[aldendaniels]

Illich wasn't against school per-se. He was against compulsory school, centralized pedagogy, and other attributes of a "modern" (ala 1970s) schooling system in Western social democracies.

He was particularly concerned with how the tenants of modernism affected developing nations (where he lived for much of his life) by pushing traditional methods into forced obsolescence in favor of ever-increasing reliance on social institutions.

His views on policy may or may not be on point (he seems most comfortable in the area of principle and theory), but the conceptual core that relates his views on education to his views on cars and medicine merits consideration.

He similarly wasn't against scientific medicine, but he thought the medical bureaucracy had outgrown its utility: that advances in specialized medicine were too expensive and served to prop up artificially unhealthy lives.

A strong line of his argument is that past a tipping point of size/power, institutions will create the needs they serve. We create these artificial environments where it's hard for most people to thrive and then we create social institutions to compensate: a social prosthetic.

The result in Illich's view is increasing passivity and helplessness: a petulant society composed of a disempowered citizenry.

The argument no-doubt merits a balancing counter-argument, but I find it compelling and it goes deeper than a simplistic dismissal of school.

[throwawaygh]

> Illich wasn't against school per-se.

There's a recording of a teacher asking how to infuse lessons from deschooling into her classroom and his response is basically "you can't". He's actually a bit rude about it tbh.

Illich was opposed to schooling. He would have said he was in favor of "education". Nailing down what that would mean on the scale of a society, aside from learning webs, is a bit elusive.

I think Illich provided a fantastic prognosis of certain problems but didn't develop workable solutions.

[marnett]

Most critical theory doesn’t come with a proposed set of workable solutions or policy suggestions. It is important to separate the expectation and allow critique to be just that.

Anyhow, the first step to a solving a problem is identifying it; they need not be atomic operations.

[danans]

That would be fine if the quote didn't include this bit:

"...and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question."

That's where he veers into making a policy recommendation (defunding social institutions), and where he is no longer engaging in critical theory but in pushing a particular policy agenda, therefore opening his critique (some of which I'd even agree with) to practical criticism from people with more skin in the game.

[zozbot234]

Critique is not helpful if you don't know anything about the feasibility of alternative approaches. "I want a pony!" is not a worthwhile critique of anything, it's merely a fallacy.

[marnett]

While I’ve added the critique to my reading list, I have yet to finish. I cannot speak to your claim the Illich’s critique is based on what he so desires (“I want a pony”), as opposed to describing a phenomenon of individual emptiness as a side-effect of Western institutions.

I agree if his long-form critique takes the structure you claim, it is of poor quality because claiming desires in not critical of anything.

However, I do disagree with your claim the critique alone is not helpful. A harsh, well formed critique is typically the very first pillar in driving change. Expecting identification and resolution in the same piece is asking too much.

I would argue to say that a critique being invalidated because it somehow must include both framing and describing a phenomenon as well as suggesting changes, each weighted by their feasibility in remedying the systemic woes, is much more fallacious.

[zozbot234]

Note that there is a robust tradition of "student-centered learning" and after-the-fact "unschooling" that does propose some worthwhile answers.