A few weeks ago I listened (as I always do) to a Nomad podcast. I am a subscriber to Nomad as it has been a portal for all sorts of ideas that I have found useful over the years. This particular episode featured a conversation between David Benjamin Blower and a theologian/community gardener called Sam Ewell, from whom I was grateful to be reminded of the work of Ivan Illich, a name forgotten since my undergraduate sociology studies, which were (ahem) some time ago. Illich suddenly seemed to be a prophet worth listening to in the midst of our present realities.

Since then, I have been skimming the internet for Illichian materials. He was somewhat prolific, both in terms of his written output but also in film and video. I’ll throw a few links into this post, which might be the first of a few emerging from my deep(ish) dive into these materials.

A good place to start is to do a bit of a skim of this book – Tools for Convivality – which can be read online, and gathers many of the themes and ideas that Illich explored in his work.

I cannot begin to summarise the broad brush of Illich’s writings becuase he was prolific, but for a little bit of background, this old school chat is rather good (although rather dense!)

Illich comes from a place out of which so many good things seem to flow- that of the rebellious priest. His background as a Catholic priest anchored him in the religious tradition but also led him to quiestion it all in the name of truth.

The central part of his thinking seemed to be concerned with the nature of post industrial societies, and how the shapes and objects we make (the tools) start to become bigger than all of us. The end result, for Illich, is that what might start out good easily skews towards something else.

His use of the word ‘conviviality’ is rather useful. Some tools (defined widely to incliude both the screwdriver and the car and the national health service, or the school system) are simply more convivial than others, but within our complex societies, they tended towards becoming less convivial.

Illich defines “conviviality” as the opposite of industrial productivity, or “autonomous, creative intercourse among persons and between individuals and their environment“. Tools for conviviality are those which maximize an individual’s autonomy and impose the fewest constraints on their freedom.

Conviviality has a rather helpful way of not being a black and white. good and bad dualistic way of seeing the world, rather it sees all things as being on a spectrum. Things will be more or less convivial – for example, he also discussed how health systems, offering universal health care to wider population, are good things, but that they also tend towards a loss of convivility. Humans are lost in a larger system. Our inate ability to create, to connect, to love one another becomes overwhelmed by an industrial institution.

One tool Illich thought a lot about was modern education. Here is a good summary.

Why is this particularly relevant now?

Many of us have an awareness, or a ‘feeling’ that the world we have created is now creating us. Change is impossible because the tools around us have become fixed. We feel this within our politics, our economics and our enslavement to the unsustainable comsumer culture that is destroying our planet. Illich gives us a language to talk about these feelings.

You could describe them as ‘convivial conversations’.