I feel odd being the only one posting to the forum, but perhaps this doesn't matter! Anyway, I have a double bill of Ivan Illich reflections at Stranger Worlds this month and next month. The first one, Facing Books, picks up from an essay from In the Mirror of the Past, for which I remain eternally grateful to be referred to by the people gathered here.

Facing Books
The transition from the book to the computer as the dominant metaphor for mind
https://strangerworlds.substack.com/p/facing-books

The second one runs in a different direction from Illich's thought about the relationship between empire and grammar. I'll try to remember to pop by and drop a link to that when it runs.

With unlimited love,

Chris.

As Illich makes clear, computers have done for communication what fences did to pastures and cars did to open pathways. In each case, we witness the transformation of our commons into spaces that can be owned and therefore policed. Even without knowing how the internet was to shape the twenty first century, Illich already understood that the arrival of electronic computation was the industrialisation of communication, and with it thought itself. For all thought rests at its heart on discourse, a principle that was well understood before the twentieth century but that has gradually been buried under the illusionary conflation of knowledge with mere facts.

Pushback welcome!

Chris.

Over at Stranger Worlds and How to Live in Them, I've just run my first piece riffing off Illich's thought. This 3-minute reflection, "The Police and the Commons", is based upon "Silence is a Commons", as will be another one coming next month. (Also, I now have my copy of In the Mirror of the Past, and so I expect to be writing more reflections on Illich's thought later this year - thanks again for the tip about this volume!)

This week's piece actually follows indirectly from last week's, "The Axe and the Tree", which although it does not mention Heidegger still builds towards the central point of "The Question Concerning Technology", and serves as a prelude to "The Police and the Commons" by framing the contrast between resources and commons via an African proverb.

Anyway, I thought I would share these 3-minute reflections here for anyone who is interested:

• "The Axe and the Tree"
• "The Police and the Commons"

Comments at Stranger Worlds are restricted to paid subscribers, but I would welcome your comments here, of course, and if you're interested in what I'm trying to do with this series of short essays I would also welcome you joining as a free subscriber (which will email you all these ~750 word essays as they go up each Tuesday).

With unlimited love,

Chris.

I recently discovered Illich's fantastic essay "Silence is a Commons". I'm sure many folks here are already familiar with it, but if not a copy can be found here.

I understand this to be part of what Illich was working on in his final years, namely The History of Scarcity, and it seems that there may well be further essays or lectures that connect with this uncompleted text: may I ask whether anyone can share what else exists of this final book...?

Having read nearly all of the books Illich published in his lifetime (save for The Rivers North of the Future, which is on my reading list), I find myself wanting to know more about the thoughts that were going into this final work.

Any leads gratefully accepted.

With unlimited love and respect,

Chris.

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to address a community routed in the thought of Ivan Illich. Along with the writings of my philosophical mentor, Mary Midgley, Illich's work has been a consistent influence on my thought, and continues to inspire and challenge me.

I am writing specifically on this occasion to introduce my final philosophy book, The Virtuous Cyborg, to an audience that might perhaps be open to what it has to say. You can learn about the book from the publisher's website, but in brief this  is my attempt to build upon an earlier ethical critique of technology I had written (in Chaos Ethics). The entire project is underpinned by Illich's concept of 'convivial tools', and represents my sincerest attempt to build upon these foundations. In this book, I attempted to bring this critique of technology to a wider audience by framing my discussion in a more accessible manner than in my earlier books. 

I can safely say at this point, this attempt has failed.

The book, while well received by those who read it, remains largely unread - a not unfamiliar experience today, where an entire generation is turning its back on reading in preference for the more accessible and addictive format of video. But as readers of Illich, I hope and trust we can all see the severe risks entailed in abandoning our spaces of silence in this way.

The publisher of The Virtuous Cyborg has asked that I not distribute PDFs of the book, which I confess has been a cause of some consternation, since I have other philosophy books I have been able to promote in this way. The publisher in question is a small poetry press, who agreed to publish me after taking delight in my first philosophy book, Imaginary Games. I rather suspect the publisher's fear is that sharing the PDF will diminish sales... this is not my experience, but I must honour his wishes either way.

However, he has recently consented to allow review copies to be sent out to academics who might review the book as a potential course book or library addition. I have literally no idea what mix of strange and wonderful people is here at this site, but I imagine there may yet be people here who would fit that description. If so, I invite you to contact me at an email address I shall have to deliver as a riddle to avoid robots from stealing it and sending me 'spam'. Please construct my email address from my first name, 'chris', then an 'at' symbol, then 'ihobo', a 'dot', and finally the traditional ending 'com'. If you are interested in a review copy of this book, please email me, and I will be glad to pass your mailing address onto my publisher.

The book would be of greatest relevance to anyone teaching or studying technology ethics, or any form of virtue ethics - not necessarily Christian, although it is highly compatible with this form of thought, and entails some discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre's thoughts in this regard. I would like to remark, also, my infinite surprise to have written a book of virtue ethics, since I am by inclination more of a follower of Kant's ethics, albeit in a form wildly divorced from how it is generally understood.

Regardless of whether the book is of interest, I offer my unlimited love and respect to everyone keeping the thought of Ivan Illich alive. 

Chris Bateman