Good to see someone bringing Illich's thinking to bear on our predicament.
Regarding "the corrupting effects of slavery on the whole network of social relations", if you've not read it, you might appreciate the recent book by Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole, which traces a similar line of thought on the corrupting effects of slavery on American society.
You may also be interested in the work of Neto Leao, a Brazilian scholar who has been following up on Illich's work, looking at examples of communities making collective decisions to limit their energy use:
Thank you Dougald for your comment. And I've been a follower of your work for some time so I really appreciate the feedback; I really enjoyed At Work in the Ruins.
I have just read Wendell Berry's wonderful book as you suggested. You are right, it does look at same issue, as well as talking about the deleterious effect of the belief that physical labor is somehow demeaning. And I think it extended up the social echeons (I can't help think of the similar attitude in Austen's novels that 'trade' was beneath 'gentlemen') But there is so much more in the book that I will be returning to it many times.
I will try and get hold of the Leao book as well, I'm really interested in the difference between what is a tool and a machine, and where the boundaries are. Illich has so much to teach us, I find something new every time I read him. There are others on Substack also exploring his work, so he must be having a moment!
Yes, it would be good to put together a list of Illichian Substackers! L.M. Sacasas at the Convivial Society, for a start, and David Benjamin Blower, Samuel Ewell. I wonder who else is on your radar?
This is a thoughtful, well-researched piece, and a really helpful addition to my thinking! I read Naomi Klein's "No Logo" years ago while working through the Art of Manliness's 16 Essential Jeremiads (https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/essential-jeremiads-16-cultural-critiques-every-man-should-read/), which first made me consider our society's reliance on "unseen slavery". More recently, I started musing whether affluence in any society is attainable without exploitation. Your piece has given eloquent voice to an expression of that thesis. Further, it has done so in far greater depth than I could have hoped to muster, and through a lens completely foreign to my perspective. Thank you for sharing this.
"Like the Romans and their uneasy relationship with their slaves, I believe that we are now as much a slave to our technologies as they are a slave to us and thus we might need to rethink what technology is for, and how it can best serve us rather than the other way around."
You've built a fascinating argument here about energy slaves and the codependency we have with this new "slavery." That image of the off-grid house being powered by 80 people sweating away on bicycles is going to stick with me forever! It's hard not to feel guilty about the amount of energy we consume when looked at from that point of view.
It's the codependency aspect that you've really go me thinking about here. I've noted numerous times in my life how everything in modern society seems to want to infantilize us -- make us weaker, dumber, less self-sufficient, more dependent. I've wondered why this is. It's easy to imagine a larger conspiracy behind this tendency.
I've noted as well that in personal relationships, control breeds passivity. In other words, the more someone comes under the control of another, the more they learn to be passive. Learned helplessness, or learned passivity, is the result of a codependent relationship.
So our codependency with our technology, under which we fall into technology's "thrall" or control, makes us more and more dependent upon it. So in other words, we are participating in our own infantilization, the loss of our own healthy agency, as we become more and more addicted to and dependent on our technology.
Isn't that what all of us who are increasingly suspicious of technology are really concerned about? The loss of our Image-bearing humanity into something insipid, weak and less than we were intended to be as full human beings?
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and supportive comment Meg, I really appreciate your considered feedback.
I think this has been in the back of my mind for some time, and your comment 'we are participating in our own infantilization' is exactly right. This might explain why so many men in particular are becoming uncomfortable with the direction of travel, they know instinctively that they are being robbed of agency and control and then being preached to probably makes them feel like someone is throwing sand in their eyes.
I think I've been brewing these ideas from my first essay on Irish bogs, but I love history, I love technology and it's a joy to share these ideas and hopefully start a conversation.
Good to see someone bringing Illich's thinking to bear on our predicament.
Regarding "the corrupting effects of slavery on the whole network of social relations", if you've not read it, you might appreciate the recent book by Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole, which traces a similar line of thought on the corrupting effects of slavery on American society.
You may also be interested in the work of Neto Leao, a Brazilian scholar who has been following up on Illich's work, looking at examples of communities making collective decisions to limit their energy use:
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/thinking-illich/
Thank you Dougald for your comment. And I've been a follower of your work for some time so I really appreciate the feedback; I really enjoyed At Work in the Ruins.
I have just read Wendell Berry's wonderful book as you suggested. You are right, it does look at same issue, as well as talking about the deleterious effect of the belief that physical labor is somehow demeaning. And I think it extended up the social echeons (I can't help think of the similar attitude in Austen's novels that 'trade' was beneath 'gentlemen') But there is so much more in the book that I will be returning to it many times.
I will try and get hold of the Leao book as well, I'm really interested in the difference between what is a tool and a machine, and where the boundaries are. Illich has so much to teach us, I find something new every time I read him. There are others on Substack also exploring his work, so he must be having a moment!
Yes, it would be good to put together a list of Illichian Substackers! L.M. Sacasas at the Convivial Society, for a start, and David Benjamin Blower, Samuel Ewell. I wonder who else is on your radar?
https://open.substack.com/pub/thecounterrevolution?r=2sx8q2&utm_medium=ios
This Substack has an excellent series of articles on Illich.
I’m also in touch with someone from Cork university who has done a recent paper on Illich and energy, I’m sure he’d be interested as well.
I’d like to spread Illichs ideas into the engineering and scientific communities, there won’t be any change in direction without them.
This is a thoughtful, well-researched piece, and a really helpful addition to my thinking! I read Naomi Klein's "No Logo" years ago while working through the Art of Manliness's 16 Essential Jeremiads (https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/essential-jeremiads-16-cultural-critiques-every-man-should-read/), which first made me consider our society's reliance on "unseen slavery". More recently, I started musing whether affluence in any society is attainable without exploitation. Your piece has given eloquent voice to an expression of that thesis. Further, it has done so in far greater depth than I could have hoped to muster, and through a lens completely foreign to my perspective. Thank you for sharing this.
"Like the Romans and their uneasy relationship with their slaves, I believe that we are now as much a slave to our technologies as they are a slave to us and thus we might need to rethink what technology is for, and how it can best serve us rather than the other way around."
You've built a fascinating argument here about energy slaves and the codependency we have with this new "slavery." That image of the off-grid house being powered by 80 people sweating away on bicycles is going to stick with me forever! It's hard not to feel guilty about the amount of energy we consume when looked at from that point of view.
It's the codependency aspect that you've really go me thinking about here. I've noted numerous times in my life how everything in modern society seems to want to infantilize us -- make us weaker, dumber, less self-sufficient, more dependent. I've wondered why this is. It's easy to imagine a larger conspiracy behind this tendency.
I've noted as well that in personal relationships, control breeds passivity. In other words, the more someone comes under the control of another, the more they learn to be passive. Learned helplessness, or learned passivity, is the result of a codependent relationship.
So our codependency with our technology, under which we fall into technology's "thrall" or control, makes us more and more dependent upon it. So in other words, we are participating in our own infantilization, the loss of our own healthy agency, as we become more and more addicted to and dependent on our technology.
Isn't that what all of us who are increasingly suspicious of technology are really concerned about? The loss of our Image-bearing humanity into something insipid, weak and less than we were intended to be as full human beings?
A brilliant essay, B!
Thank you so much for this thoughtful and supportive comment Meg, I really appreciate your considered feedback.
I think this has been in the back of my mind for some time, and your comment 'we are participating in our own infantilization' is exactly right. This might explain why so many men in particular are becoming uncomfortable with the direction of travel, they know instinctively that they are being robbed of agency and control and then being preached to probably makes them feel like someone is throwing sand in their eyes.
I think I've been brewing these ideas from my first essay on Irish bogs, but I love history, I love technology and it's a joy to share these ideas and hopefully start a conversation.