Ivan Illich

Ivan Illich
Ivan Illichwas an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary Western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth4 September 1926
CountryUnited States of America
meaningful teaching school
Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being "with it," yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation.
teaching believe results
It is really an alienation to believe that learning is the result of teaching.
teaching learning advancement
The pupil is ... 'schooled' to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new.
wages consumption household
The household has become the place where the consumption of wages takes place
men economic-inequality use
Man must choose whether to be rich in things or in the freedom to use them.
military race productive-work
The pupil's imagination is 'schooled' to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work.
motivation school opportunity
In schools, including universities, most resources are spent to purchase the time and motivation of a limited number of people to take up predetermined problems in a ritually defined setting. The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same concern.
attitude believe acceptance
The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.
medicine miracle population
The true miracle of modern medicine is diabolical. It consists in making not only individuals but whole populations survive on inhumanly low levels of personal health.
hatred joy suffering
We have failed...through our lack of responsible awareness...and thus added to suffering around the world. All of us are cripples-some physically, some mentally, some emotionally. We must, therefore, strive cooperatively to create a new world. There is no time left for destruction, for hatred, for anger. We must build, in hope and joy and celebration.
education teaching school
School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
education school secular-society
The public school has become the established church of secular society.
people tools needs
People need new tools to work with rather than new tools that work for them.
animal men cycling
The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.