Who Was Ivan Illich?

Having looked at some of Hannah Arendt’s seminal ideas, I’ve decided to go ahead and move on to our next great thinker, Ivan Illich. We will return to Postman and Arendt eventually, but for now it seems like a good time to dive into the thought of another of our great 20th century giants.

Ivan Dominic Illich was an Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, social critic, and philosopher. He was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria to a Catholic father and a mother who converted from Judaism.

Illich led an eclectic and nomadic life, he was never really rooted in one place, and at one point referred to himself as a “wandering Jew and a Christian pilgrim.” His eccentric life is somewhat reflected in his academic career: he studied histology and crystallography at the University of Florence, completed a doctorate in medieval history at the University of Salzburg, and was a polyglot who spoke more than 10 languages. He was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church in 1951.

Illich was often an outspoken critic of the papacy, which closed many doors professionally for him. He spent a good deal of his life in Mexico as a missionary, and one of his main goals in this endeavor was to teach missionaries sent by the Catholic church to not impose their own cultural values on the people to whom they were ministering.

Illich’s intellectual work questioned many conventional beliefs of the modern age, and focused on how institutions shape and often constrain our lives. He is best known for his critique of modern institutions, and particularly of educational and medical institutions. He argues that, though well-intentioned, these systems often end up limiting personal freedom and creativity rather than enhancing them. Rather than viewing schools and hospitals as universal solutions, he regards them as entities that often create dependency and stifle real learning and health.

Many of Illich’s ideas were ahead of their time. He argued, for example, that formal education often decreases our ability to learn through experience and curiosity. Similarly, he was critical of the health system for turning health into a commodity, rather than encouraging personal responsibility and community support.

In his work as a cultural critic, Illich focused on questioning and deconstructing the foundational convictions of modern institutions. In his books, he encourages his readers to think critically about how we live and how we interact with the institutions around us, and to seek ways to foster more genuine, autonomous, and meaningful lives. His work remains influential for anyone interested in understanding, and working to reshape, the role of institutions in our lives.

OK…that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this initial foray into the life and work of Ivan Illich…as always, stay tuned for more by downloading The How Did We Get Here? Reading List…and I will see you soon!