Ivan Illich, “Philosophy… Artifacts… Friendship” (1996):

The person today who feels called to a life of prayer and charity cannot eschew an intellectual

grounding in the critique of perceptions, because beyond things, our perceptions are to a large extent

technogenic. Both the thing perceived and the mode of perception it calls forth are the result of

artifacts that are meant by their engineers to shape the users. The novice to the sacred liturgy and to

mental prayer has a historically new task. He is largely removed from those things – water, sunlight,

soil, and weather – that were made to speak of God’s presence. In comparison with the saints whom

he tries to emulate, his search for God’s presence is of a new kind.  

Please do not take me for a technophobe. I argue for detachment from artifacts, because only

by abstaining from their use can I perceive the seductiveness of their whispers. Unlike the saintly

models of yesterday, the one who begins walking now under the eyes of God must not just divest

himself of bad habits that have become second nature; he must not only correct proclivities toward

gold or flesh or vanity that have been ingrained in his hexis, obscuring his sight or crippling his

glance. Today’s convert must recognize how his senses are continuously shaped by the artifacts he

uses. They are charged by design with intentional symbolic loads, something previously unknown.    

The things today with decisively new consequences are systems, and these are so built that they

co-opt and integrate their user’s hands, ears, and eyes. The object has lost its distality by becoming

systemic. No one can easily break the bonds forged by years of television absorption and curricular

education that have turned eyes and ears into system components.

(Thanks to my friend Richard Gibson for reminding me of this crucial passage.)

Text Patterns

July 13, 2015

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