Tools for Conviviality

By Ivan Illich

Book Overview

Tools for Conviviality was published only two years after Deschooling Society. In this work, Illich generalized the themes that he had previously applied to the field of education: the institutionalization of specialized knowledge, the dominant role of technocratic elites in industrial society, and the need to develop new instruments for the reconquest of practical knowledge by the average citizen. Illich proposed that we should 'invert the present deep structure of tools' in order to give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency.' Tools for Conviviality attracted worldwide attention. A resume of it was published by French social philosopher Andre Gorz in Les Temps Modernes, under the title 'Freeing the Future'. The book's vision of tools that would be developed and maintained by a community of users had significant influence of the first developers of the personal computer, notably Lee Felsentein. Illich wrote: 'I choose the term 'conviviality' to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment, and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to be the individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society's members.' The conviviality for which noted social philosopher Ivan Illich is arguing is one in which the individual's personal energies are under direct personal control and in which the use of tools irresponsibly limited. A work of seminal importance, this book claims our attention for the urgency of its appeal, the stunning clarity of its logic and the overwhelming human note that it sounds.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1842300113
• ISBN13: 9781842300114
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

A must-read!

"Leftists operate as industrial elitists and only serves big business with their social programs that insure the subordination of an underclass of consumers to keep the capital and mythical progressivism on motion"?? What are you smoking?!! Actually, many Marxists revere both Illich and Fromm. We currently live in a world marred by global finance-capital impoverishing and destroying the well-being of millions for the mega-profits of a few, and industrial realities play a key role in the problem... as well as the solution: its time for workers to harness for themselves what they create and have created for their own benefit locally and internationally. I really don't think a proper reading of "Tools for Conviviality" condradicts this.

mind blowing.

This only fortifies my opinion that our leftists operate as industrial elitists and only serves big business with their social programs that insure the subordination of an underclass of consumers to keep the capital and mythical progressivism on motion.

This is undoubtedly a life-changing book.

I can't say enough about the importance of this book. In short, Illich makes the point that there is a way in which the so-called "Third World" countries can avoid industrialization, and move directly into the post-industrialist state that the developed world is headed. There is no doubt in my mind that we will look back on this man's work sometime in the near future and realize how amazingly right he is. It is really a shame that he does not have more of an influence than he does. Some of the points in this book are so right that they seem impossible to refute or even question. I really can't even put into words the influence that the book has had on me. It is something everyone should read, and it's short enough that it can be done in a matter of a few hours. Please feel free to e-mail me and tell me what you thought of it, or of other works by this genius as I am going to work on trying to popularize and spread his ideas.