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Neither Revolution Nor Reformation Can Ultimately Change A Society, Rather You Must Tell A New Powerful Tale, One So Persuasive That It Sweeps Away The Old Myths And Becomes The Preferred Story, One So Inclusive That It Gathers All The Bits Of Our Past And Our Present Into A Coherent Whole, One That Even Shines Some Light Into The Future So That We Can Take The Next Step… If You Want To Change A Society, Then You Have To Tell An Alternative Story.

-Ivan Illich

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Neither Revolution Nor Reformation

Ivan Illich

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Neither Revolution Nor Reformation Can Ultimately Change A Society, Rather You Must Tell A New Powerful Tale, One So Persuasive That It Sweeps Away The Old Myths And Becomes The Preferred Story, One So Inclusive That It Gathers All The Bits Of Our Past And Our Present Into A Coherent Whole, One That Even Shines Some Light Into The Future So That We Can Take The Next Step… If You Want To Change A Society, Then You Have To Tell An Alternative Story.

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Observations Of The Sickening Effect Of Programmed Environments Show That People In Them Become Indolent, Impotent, Narcissistic And Apolitical. The Political Process Breaks Down, Because People Cease To Be Able To Govern Themselves; They Demand To Be Managed.

People Need New Tools To Work With Rather Than New Tools That Work For Them.

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In Both Rich And Poor Nations Consumption Is Polarized While Expectation Is Equalized.

To Hell With The Future. It's A Man-eating Idol.

We Can Only Live The Changes We Wish To See: We Cannot Think Our Way To Humanity. Every One Of Us, Every Group, Must Become The Model Of That Which We Desire To Create. We Must Break The Obsolete Social And Economic Systems That Divide The World Between The Over-privileged And The Under-privileged. Each Of Us, Whether Government Leader Or Protester, Business Executive Or Worker, Professor Or Student, Share A Common Guilt.

Learning From Programmed Information Always Hides Reality Behind A Screen.

The State Shall Make No Law With Respect To The Establishment Of Education.

At The Moment Of Death I Hope To Be Surprised.

The Goals Of Development Are Always And Everywhere Stated In Terms Of Consumer Value Packages Standardized Around The North Atlantic-and Therefore Always And Everywhere Imply More Privileges For A Few... Underdevelopment Is The Result Of A State Of Mind Common To Both Socialist And Capitalist Countries. Present Development Goals Are Neither Desirable Nor Reasonable. Unfortunately Antiimperialism Is No Antidote.

Current Nationalism Is Merely The Affirmation Of The Right Of Colonial Elites To Repeat Historyand Follow The Road Travelled By The Rich Toward The Universal Consumption Of Internationally Marketed Packages, A Road Which Can Ultimately Lead Only To Universal Pollution And Universal Frustration.

Health Is Not An Objective Condition Which Can Be Understood By The Methods Of Natural Science Alone. It Is Rather A Condition Related To The Mental Attitude By Which The Individual Has To Value What Is Essential For His Life.

The New Experience That Has Replaced Dignified Suffering Is Artificially Prolonged, Opaque, Depersonalized Maintenance.

New Experiences

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.

I Don't Want To Die Of Some Disease I Want To Die Of Death

The Future Depends More Upon Our Choice Of Institutions Which Support A Life Of Action Than On Our Developing New Ideologies And Technologies.

To Be Ignorant Or Unconvinced Of One's Own Needs Has Become The Unforgivable Anti-social Act. The Good Citizen Is One Who Imputes Standardized Needs To Himself With Such Conviction That He Drowns Out Any Desire For Alternatives, Much Less The Renunciation Of Need.

I Believe That If Something Like A Political Life Is To Remain For Us In This World Of Technology, Then It Begins With Friendship. Therefore My Task Is To Cultivate Disciplined, Self-denying, Careful, Tasteful Friendships.

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.

Productive Work

Traditional Society Was More Like A Set Of Concentric Circles Of Meaningful Structures, While Modern Man Must Learn How To Find Meaning In Many Structures To Which He Is Only Marginally Related. In The Village, Language And Architecture And Religion And Work And Family Customs Were Consistent With One Another, Mutually Explanatory And Reinforcing. To Grow Into One Implied A Growth Into Others.

School Prepares For The Alienating Institutionalization Of Life By Teaching The Need To Be Taught.

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.

The Usdhew Calculates That 7% Of All Patients Suffer Compensable Injuries While Hospitalized .....one Out Of Every Five Patients Admitted To A Typical Research Hospital Acquires An Iatrogenic (caused By The Treatment Process) Disease, One Case In Thirty Leading To Death. Half Of These Episodes Result From Complications Of Drug Therapy; Amazingly, One In Ten Come From Diagnostic Procedures.

The Medicalization Of Early Diagnosis Not Only Hampers And Discourages Preventative Health-care But It Also Trains The Patient-to-be To Function In The Meantime As An Acolyte To His Doctor. He Learns To Depend On The Physician In Sickness And In Health. He Turns Into A Life-long Patient.

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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.

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I Was Recently Told, 'you're A Liar!' When I Said To Somebody I Walked Down The Spine Of The Andes. Every Spaniard In The Sixteenth, Seventeenth Century Did That. The Idea That Somebody Could Just Walk! He Can Jog Perhaps In The Morning, But He Can't Walk Anywhere! The World Has Become Inaccessible Because We Drive There.

We Can Only Live Changes: We Cannot Think Our Way To Humanity. Every One Of Us, Every Group, Must Become The Model Of That Which We Desire To Create.

Neither Revolution Nor Reformation Can Ultimately Change A Society, Rather You Must Tell A New Powerful Tale, One So Persuasive That It Sweeps Away The Old Myths And Becomes The Preferred Story, One So Inclusive That It Gathers All The Bits Of Our Past And Our Present Into A Coherent Whole, One That Even Shines Some Light Into The Future So That We Can Take The Next Step… If You Want To Change A Society, Then You Have To Tell An Alternative Story.

The Medical Establishment Has Become The Major Threat To Health.

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.

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School Prepares For The Alienating Institutionalization Of Life By Teaching The Need To Be Taught. Once This Lesson Is Learned, People Lose Their Incentive To Grow In Independence; They No Longer Find Relatedness Attractive, And Close Themselves Off To The Surprises Which Life Offers When It Is Not Predetermined By Institutional Definition.

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World Religions

Leadership Does Not Depend On Being Right.

If You Want To Change Society Then You Must Tell An Alternative Story.

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Carry A Candle In The Dark, Be A Candle In The Dark, Know That You're A Flame In The Dark.

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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.

The More Time, Toil, And Sacrifice Spent By A Population In Producing Medicine As A Commodity, The Larger Will Be The By-product, Namely, The Fallacy That Society Has A Supply Of Health Locked Away Which Can Be Mined And Marketed.

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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.

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The Public School Has Become The Established Church Of Secular Society.

Secular Society

Culture Makes Pain Tolerable By Interpreting It's Necessity; Only Pain Perceived As Curable Is Intolerable.

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Effective Health Care Depends On Self-care; This Fact Is Currently Heralded As If It Were A Discovery.

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