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elfsThe political, social and philosophical struggles we’re experiencing now as a civilization have literally not changed in the past 50 years. They may have gotten more intense, they may have shifted a bit, some may even have submerged, but they’re all still there.
Ivan Illich gave a speech in 1982 about how computers were mechanizing our lives. 1982 was the year the Commodore 64 came out. 1982 was the year WordPerfect was released. Both Sun and SGI were founded in 1982, each with four initial employees. The fastest chip on the consumer market was the Intel 286.
In his speech, Illich said,
Almost 40 years ago, sociologists were looking at the pre-Internet behavior of people interacting with their machines, with the way these big, lugging computers encouraged mindlessness by regulating our lives into a series of scheduled and events, and they worried. Illich is one of my favorite writers from the 1970s, and this part is just the intro: it’s not even the gist of his speech!
I’ve been reacding Illich a lot recently. He was a Roman Catholic priest and a sociologist who spent a lot of his time asking a very simple question: Is all this modernity really how human beings want to live? This is one small fraction of his thinking, but I’ve really been getting a lot out of it. He gels well with many other things that I hold dear. His notion of what constitutes a “commons” is brilliant, and when I get through that part of the book I’ll have more to say.
Ivan Illich gave a speech in 1982 about how computers were mechanizing our lives. 1982 was the year the Commodore 64 came out. 1982 was the year WordPerfect was released. Both Sun and SGI were founded in 1982, each with four initial employees. The fastest chip on the consumer market was the Intel 286.
In his speech, Illich said,
Machines which ape people are encroaching on every aspect of people’s lives, and these machines force people to behave like machines. These devices have the power to force people to “communicate” with them and with each other on the machine’s terms. Whatever does not fit the logic of the machine is filtered from a culture dominated by their use.
The machine-like behavior of people chained to electronics is a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity. Observations of the sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.
Almost 40 years ago, sociologists were looking at the pre-Internet behavior of people interacting with their machines, with the way these big, lugging computers encouraged mindlessness by regulating our lives into a series of scheduled and events, and they worried. Illich is one of my favorite writers from the 1970s, and this part is just the intro: it’s not even the gist of his speech!
I’ve been reacding Illich a lot recently. He was a Roman Catholic priest and a sociologist who spent a lot of his time asking a very simple question: Is all this modernity really how human beings want to live? This is one small fraction of his thinking, but I’ve really been getting a lot out of it. He gels well with many other things that I hold dear. His notion of what constitutes a “commons” is brilliant, and when I get through that part of the book I’ll have more to say.
