Section V.4G of II.1 (“The Problem of Scale (Part 1)”)
Disablement, “Boredom” by Patricia Meyer Spacks, and Developed Peace
When was boredom invented? Was the hope that “disablement” would address Thymos?
An ultimate example of Illich’s “disablement” is boredom, and perhaps there is no greater expression of “The Meaning Crisis” and/or “Skill Crisis.” According to Dr. Patricia Meyer Spacks in her book, Boredom, ‘in the eighteenth century almost no one spoke directly of boredom.’⁶³⁴ Spacks works mainly in literature, but ‘[a] literary history of boredom necessarily involves cultural history as well,’ and so if boredom is not a concept we find readily in art before the 18th Century, there would be reason to believe culture was also different.⁶³⁵ Spacks argues that ‘the spread of boredom has coincided with and reflected an increasing stress on subjectivity and individualism,’ and given “the collapse of givens” described in Belonging Again (Part I), boredom seems to be a response that arises with that sociological shift (perhaps because numbness is a way to cope with great existential anxiety, because when we are overwhelmed by “release” and possibility all choice becomes arbitrary in us lacking a sense of significance in how we could live — hard to say).⁶³⁶ However, a reason we might be bored is also that we lack skills and ability to do anything (“The Skill Crisis”), and so all we can do is consume (rather products, relationships, experiences, etc., everything can be treated like a consumer good, even the holy), and consumption can entertain us for only so long.
Sacks emphasizes that boredom suggests a sociological condition more than a simple choice (‘the sufferer from pathological boredom simply exemplifies a particular form of civilization’s discontent’), and Illich would do the same on the topic of “disablement.”⁶³⁷ We cannot reduce boredom to mere individual choices, but an interplay between individuals and systems. ‘What social and psychological conditions would require the construction of boredom as a concept?’⁶³⁸ As of 1733, Alexander Pope never uses the word ‘bore’ even in a context where the word would make sense, precisely because ‘the word does not yet exist.’⁶³⁹ What happened? Many things, but Peter Bailey provides an insight on the mid-nineteen century that points back to Illich:
‘Work and leisure were no longer intertwined in the continuum of shared activities that charactered the daily and yearly round within the closed world of the small and homogeneous traditional community […] Moreover, the activities of this leisure time were no longer regulated as a whole by the tight mores and collective obligations of traditional social life.’⁶⁴⁰
Work was changed into employment and the home was turned into a house, and yet the separation was supposed to lead to a “work/life balance” that brought out the best of both. Instead, the two were still intertwined with homework being devolved into “shadow work” that then lead the “home” into becoming “a shadow of its former self” as a “house.” The economy still requires work and home to tie together, but before “shadow work” that connection was clear, visible, and “in the light.” Now, it is still there but denied, making the system entropic and self-effacing — as we will later discuss when we consider “The Net (69).”
Anyway, “leisure” has become something more like “free time” (“a shadow of its former self”) in which we prepare for work tomorrow, and certainly it ceased being a space in which we developed skills and hobbies. “Free time” gradually becomes “a space of consumption” and so disablement, and as such organizes us into boredom. And when we feel bored, we can feel irrelevant, for ‘[t]he concept of boredom serves as an all-purpose register of inadequacy.’⁶⁴¹ Where we are disabled, we come to feel inadequate (to perhaps “realize our meaning”), and life proves inadequate to make us feel otherwise. But this “systematically stimulated” movement in us is hard to see because boredom ‘is so hard to look at, so much taken for granted as an aspect of life.’⁶⁴² It has become its own “unquestioned assumption” (like what Illich sought to critique), and as such we miss its potential to be ‘an explanatory myth of our culture.’⁶⁴³ The word “boredom” implies ‘a dwelling on the self, specifically a sense of victimization.’⁶⁴⁴ Indeed, we have been disabled, but Discourse would not have us locate our victimization in the system, but instead in some “other” — and so the Liberal blames the Conservative, the Christian the Atheist…This might be easier than entertaining the entirely new paradigm that Ivan Illich might ask of us, which might also suggest why “historical studies” are ones we might wish to avoid (for they can quickly make us ‘aware that most of the clear certainties by which [we] act, think and even perceive were [once] neither suspected nor imaginable’).⁶⁴⁵
When boredom first arrived, it was met with outrage and ‘a sense of grievance,’ but gradually it has become an expected “fact of life.”⁶⁴⁶ We are no longer shocked by boredom; we expect it. It was once seen as an ‘enemy of action [and] product of inaction,’ but gradually we have become more fatalistic about it.⁶⁴⁷ Less and less do we feel responsible for boredom, which in one way could be a good thing if we saw it as a product of the “disabling” system, but instead we think of boredom as part of human life itself, like sadness or happiness.
Sacks also discusses ‘the problem of female boredom, before and after marriage,’ which perhaps can be connected with the rise of “shadow work,” suggesting that as things like the home become “a shadow of their former self” (as a “house”), the likelihood of boredom increases.⁶⁴⁸ Industrialization does seem to coincide with the rise of female idleness, whereas in the past ‘women had shared with their men the work of the household and of moneymaking both integrally connected with their family lives’ (suggesting that much of what feminism rightly critiques is connected with the rise of “shadow work,” which paradoxically today manifests as “two shifts” for many women).⁶⁴⁹ Another legitimate concern of feminism could be seen in how ‘[m]en, like women, wish to escape boredom [and] have a larger number of legitimate resources for doing so,’ as provided by “the wage economy.”⁶⁵⁰ Might we think of the female desire to enter the work force has partly driven by a desire to escape the modern invention of boredom (in a world which doesn’t ‘[a]cknowledg[e] boredom as an aspect of female victimization’)?⁶⁵¹ Easily, but this might not help erase the causes of boredom, but in fact make them worse in strengthening the economy. But then again, if we believe boredom is an inevitable part of human life, this thought will easily not occur to us.
Boredom is full of riches, and Sacks explains well how and when boredom arose, how it started as shocking, and gradually moved into normalization (Chapter 6). To quote Sacks again in a way that further connects “boredom” and “disablement”:
‘The defining aspect of boredom […] is the incapacity to engage fully […] Psychosis, for different reasons, generates the same incapacity. Boredom’s characteristic condition of inhibition and dissatisfaction frustrates action, thought, even emotion beyond the unsatisfying emotion of boredom itself. Like the psychotic […] the victim of boredom finds all outlets mysteriously blocked.’⁶⁵²
Disabled and without skills, indeed, all ways are blocked, and faced with this reality brought about by Discourse and the system, we have been trained to turn to Discourse and the system to make things better. There is no need for Orwell’s fear or Huxley’s pleasure: habits and “unquestioned certainties” are more than enough, Kafkaesque.
The emergence and increasing frequencies of boredom in literature — from Flaubert’s Madam Bovary to The Pale King of David Foster Wallace — suggests a profound social and cultural shift, one which woman have born the blunt of and that has seemingly correlated with the rise and spread of “shadow work.” But why is the topic important? Sacks closes her book with some suggestions; after asking, ‘Why is everyone bored nowadays? […] How has boredom come to be so deeply assumed in our culture?’ — she writes:⁶⁵³
‘The history of boredom in its cultural constructions matters partly because boredom itself now appears to matter so much. If boredom can provide plausible justification for acts of violence or self-destruction, if the desire to forestall it sells fountain pens and trips around the world […] it would seem that boredom has assumed broad explanatory power in a society widely felt to be baffling.’⁶⁵⁴
“The Boredom Crisis” which follows from “The Skill Crisis” could be “The Meaning Crisis,” and boredom ‘has haunted Western society ever since its eighteenth-century invention.’⁶⁵⁵ In a state of disablement, our actions are “bestowed” justification by boredom, and precisely because we are disabled, we are compelled into spending and consumption, which is to say boredom contributes to “stimulating demand,” which for Keynes was necessary to avoid falling below the DEH. For this reason, we should not be quick to moralize against boredom as having a historic role, but at the same time we are reaching the point where we seem to have exhausted all we can manage through “stimulating demand” instead of creating it (without it being at the expense of the broader society). A historic negation/sublation seems in order, as “The Great Stagnation,” “Meaning Crisis,” and the like give us reason to think, but of course this must be done without proving oppressive (as few plan or intend).⁶⁵⁶
‘Boredom presents itself as a trivial emotion that can trivialize the world,’ and when we lack the skills to realize our meaning, indeed life feels trivial, as if it cannot be created with, and furthermore we lack any skills to do anything about the triviality all around us.⁶⁵⁷ Thus, the lack of skill has a double function: we feel powerless and feel like there is nothing we can do to change our world. This is fine as long as we can consume and entertain ourselves, but when that runs out — what then? We can “stimulate demand” for only so long before we simply don’t have the motivation to carry out that role any longer, at which point the economy suffers. Why did boredom emerge though? Is it because we have too much free time? Spacks doesn’t think so, for ‘leisure, in fact, has not increased.’⁶⁵⁸ Sociological facts are part of the equation, but we cannot explain boredom simply by saying people don’t have enough to do (in fact, as we learn from McKerracher, the exact opposite seems to be the case). Is wealth the problem? Perhaps in some sense, but it also doesn’t seem entirely right to claim that ‘[a]ffluence creates boredom’s conditions, [for] assembly-line workers as well as rich people allegedly suffer the malady.’⁶⁵⁹ ‘Boredom is the human doom,’ I venue to think, so it would be important for us to determine its source — but can we?⁶⁶⁰
When leisure becomes a “shadow of its former self,” it becomes a state prone to boredom, so perhaps the arising of boredom might coincide with the loss of leisure which David McKerracher was right to claim we require today. That in mind, we turn to Spacks again:
‘Boredom was in the eighteenth century a new concept, if not necessarily a new event. The emergence of a new concept marks a significant cultural happening because it allows articulation of fresh ways to understand the world.’⁶⁶¹
Well, what else happened around the eighteenth century? “The Great Enrichment.” The mysterious and dramatic socioeconomic shift that Deidre McCloskey rightly draws attention to and emphasizes. It would seem that the emergence of boredom as a concept and condition coincides with an explosion of wealth. But didn’t we say that we couldn’t claim boredom was caused by affluence? We did, but by that we meant “the mere increase of free time resulting from prosperity,” and we also claimed that the account was incomplete. Furthermore, if boredom is due to “The Great Enrichment,” it is not advantageous for us to overcome the problem by reversing the gains of prosperity: we must learn to face boredom and somehow negate/sublate versus try to avoid the conditions which arise to it (an “isolationist strategy”). As I’ve discussed with Owen before, we must someone maintain the gains of the Bourgeois Virtues while adding Thymos, which basically is the challenge of gaining wealth without descending into boredom.
When Rhetoric prevails, it begins the birth of the Discourse which could replace it; when wealth arises, it begins the incubation of the boredom which would make wealth seem empty (please note that perhaps there is no other state which more assures a person will not “leave Plato’s Cave on their own” than boredom). The “irony of Rhetoric” that we have already described maps with the start and movement of boredom. As we’ve said, boredom is a modern invention, which makes sense if “the disabling system” is also a modern invention, its possibility arising alongside the Great Enrichment but its realization not arising until Discourse eclipsed Rhetoric (as is natural and “neurotypical,” for it is “typical” of humans to be “low order,” especially when that is reinforced by a “hard materialistic” zeitgeist). Correlation doesn’t necessitate causation, no, but temporal correlation can be a powerful indicator all the same, and the fact the Great Enrichment and boredom arise around the same period suggests a connection. If boredom is a product of disablement, then there was something about the Great Enrichment which brought about the trouble Illich identified. It likely has something to do with “system size,” and it is not wealth and technology which directly cause boredom perhaps, but instead the issue is that wealth and technology make it possible for a State to grow and enlarge itself. This brings us back to the concerns of Kohr, who David Cayley saw Illich aligned with:
‘Illich tried to direct attention away from the Marxist preoccupation with the control of production and toward its structure. In this sense he belongs to the school of [Leopold] Kohr and E.F. Schumacher, who tried to make the scale of technology an independent issue, and to the school of Harold Adam Innis and Marshal McLuhan, who highlighted the symbolic fallout of technology.’⁶⁶²
Right or Left, Conservative or Liberal — if the system and ideology are too large, there will be corruption. Size also tends to cause complexity, and though “small scale complexity” is arguably not a problem, the trouble of size seems to be intensified when what is large is also complex (“complexity” is a main causer of disablement, please note). ‘Highly capitalized tools […] require highly capitalized men,’ Illich tells us on technology, and so the same logic applies to a “complex State,” and if “large States” tend to become “complex States,” then we can see a reason why our main problem is system size.⁶⁶³
Ivan Illich personally knew Leopold Kohr and spoke highly of him, agreeing that ‘there are societies and aspects of societies which can survive only within certain narrow limits of size. So there is a close relationship between form and size.’⁶⁶⁴ Please note that this begs the question of how we might “spread the conditions which incubate Childhood” without creating “a large system,” which is arguably the main reason why our inquiry is so difficult and risks proving oppressive (but I like to think that at least knowing about this pitfall can help us avoid it). Anyway, a question Illich asks constantly throughout his career is ‘[u]nder what conditions can an idea so alien to other times and places even arise?’ and here we might ask, “How did the idea that large size is good arise?”⁶⁶⁵ Illich’s question strikes me as absolutely profound, and though how it is answered might depends on the specific idea we are investigating, perhaps here we might say that “the idea of modern man with large systems” (disabled, technological, etc.) emerged partially in the space between the “large system” and the “human brain” (which naturally tends toward “low order”-thinking), in that we began associating “size” with “power” (for the larger something is the more it seems to influence causality) and so “becoming large and complex” became rational. To put it another way, wealth makes possible growth, which makes possible centralization, which makes us associate “being wealthy” with “being centralized,” and since gaining wealth is rational, it becomes rational to seek size. None of this follows necessarily, but we can see how some ideas might begin associating together in problematic ways (bringing about a profound change in what it means to “be human” as “being disabled and surrounded by scarcity”).⁶⁶⁶
As the State becomes larger, it seems more equipped with money and expertise to dabble with technology to perhaps coordinate its efforts and plans, and once this occurs a further association of “growth and centralization” with “technological progress” can occur, further contributing to our shift of thinking in a way which favors Discourse. As Illich respected Kohr, he also respected Jacques Ellul, but noted that Ellul had less hope in technology than Illich did (which is important to note Illich saying in case we ever think Illich is guilty of a naïve traditionalism). Illich thought Ellul was too much of a Calvinist, ‘gloomy. [Illich had] no expectations from technology, but [he] believe[d] in the beauty, in the creativity, in the surprising inventiveness of people, and [he always] continue[d] to hope in them.’⁶⁶⁷ Again, Illich was concerned with our thoughtless use of technology which assumed its goodness without proper training and approach. He was concerned with limitless technological reach, for the more technology becomes “all there is” (A/A, bringing Alex Eber to mind), the more it becomes self-effacing and disabling. He said to David Cayley:
‘I tried to establish the concept of counterproductivity, the fact that a given tool […] when it outgrows a certain intensity, inevitably removes more people from the purpose for which tool was created than it permits to profit its advantages. Accelerated traffic, for commuter purposes — that is, compulsory traffic — inevitably increases, for the great majority of society, the time they have to spend every day in going from here to there. And only a few people get the privilege of being almost omnipresent in the world.’⁶⁶⁸
This brings Marcuse to mind again, and overall we see the arising of the concept “as good” of a world which is larger, more centralized, more technological, more complex — and it is this “good idea” that Illich wants to make us question and pull down from being “an unquestioned certainty” (even if it arose for “good reason,” to stop say injustice or evil). As complex tools require highly-skilled people, leading to disabled classes, so powerful systems require powerful and capable people, and in this way “system size,” which increases with power, also leads to profound disablement (and do not many people feel “helpless” under democracy, like democracy has failed?). In this way, though wealth-creation correlates with the rise of boredom (a profound state of disablement), Dr. Sacks provides us reason to think it is not wealth-creation which directly leads to boredom through increased “time off,” but instead wealth can lead to an increase of “system size” (Kohr), which can lead to mass disablement (Illich), which leads to boredom and “The Meaning Crisis” (suggesting our problem is perhaps more socioeconomic than metaphysical, though of course metaphysics matter). To map it out:
A. There is a change in Rhetoric which leads to “The Great Enrichment.” (McCloskey).
B. With wealth is gained technology and power.
C. Power and technology enable leaders to centralize power that they can also manage thanks to technology (which helps with coordination, surveillance, calculation, taxation, etc.) and the influence of money and power.
D. The State is centralized and grows larger.
E. In response to this, the private sphere and market system might also grow larger to keep up or thanks to the State intervening on the private and market spheres for various reasons. Regardless, both the political and socioeconomic realms tend to become “large(r) systems.”
As the system becomes larger, the system might also find it easier to raise money (via taxation, investment, speculation, etc.) which it can then invest back in itself. It might also invest in new technologies which aid it and/or that contribute to our “enframement” in a manner that benefits the State.
F. “Large systems” are then associated with power, influence, money, etc., and so “becoming large” becomes rational, especially if we can become “too big to fail” (as discussed in “The Rationality of Invincibility and Self-Destruction” by O.G. Rose). The damaging and unintentional consequences of this enlarging are then treated or moralized as “necessary sacrifices” or placed in the “shadows” where they are ignored.
Thus, a zeitgeist (and “nonrational truth”) arises which moralizes growth, both in terms of size and complexity (say in technology or system), and the larger the system becomes, the more able it is to address our needs and concerns. And why would we learn to do x, y, or z if the (moral) system can do it for us?
G. Rationality comes to favor the (large) system, which leads to disablement. We then “make the most of ourselves” by making ourselves dependent.
Discourse thus prevails over Rhetoric thanks to a process started by Rhetoric — contingently, though, for we could be more mentidivergent versus neurotypical, hence avoiding the Nash Equilibrium (as some have, but again our concern is spread). Again, it must be stressed that it is not necessarily “time off” and wealth which lead to boredom (that is the relation which is more correlative than causal), but rather the increase of system size (which leads to rationality organizing itself around participating in that system). This is actually a positive realization, in my view, for it suggests that it could be possible for us to benefit from the Great Enrichment and address Thymos (which is to say “stay able”), which on the face of it can seem impossible (again, as Owen and I discussed). If the Great Enrichment doesn’t directly cause boredom and so “bad nihilism,” then there could be space for “spreading Childhood” in a First World Nation. Sure, it might not be easy or likely, but it shouldn’t be necessarily impossible. There’s hope. Indeed, but there are also stakes for realizing that hope and consequences if we don’t.
H. Under a zeitgeist of Discourse, people are disabled without timenergy, and so the system can only at scale “stimulate demand” through them versus create conditions in which people “create demand” (as could mentidivergent Children).
I. If “stimulating demand” can only create growth and wealth for so long before it stagnates, then we will eventually fall into a Great Stagnation.
J. If that Great Stagnation worsens and we lose so much demand to boredom, nihilism, etc., that we fall below the Demand Event Horizon of Keynes, we could suffer a major economic depression, with no guarantee of recovery, for neither markets nor freedom are necessarily “self-correcting” (according to some equilibrium) (they are “fundamentally incomplete” and hence contingent).
K. If we suffer a major economic depression, the sociopolitical consequences could be dire.
This is not necessarily what will follow if Discourse prevails — history is very open and contingent, and “the implicit” could always arise unexpectedly, to our benefit — but it is a risk that I believe we should take seriously, and thus there is reason to consider “the possibility of spreading Childhood,” even if ultimately we fail.
To review, again, boredom is not a state in which we have nothing to do, for there is always something to do, but a state in which we do not see significance in which we could do, either because we’ve lost the capacity to perceive value (metaphysics, “The Meaning Crisis”) or because we don’t have the skill needed to realize value (socioeconomic, “The Skill Crisis”), which overall makes it difficult for us to “belong again.” Where the system though only knows how to “stimulate demand,” there might be incentive to actually create boredom (perhaps through further disablement), precisely because people tend to consume to escape boredom. But this may only work until people feel like they cannot consume their way out of boredom, at which point they might fall into a form of despair that suggests depression, at which point people can no longer be “stimulated” (like the rats in utopia). As this occurs, the Great Stagnation manifests until we fall below the DEH. This is the trajectory of development and “progress” until now, but must we continue on this path? No, not if the future is entirely contingent and “open,” as Hegel teaches but that continency might orbit the question of “spreading Childhood.”
‘Illich described development as ‘a war on subsistence’ and argued that it would disrupt the existing adaptations of peoples to their circumstances without furnishing any real alternative,’ and right now it doesn’t seem like there is an alternative direction than falling below the DEH.⁶⁶⁹ Illich seems to have been right, and since ‘[t]he ideology of economic progress throws a shadow of disvalue on almost all activities […] culturally shaped outside of money flow’ (which is why everyone seeks careers — nobody likes to be disvalued), this means we do not at scale develop habits or skills that would enable us to “create demand,” for money flows rather toward what “stimulates demand” (and so we all become “stimulators” instead of “creators”).⁶⁷⁰ And when we can only stimulate and the system fails, we will turn to the system to help, and as it fails, we will turn to the system, and as it fails — it can’t be helped.
This all in mind, Illich sets his eye on the idea of “development” and “developing Third World nations,” and sees in this effort an expansion of the systems of disablement “for good reason.” He claims ‘development always implies the propagation of scarcity-dependence on goods and services perceived as scarce,’ which is to say that the more developed a country is, the more disabled it becomes (and thus prone to “The Meaning Crisis”).⁶⁷¹ To develop a people is to make them those for whom ‘the term ‘good’ characteristically denotes management; the professional ‘for your own good’ in the mouth of teachers, physicians and ideologues.’⁶⁷² This is indeed development for Discourse, but not for Rhetoric, but the matters of Rhetoric are thoughts we are likely not capable of (neurotypical), and so we gain and develop well (Afflicted).
Illich writes:
‘In both theory and practice all development means the transformation of subsistence-orientated cultures and their integration into an economic system. Development always entails the expansion of a formally economic sphere at the expense of subsistence-orientated activities.’⁶⁷³
Where we gain the world, we lose our capacity to be like “the birds of the air” (Matthew 6). And not only does “development” serve Discourse, but so too does “peace” (which is perhaps why Christ brings a sword), for ‘peace has been progressively linked with development,’ and that means “peace” is a state of disablement (which suggests why our “peaceful world” today is one where Thymos seems lacking).⁶⁷⁴ Illich understood the strong link between “development” and “peace,” and he understood that ‘[d]evelopment thus inevitably mean[t] the imposition of pax aeconomica at the cost of every form of popular peace’ (like inner serenity).⁶⁷⁵ Development gives the promise of “peace” in the sense that we become “without need,” precisely and paradoxically in becoming disabled. We do not have to fight over food, shelter, and water, for all these things are provided by the system — and besides, we’re too disabled to fight anyway. Through development an assumption is smuggled into the zeitgeist ‘that people have become incapable of providing for themselves. [This] empowers a new elite to make all people’s survival dependent on their access to education, health care, police protection, apartments and supermarkets.’⁶⁷⁶ And so we become dependent on not a Big Brother but a Big Parent who we are thankful for and couldn’t imaging living without. And this Big Parent does not terrorize us or make a point to manipulate us with pleasure. No, there’s no need. We have been left with a “given,” which is that we are incapable of making our own “givens.” We are needy. We are disabled. We can do nothing. At peace. Or is a state of mass disablement “a shadow of peace’s former self?” But perhaps only if that thought occurs to us? And so Discourse tells us to hush.
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Notes
⁶³⁴Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: ix.
⁶³⁵packs, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: ix.
⁶³⁶Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: x.
⁶³⁷Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 5.
⁶³⁸Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 9.
⁶³⁹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 8.
⁶⁴⁰Inspired by Peter Bailey, as found in Boredom by Patricia Meyer Spacks. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 16.
⁶⁴¹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 23.
⁶⁴²Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 27.
⁶⁴³Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 27.
⁶⁴⁴Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 32.
⁶⁴⁵Illich, Ivan. “Alternatives to Economics: Toward a History of Waste.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 35.
⁶⁴⁶Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 54.
⁶⁴⁷Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 58.
⁶⁴⁸Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 63.
⁶⁴⁹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 63.
⁶⁵⁰Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 66.
⁶⁵¹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 81.
⁶⁵²Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 165.
⁶⁵³Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 272.
⁶⁵⁴Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 272.
⁶⁵⁵Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 272.
⁶⁵⁶‘To dwell is human […] To dwell is an art,’ but what arts are we capable of where we are disabled and “shadows of our former self?”¹ We have houses, not homes. ‘The art of living for [us] is forfeited: [we have] no need for the art of dwelling because [we] need[] an apartment; just as [we have] no need for the art of suffering because [we] count[] on medical assistance.’² We have no need for what things were before they were “shadows” because now we are disabled. We ‘live[] in a world that has been made.’³ We have it made.
Can we dwell in a world where ‘professional define what constitutes minimal care, who requires, and then how it will be given?’⁴ Illich speaks of medicine here, but the though could have implications for “dwelling” as well. Might a Hugh of St. Victor still be possible today in this world where we are constantly threatened by ‘plastic word[s] […] [those] stone[s] thrown into a conversation [which] make waves, but [they don’t] hit anything?’⁵
¹Illich, Ivan. “Dwelling.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 55.
²Illich, Ivan. “Dwelling.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 57.
³Illich, Ivan. “Dwelling.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 57.
⁴Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 216.
⁵Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 253.
⁶⁵⁷Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 13.
⁶⁵⁸Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 251.
⁶⁵⁹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 250.
⁶⁶⁰Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 253.
⁶⁶¹Spacks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press,1995: 28.
⁶⁶²Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 16.
⁶⁶³Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 16.
⁶⁶⁴Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 83.
⁶⁶⁵Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 22.
⁶⁶⁶We might also consider here how the idea arose that humanity should be unified under a single language. What Illich called ‘one-languaged man’ would be the loss of “linguistic decentralization” which could help protect people from the system which disabled us.¹ Illich often lamented the loss of languages under “the language of money,” and he saw this as removing boundaries which protected people from “disabling systems” and “disabling development.” ‘The idea of Homo monolinguis — one-languaged man — the idea of children having to grow into one system before we confuse them with another mental system, is an idea with which, unfortunately, many people are brought up now.’² Is there something about “making size rational” which also leads to “making singularity and unification rational,” which is to say we come to erase diversity in the name of progress? Many Postmodern and thinkers of social justice have pushed back against this, but unfortunately Capitalism seems to find ways to make us think we are still diverse when all we are doing is “uniquely expressing a consumerist and disabled lifestyle.” We seem diverse, but we are actually all disabled — the diversity is skin deep. Under these conditions, it’s easier for Discourse to “capture” us.
¹Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: xiii.
²Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 89–90.
⁶⁶⁷Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 111.
⁶⁶⁸Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 110.
⁶⁶⁹Cayley, David. Ivan Illich in Conversation. Concord, Ontario. House of Anasi Press Limited, 1992: 11.
⁶⁷⁰Illich, Ivan. “Disvalue.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 81.
⁶⁷¹Illich, Ivan. “The De-linking of Peace and Development.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 22.
⁶⁷²Illich, Ivan. “Alternatives to Economics: Toward a History of Waste.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 34.
⁶⁷³Illich, Ivan. “The De-linking of Peace and Development.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 21.
⁶⁷⁴Illich, Ivan. “The De-linking of Peace and Development.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 20.
⁶⁷⁵Illich, Ivan. “The De-linking of Peace and Development.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 22.
⁶⁷⁶Illich, Ivan. “The De-linking of Peace and Development.” In the Mirror of the Past. New York, NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1992: 23.
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