TEHRAN – The Persian translation of the book “Tools for Conviviality” is by Ivan Illich has been released in the bookstores across the country.

Soroush Habibi has translated the book and Kharazmi Publications has brought it out in 198 pages, Mehr reported.

Originally written in 1973, the book explores the history of technology and tools. Illich proposes the idea of a “convivial tool,” one which allows its user to exercise their human autonomy and creativity. He draws a contrast between these convivial tools, which extend human capability, and the tools of industrial society, which have gone beyond that original goal and have become destructive to human autonomy and ingenuity. 

The book introduced Illich's concept of “conviviality” and of a “radical monopoly,” ideas which have become influential to the discourse around degrowth and appropriate technology.

Illich identifies two thresholds in the development of any tool, which he calls the “two watersheds”. New knowledge at the “first watershed” has great benefits until later at the “second watershed” the benefits are used to justify manipulation by a professional elite. 

He uses the example of modern medicine to illustrate his point, identifying the first watershed as occurring around 1913, the point at which a patient visiting a doctor had, for the first time, a better than 50% chance of receiving an effective treatment.  

The second watershed, crossed in the middle of the 20th century, is defined by the harm done by the medical system itself in the form of increasing iatrogenesis, medicalization, professionalization of the medical elites, and delegitimization of traditional providers of medical care.

Influenced by various meanings of the word “convivial” and its cognates in Spanish and French, Illich uses the word to describe “responsibly limited tools,” drawing a contrast with the tools of industrial society.

His definition of “tools” is broad and include among tools productive institutions such as factories that produce tangible commodities like corn flakes or electric current, and productive systems for intangible commodities such as those which produce “education”, “health”, “knowledge”, or “decisions”. 

He argues that all such tools can become manipulative to their users when “means” are overtaken by “ends” - when tools become complicated to the point that humans are used by them rather than using them.

Ivan Dominic Illich (1926 – 2002) was an Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book “Deschooling Society” criticizes modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that demotivates and alienates individuals from the process of learning. 

His 1975 book “Medical Nemesis,” importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of medical harm, argues that industrialized society widely impairs quality of life by over-medicalizing life, pathologizing normal conditions, creating false dependency, and limiting other more healthful solutions.

SS/SAB