the West increasingly question some of the most basic biological realities of life, and as AI and other technologies make it increasingly difficult to discern truth from falsity. Here’s the quote: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not…
Watch As Video A subject rarely addressed, but that plays an increasing role in the lives of all people is that of desire, and in particular: how do we know what we want? As always, historical perspective is enlightening: before the dawn of modern advertising (and the industrialization that it was created to market) there…
