“An ever growing part of our major institutions’ functions is the cultivation and maintenance of three sets of illusions which turn the citizen into a client to be saved by experts...The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services. This illusion is due to an educated blindness to the worth of use-values in the total economy. In none of the economic models serving as national guidelines is there a variable to account for non-marketable use-values any more than there is a variable for nature's perennial contribution.” EducationEconomicsInstitutionsValueConsumerismAutonomyUsefulnessIllusions Book:The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies Source: The Right to Useful Unemployment: And Its Professional Enemies
“I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume - a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.” WayBelieveActionChoicesI BelieveTechnologySupportEnvironmentStyleProduceDependsIndependentInstitutionsLifestyleIdeologyDevelopingRelatedStationsPollutionConsumptionConsumerismSpontaneousDesirableMaintainingOverconsumptionOur ChoicesBe Spontaneous Author:Ivan Illich
“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.” SchoolResultsEducationAcceptingTeachingEvidenceBuiltInstitutionsContraryDespiteOverwhelmingAxioms Book:The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays Source: The Dawn of Epimethean Man, and Other Essays
“I intend to discuss some perplexing issues which are raised once we embrace the hypothesis that society can be deschooled; to search for criteria which may help us distinguish institutions which merit development because they support learning in a deschooled milieu; and to clarify those personal goals which would foster the advent of an Age of Leisure (schole) as opposed to an economy dominated by service industries.” MayHelpingAgeGoalSupportEconomyIssuesDevelopmentIndustryInstitutionsEmbraceRaisedMeritLeisureHypothesisCriteriaAdventScholesMilieuPersonal GoalService Industry Author:Ivan Illich
“The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.” ActionChoicesTechnologySupportDependsInstitutionsIdeologyDevelopingConsumerismSpontaneousOverconsumptionOur Choices Author:Ivan Illich
“Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn't organised to serve human health, but only itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.” PeopleHumansModernHealthHumorousDoctorsSickInstitutionsMedicineMedicalHealHealth CareOrganizedNegationPharmaceuticalMedical ProfessionHuman HealthModern MedicineMedical Education Author:Ivan Illich
