| The KKK and the nazis managed to form and grow without the help of the internet. Also, finding other people who enjoy talking about cars or writing fan fic doesn't have this sort of harmful in-group/out-group dynamic. So I'm a bit skeptical of the narrative of the piece, especially because there's no actual evidence provided. My skepticism extends to the broader narrative of this newsletter. Illich's alternatives -- especially the conviviality stuff -- always struck me as dangerously Utopian: if only we were all the same, then everything would be great. He's like that well-meaning stoner who asks "why can't we all just get along" and sort of shakes his head and tells you that you don't get it if you ask how, concretely, we're supposed to "just get along" in Gaza or Darfur or Kashmir or any other place where there's a lot of zero-sum resource/power allocation underlying centuries of conflict. The dismissal of real and concrete harms on both sides of conflict is at least unhelpful and possibly harmful. Conviviality is a nice sentiment, and the world would perhaps be a better place if everyone shared that sentiment. But sentiment is a starting point, not an actual solution. The world's problems are usually too complex to be solved with pure sentiment, and things will go wrong in unexpected ways if you try. One concrete example: the modern commercial internet's ad-driven information economy elucidates a major flaw with Illich's "Learning Webs" from Deschooling Society: the company that owns the platform just happens to be an ad company. It's a flaw that even the strongest critics of Illich could never have anticipated in the 1970s. The point is more general: convivial societies only work if everyone is convivial, and there will always be insanely inventive non-convivial people. Even people who are more-or-less decent folks and even people who adopt slogans like "don't be evil" will end up throwing wrenches in your plan. |
Purely anecdotally, but I beg to differ. There is more than a little bit of tribal hostility on e.g. Tumblr around various fandoms.
To me, the real issue is that surrounding yourself with like-minded people only teaches you to interact with people you primarily agree with and are comfortable with, rather than the more valuable skill of interacting (civilly) with people you disagree with.