I want to point out the Web link for the Circle for Research on Proportionality (CROP). This is a particularly interesting group of thinkers who could be considered part of the intellectual school of Ivan Illich.
Illich was an Austrian-born priest and Christian philosopher whose influence extends from the home-school movement to alternative medicine to urban architecture to Christian theology. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown provides a glimpse of Ilich in his obituary tribute to him:
Among the serious thinkers I have had the privilege to meet, Ivan Illich alone embodied in his personal life as well as in his work, a radical distancing from the imperatives of modern society. From Deschooling Society (1971) to In the Vineyard of the Text (1993), he bore witness to the destructive power of modern institutions that "create needs faster than they can create satisfaction, and in the process of trying to meet the needs they generate, they consume the earth."
Ivan Illich was the rarest of human beings: erudite, yet possessed of aliveness and sensitivity. He savored the ordinary pleasures of life even as he cheerfully embraced its inevitable suffering. Steeped in an authentic Catholic tradition, he observed with detachment and as a pilgrim the unforgiving allure of science and progress. With acute clarity and a sense of humor, he undermined, in all that he wrote, the uncontested certitudes of modern society.
In his last visit to Oakland, he invited the local archbishop to discuss matters of Catholic theology that greatly troubled him. Before he died, Illich wanted to engage ecclesiastical representatives in a conversation about corruption in the early church and the evolution-as he saw it--of Christian charity from a personal act to planned institutional services. This he called the corruption of the best becoming the worst- Corruptio optimi quae est pessima . His interlocutors arrived at my loft and were ushered into the library. Illich spoke at length, summoning up his vast store of Church history. He tried one subject, then another, but the bishop and his clerical assistants seemed nonplussed, even uncomfortable. Soon the conversation was over and our guests excused themselves and left. I am sure they were wondering what in the world Illich was getting at.
2 comments:
this is deep stuff, bruce, not for the faint of heart. i read some illich in my catholic/socialist youth, but have not thought about him in years. i checked out CROP's site, and once i got past the german, found it has a lot to mine. 'twill take some time, however. i'm also grateful to you for bringing me news of jerry brown, i had no idea he was mayor of oakland.
Yeah, I've met Ilich and he really was an impressive guy. And Jerry Brown is still the most surprising politician you're likely to meet. - Bruce
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