Northern Overexposure
  • Home
  • Musical Interludes
  • Blog
  • Contact Me

Ivan Illich and Conviviality as post-political paradigm

2/20/2020

1 Comment

 
I referenced in an earlier entry, Gilad Atzmon’s post on the post-political world we live in. While I largely agree with his core thesis, I think the vacuum created in this stage requires a paradigmatic framework to position us moving forward inclusively without scapegoating any one single group.

Illich’s work “Tools for Conviviality” is a good starting point. Illich argues that the scientific revolution has brought in its wake an excessively technocratic society that is marginalizing us from one another. His critique of medicine in Medical Nemesis and education in Deschooling Society articulates how the institutionalization of these bodies has spiralled beyond control and that fundamental re-ordering of society is necessary to redress it.

He argues that the tools necessary for social ordering need to be brought closer to the people, the community, the individual as opposed to ever enlarging, out of control bureaucracies far beyond the reach of local people. 

The issue is not technology per se but instead democratizing those technological tools. This requires placing limits on tools. Illich explains: To formulate a theory about a future society both very modern and not dominated by industry, it will be necessary to recognize natural scales and limits. We must come to admit that only within limits can machines take the place of slaves; beyond these limits they lead to a new kind of serfdom. Only within limits can education fit people into a man-made environment: beyond these limits lies the universal schoolhouse, hospital ward, or prison. Only within limits ought politics to be concerned with the distribution of maximum industrial outputs, rather than with equal inputs of either energy or information. Once these limits are recognized, it becomes possible to articulate the triadic relationship between persons, tools, and a new collectivity. Such a society, in which modern technologies serve politically interrelated individuals rather than managers, I will call "convivial." 

The kind of society Illich describes requires ongoing analysis and vigilance. Thomas Jefferson said that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance and in this, he was eerily prescient. It is far too easy to squander our freedom on “bread and circus”. This requires of the population a certain asceticism or austerity. Having a Catholic background Illich draws on Thomas Aquinas (echoing Aristotle) to explain the concept of austerity (although I prefer the term asceticism as it carries with it a richer spiritual tradition). Illich writes that Thomas “in his third response defines "austerity" as a virtue that does not exclude all enjoyments, but only those which are distracting from or destructive of personal relatedness. For Thomas "austerity" is a complementary part of a more embracing virtue, which he calls friendship or joyfulness. It is the fruit of an apprehension that things or tools could destroy rather than enhance eutrapelia (or graceful playfulness) in personal relations.”

So, a concentration on the tools that bring us together as a community, and ensuring that each individual can use them for themselves is an essential aspect of where Illich argues we need to return. I will argue that we can no longer live and work effectively without public controls over tools and institutions that curtail or negate any person's right to the creative use of his or her energy. For this purpose, we need procedures to ensure that controls over the tools of society are established and governed by political process rather than by decisions by experts. 

This brings us to the major political question of how we are organized and in this he may sound a bit anarchic -  and against the backdrop of over 300 years or more of gradual technocratic dominance and its dramatic acceleration in the last 70 plus years, it does. Anarchy conjures up fearful images of riots in streets, burning buildings, and lawlessness. But this is not the kind of anarchy that is intended. The issue is not whether we as people will be governed but HOW we wish to be governed. And this is an important question. But through a deadening of political discourse, through an acceleration of distractions on mass media (latter-day bread and circus), we have not had the space to critically analyze the question of how our tools (and by tools he means not only actual implements but knowledge such as medicine, schools, the press, housing, etc.) need to be used. Illich writes: If tools are not controlled politically, they will be managed in a belated technocratic response to disaster. Freedom and dignity will continue to dissolve into an unprecedented enslavement of man to his tools. 

This is precisely what has occurred and people, like those in Plato’s cave, are beginning to see the darkness of our current cave. In response, inchoate political responses are emerging and in this, there are striking similarities between the anti-establishment of Trump and Sanders and the vox populi of their respective movements. Still, there is a need for a coherent political philosophy to explain this phenomenon and guide us in a methodological, programmatic manner. Elizabeth Warren is a good leader in this regard. She has a sharp mind and a clear vision of how to ensure this can happen politically. Her campaign slogan “She has a plan for that” is on point and could be prophetic.

I do my part in the wilderness but we do live in interesting times!
1 Comment

The Intersectionality of Human Rights, Mental Health and Well-Being

2/3/2020

0 Comments

 
Below is a summary and some snippets of a consultation I prepared for my work.

In the last five years, the intersection between mental health and human rights has become more explicit with influential national and international health and human rights institutions issuing reports and recommendations on the topic. These include reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Mental Health (United Nations, 2017), American Psychological Association (Asanbe, Gaba, and Yang, 2018), World Health Organization (2017), and the Ontario Human Rights Commission (2017) to cite just a few examples. In addition to these reports, the United Nation’s High Commissioner writes that, “(the) right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a fundamental human right indispensable for the exercise of other human rights” (United Nations, 2017, para 4). According to World Health Organization, mental health is “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (World Health Organization, 2018, para. 2).

One of the largest barriers that has been identified around access to mental health services is social stigma. The United Nations High Commissioner writes that "stereotyping, prejudice and stigmatization is present in every sphere of life, including social, educational, work and health-care settings, and profoundly affects the regard in which the individual is held, as well as their own self-esteem. The lack of systematic training and awareness-raising for mental health personnel on human rights as they apply to mental health allows stigma to continue" (United Nations, 2017, para 16).  Given this barrier, the strategy should include support for anti-stigma campaigns across the university aligned with a human rights focus. The World Health Organization (2017) has developed documents "to provide training and guidance on how to integrate a human rights approach in mental health and related areas, based on international human rights instruments, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" (p. 7).

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner also recommends that services be “culturally appropriate, that is, respectful of the culture of individuals, minorities, peoples and communities, sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2000, para 12c).


Finally, as Gemignani, M., & Hernández-Albújar write in the European Psychologist  "focusing only on personal suffering not only promotes a view of psychology as an individualistic discipline, but also distorts its attention from other readings of that suffering that may locate it socially and culturally. For instance, social reconstructions of traumatic memories may not necessarily pass through individual debriefing and may greatly benefit from psychological practices that are based on collective and cul- tural rememberings of the past".

0 Comments

    My Pensées

    The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal.  This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are  strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health,  education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.

    Archives

    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.