Energy and Equity
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A junkie without access to his stash is in a state of crisis. The "energy crisis' that exists intermittently when the flow of fuel from unstable countries is cut off or threatened, is a crisis in the same sense. When such a crisis is perceived in the western sphere, there are normally two solutions proposed: Relieve our dependence on foreign fuels by developing "ecologically friendly' energy extraction technology, or send an army to pacify the fuel-rich region in question. Both of these paths, seemingly at odds with each other, take as fundamentally true a certain proposition, that in no circumstances should we use less energy than we already use. In this conception, all human problems must be solved by the impressment of still more "energy slaves' to meet the expanding demand of human masters. The two solutions consist of securing the current source of the drug, or finding a different, more secure pusher. In this essay, Illich examines the question of whether or not humans need any more energy than is their natural birthright. Along the way he gives a startling analysis of the marginal disutility of tools. After a certain point, that is, more energy gives negative returns. For example, moving around causes loss of time proportional to the amount of energy which is poured into the transport system, so that the speed of the fastest traveller correlates inversely to the equality as well as freedom of the median traveller.
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich (1926-2002) was one of the most original social and religious thinkers of the 20th Century. Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1951, he became an advocate of a "new Church" and a critic of the existing form of the Roman Church which he called "a giant that begins to totter before it collapses." The novelty of his ideas antagonized conservative forces in the Church, and he ended the controversy his advocacy had stirred up at the Vatican by announcing in 1969 that he would suspend the exercise of his priesthood and proceed, in future, "as a simple faithful Christian." There followed a sequence of five books, beginning with 1970's Celebration of Awareness, calling for "institutional revolution," or sometimes "cultural revolution." Industrial institutions, from education (Deschooling Society) to medicine (Limits to Medicine), Illich wrote, were crossing a threshold into "counter-productivity," a condition in which they would get in their own way and defeat their own purposes He also suggested that crucial personal and cultural competencies were being lost to growing professional and institutional predominance.When the institutional revolution Illich proposed did not take place, he turned to the study of history in an attempt to unearth the roots of the "certainties" that had prevented reform. In books like Shadow Work, Gender and In the Vineyard of the Text, he explored how modern civilization took shape and tried, as he once said, to "observe the emergence of those assumptions which, by going unexamined, have turned into today's certainties." (Ivan Illich in Conversation, pp. 134-135). In his last years, Illich also began to speak and write about the role of the Christian Church in the formation of the modern West, putting forward the idea that the unique features of modernity are only explainable as a perverse mutation of Christian inspiration. "When I look for the roots of modernity," he said, "I find them in the attempts of the churches to institutionalize, legitimize and manage Christian vocation" (The Rivers North of the Future, p. 48).
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