1. Ivan Illich
1926—2002

2. Who was Ivan Illich?
 Writer
 Teacher
 Thinker
 Philosopher
 Roman Catholic Priest
 Ignored by mainstream media
 His work was neglected and side-lined.

3. Biography
 Born on Sept. 4, 1926, in Vienna.
 His father, a civil engineer and his mother was
a Jew.
 Was expelled from school in Vienna in 1941
because of his mother’s Jewish ancestry.
 Studied in Florence, Rome and in Salzburg.
 Doctoral dissertation on the historian Arnold
Toynbee.
 Ordained as a priest, settled in Manhattan,
USA in 1952.

4.  Attended to the needs of Puerto Ricans –
especially their education.
 Criticised the church for its ‘smugness, its
bureaucracy and chauvinism’.
 Moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico City where he
set up the Intercultural Center for
Documentation (CIDOC).
 Left priesthood in 1969.
 Began writing critical essays in the 60s
 Died of cancer in 2002, in Germany.

5. Works & Themes
 Deschooling Society – 1971 on education
 Tools for Conviviality – 1973 on technological
development
 Energy And Equity- 1974 on energy, transport and
economic development
 Medical Nemesis – 1975 on modern medicine
 The Right To Useful Unemployment And Its Professional
Enemies- 1978
 Shadow Work- 1981
 H2O And The Waters of Forgetfulness- 1985 on the
historicity of materials
 ABC, The Alphabetisation Of The Popular Mind- 1988 on
literacy
 In The Vineyard Of The Text- 1993 on the origins of book-
learning

6. Philosophy
 A critic of modernity
 A deep understanding of the birth of
institutions in the 13th century
 An archaeologist of ideas
 He analysed the corruption of institutions.
 Institutions ended up performing the
opposite of their original purpose.
 "corruptio optimi pessima―- the corruption
of the best is the worst.
 Conviviality – friendliness.

7. Deschooling Society
 Critique of institutionalized education.
 Opposed universal education.
 More education does not produce better
educated individuals.
 Institutionalization of education causes
the institutionalization of the entire
society.
 Suggests that educational funnels be
replaced by learning webs.

8. Links and References
 www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall28.html
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/de
c/09/guardianobituaries.highereducation
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich