%0 Book %1 illich73 %A Illich, Ivan %C New York %D 1973 %I Harper & Row %K as_conv convivial conviviality cscl-2005 designapproches dtl genesis instrumental learning mathematics mythesis sociocognitive sociocultural %T Tools for Conviviality %U http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1973_tools_for_convivality.html

@book{illich73, added-at = {2006-06-05T19:12:29.000+0200}, address = {New York}, author = {Illich, Ivan}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/26dd2afadfc5baa5aee22175e5af006f2/yish}, citeulike-article-id = {408296}, comment = {"Tools are intrinsic to social relationships. An individual relates himself in action to his society through the use of tools that he actively masters, or by which he is passively acted upon. To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with his meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape of the tool determines his own self-image. Convivial tools are those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision. Industrial tools deny this possibility to those who use them and they allow their designers to determine the meaning and expectations of others. Most tools today cannot be used in a convivial fashion. Tools foster conviviality to the extent to which they can be easily used, by anybody, as often or as seldom as desired, for the accomplishment of a purpose chosen by the user. The use of such tools by one person does not restrain another from using them equally. They do not require previous certification of the user. Their existence does not impose any obligation to use them. They allow the user to express his meaning in action." --- "By 1970 we had found that: 1. Universal education through compulsory schooling is not possible. 2. Alternative devices for the production and marketing of mass education are technically more feasible and ethically less tolerable than compulsory graded schools. Such new educational arrangements are now on the verge of replacing traditional school systems in rich and in poor countries. They are potentially more effective in the conditioning of job-holders and consumers in an industrial economy. They are therefore more attractive for the management of present societies, more seductive for the people, and insidiously destructive of fundamental values. 3. A society committed to high levels of shared learning and critical personal intercourse must set pedagogical limits on industrial growth." --- "believe that society must be reconstructed to enlarge the contribution of autonomous individuals and primary groups to the total effectiveness of a new system of production designed to satisfy the human needs which it also determines. In fact, the institutions of industrial society do just the opposite. As the power of machines increases, the role of persons more and more decreases to that of mere consumers. Individuals need tools to move and to dwell. They need remedies for their diseases and means to communicate with one another. People cannot make all these things for themselves. They depend on being supplied with objects and services which vary from culture to culture. Some people depend on the supply of food and others on the supply of ball bearings." --- Radical critique of industialized society, its structure and managment. Anything short of a call for violent revolution. Claims that the mass production of health, housing, education etc. leads to increasing dependance of individuals on the system, but not to the aleged higher standards of living. --- "The birth pangs of a convivial world society will inevitably be violently painful for hungry Indians and for helpless New Yorkers. I will later argue that the transition from the present mode of production, which is Overwhelmingly industrial, toward conviviality may start suddenly. But for the sake of the survival of many people it will be desirable that the transition does not happen all at once. I argue that survival in justice is possible only at the cost of those sacrifices implicit in the adoption of a convivial mode of production and the universal renunciation of unlimited progeny, affluence, and power on the part of both individuals and groups. This price cannot be extorted by some despotic Leviathan, nor elicited by social engineering. People will rediscover the value of joyful sobriety and liberating austerity only if they relearn to depend on each other rather than on energy slaves. The price for a convivial society will be paid only as the result of a political process which reflects and promotes the society-wide inversion of present industrial consciousness. This political process will find its concrete expression not in some taboo, but in a series of temporary agreements on one or the other concrete limitation of means, constantly adjusted under the pressure of conflicting insights and interests." --- "The industrial mode of production was first fully rationalized in the manufacture of a new invisible commodity, called "education." ... The commodity called "education" and the institution called "school" make each other necessary. The circle can be broken only by a widely shared insight that the institution has come to define the purpose. Values abstractly stated are reduced to mechanical processes that enslave men. This serfdom can be broken only by the joyful self-recognition of the fool who assumes personal responsibility for his folly." --- "In principle the distinction between convivial and manipulatory tools is independent of the level of technology of the tool. What has been said of the telephone could be repeated point by point for the mails or for a typical Mexican market. Each is an institutional arrangement that maximizes liberty, even though in a broader context it can be abused for purposes of manipulation and control. The telephone is the result of advanced engineering; the mails require in principle little technology and considerable organization and scheduling; the Mexican market runs with minimum planning along customary patterns." --- pattern of 1st \& 2nd watershed: At the first, an institution / technology becomes efficient and useful. It is endoresed and promoted. At the second, it takes over. fear of the machine? frankenstein syndrome? --- See http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/EmergentDemocracyPaper --- see http://www.citeulike.org/user/yish/article/228705}, interhash = {20ce59f3b6b99b5f93370f5d0babb553}, intrahash = {6dd2afadfc5baa5aee22175e5af006f2}, keywords = {as_conv convivial conviviality cscl-2005 designapproches dtl genesis instrumental learning mathematics mythesis sociocognitive sociocultural}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Harper \& Row}, timestamp = {2008-05-28T13:37:03.000+0200}, title = {Tools for Conviviality}, url = {http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1973_tools_for_convivality.html}, year = 1973 }