TOOLS FOR CONVIVIALITY- IVAN ILLICH 1973

CHAPTER 4: RECOVERY

In our times of fast-paced living, mass production and extreme idolatry, there is a very fast development in the innovation of resources and tools such as books and computers, to accommodate the ‘needs' of people. If not controlled, the tool could outgrow the user, and become the master. In time, this inspires loss of individuality and complete dependence on the tools and this may backfire through evolution, creating children less fit for life than their fathers, born into a world less fit for them. There is a very fine line between allowing the tools we have to help/ease the human activity, and allowing these machines to take over the human activity, becoming the master.

1.DEMYTHOLOGISATION OF SCIENCE

“People become pawns in a world game operated by mega-machines.”

Whilst, in the previous decades, science was used as a tool for knowledge and development of the creativity of the human mind, it has slowly transformed into an institutionalised and structured means to feed the public of the knowledge. People become dependent on having their knowledge being fed to them. This leads to a paralysis of the moral and political imagination. The dependency on science, also makes people lose faith in their own individual knowledge or imagination, continuously seeking approval for their thoughts and knowledge through ‘science’. This can become dangerous, not only for opinion-persuasion and brain washing, but also by increasing self-doubt in people’s decision making skills, something which could consequently lead to a ‘following’ way of living, depriving personal conflict of it creative legitimacy. We see a decline in social activism, personal contribution to society, as well as self expression and self judgement. People become ‘knowledge-consumers’, valuing someone’s knowledge by how many tools (by a science, profession or political party) he has used.

“When communities have grown overconfident (overdependent) in science, they leave it to experts to set the upper limits on growth. This mandate rests on a fallacy. Experts can define standards at levels slightly below those at which people complain with too much force.”

However, with faith, self-trust and knowledge, individuals can learn to question and fight against this political and social restraint. Informed science can dictate the way in which to limit individual and social goals for the purpose of a smooth community, thus using the scientific knowledge as 'a tool to form the outcome’, rather than ‘the actual outcome’.


2.THE REDISCOVERY OF LANGUAGE

“In some societies the corruption of language has crippled the political fantasy to the point where the difference between a claim to commodities and a right to convivial tools cannot be understood.”

During the industrial revolution there was a shift in the mode of production. “Industrial performance became the scale according to which human effectiveness in the entire economy was now measured. Housework, farming, handicraft, and subsistence activities ranging from making of preserves to the self-building of a home began to be viewed as subsidiary or second-rate forms of production. The industrial mode first degraded and then paralysed the nexus of productive relationships which coexisted in society.” The way we use our language has also shifted into possessive rather than active. These possessive statements shifts the focus from having an active relationship to the commodities such as housing, education and transport, to being in possession of the prestige of these commodities. The ‘INDUSTRIALISED MAN’ makes the commodities available to him an ownership ie. ‘MY’ entertainment, transportation, health etc. The language becomes almost inseparable from industrial production. This shifts the sentence structure from talking as an actor, to talking as a consumer. There is a loss of conviviality. The tools have now become so embedded in our everyday lives, even through the way we use language, that it would be close to impossible to alter this from its roots. Ivan Illich suggests that the industrialisation of man can be inverted only if the convivial function of language is recuperated, but with a new level of consciousness.


3. THE RECOVERY OF LEGAL PROCEDURES

“Unless people agree on a process that can be continuously, convivially, and effectively used to control society’s tools, the inversion of the present institutional structure cannot be either enacted or, what is more important, precariously maintained. Managers will always re-emerge to increase institutional productivity and capture public support for the better service they promise.”


The primary dominating focus of politics and law in our days, has become the focus on an ever-expanding productive society. This extremity of megalomania provides an obstacle to the translation of the need for a bounded society into actual social process. The whole legal system has come to be viewed as tools made for the service of an industrial state, protecting schools, unions, hospitals, road systems and industries. This further concentrates power to the industries. It has become common practice to favour the firm over the individual. It is very important for people to understand that they have a say and deep commitment to decide how much they want the computers and institutions to control the future. Persons who now operate the law as a social tool are mind controlled in believing that they should support and earn for the growth in society. The resulting content of the law embodies the ideologies of lawmakers and judges. This consequently makes up the character of the society. MORE power to firm, professions and parties is considered a common good. In the last few generations, the balance of lawmaking has been distorted in favour of a production-oriented society. “A group of citizens interested in retooling society is not concerned with negotiations or mediation but with direct opposition to the industrial mode of production and its undue expansion in a specific instance”. The formal process is a convivial tool. The legislators, judges and lawyers have learned, and think it is good practice to favour the higher output of goods by corporations/ industrial growth. The lawyer should use his skills to help people use the formal structure of the law to represent their interests in a convivial society.


CONCLUSION

In this activistic and critical outlook on the use of tools in our society, Ivan Illich brings forth an analytic study on the abuse of tools in our society, and shows the vitality of understanding this and consciously trying to work against it, in order to work convivially with the tools. By recovering consciousness of the deep structure that built up the industrialised society, via their language, politics or blind beliefs, we can start deconstructing and rebuilding a society which focuses on using the tools for the benefit of helping and uplifting its user, rather than letting the tool overcome us. Once the tool overcomes us, it becomes so deep-rooted in our everyday lives, the way we think and view the world, that it takes a very strong and committed social effort to undo this.
“It is almost impossible to insist strongly enough on the distinction between means and ends in an epoch in which purposes have been reduced to operations, in an epoch in which people raise consciousness, movements pretend to provide ‘liberation’, languages rather than persons are said to ‘speak’, and politicians ‘make’ revolutions.”