Podcasts about Ivan Illich

What does it mean to repair something that has been broken? Where do we begin when the harm is larger than any one of us? And what if reconciliation is less about finding the right answer and more about learning how to be in right relationship? In this opening episode of Season 8, we welcome Jodi Spargur to Rector's Cupboard to talk about her book, Mend: An Invitation from Jesus to Return to Land-Based Repair. This conversation was recorded earlier this summer as part of a live outdoor gathering. Jodi invites us into a conversation about relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, the legacy of colonization, and the difficult but necessary work of repair. What does it mean to move beyond guilt, defensiveness, or the desire to simply “fix” something? How might we learn to listen, receive, and participate in the long work of mending? We also talk about faith, land, community, and the ways hopeful theology might help us approach difficult conversations—not by pretending that the harm isn't real, but by believing that repair and new relationships are possible. It's a thoughtful and hopeful conversation about learning to stay present, take responsibility, and ask what it might mean to move toward one another. We hope you enjoy the conversation.   References We referred to a lot of things this episode. Here are the links relevant to our conversation with Jodi: Bear Barnetson, Mend cover artist, check out Bear's work on Instagram (@sus_cho_art) Red Clover The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada   You can find out more information and register for our 2026 Fall Conference here. If you'd like to listen to past episodes with all of our conference presenters you can find them here: André Gagné “Charismatic Christianity and American Politics with Dr. André Gagné” – September 12, 2025 Angela Reitsma Bick “Blessed are the Undone with Angela Reitsma Bick” – June 27, 2025 Ken Best “I Get to Be Alive with Ken Best” – June 19, 2026 David Goa Episodes (there are lots) “Revival and Reflection, a Conversation with David Goa” – January 9, 2026 “Hope Instead of Fundamentalism with David Goa” 3 Part Series, June 2025 “The Church In-Between Times: A Conversation with David Goa” – April 26, 2024 “A Visit with David Goa” – February 16, 2024 “Inquisition and Hopeful Theology; A Conversation about Ivan Illich with David Goa” – June 10, 2022 “The Church In-Between Times: A Conversation with David Goa” 7 Part Series – January 2022 “Sunny Boy with David Goa” December 4, 2020 “Most People are Better than their Theology with David Goa” – January 30, 2020 Susan Alexander “Poetry, Loss, and Hope with Susan Alexander” – February 26, 2021

Un uomo resta immobile in poltrona perché un chatbot lo rassicura: poche ore dopo finisce con un'embolia polmonare massiva. Il caso è diventato una causa civile negli Stati Uniti: Scott Winters, 55 anni, ex pastore protestante in Florida, ha citato in giudizio OpenAI e Sam Altman presso la Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, contestando l'effetto di consigli sanitari ricevuti via ChatGPT in una lunga serie di conversazioni.Il punto non è l'ennesimo “errore dell'IA”, ma il modo in cui un sistema generalista, progettato per rispondere sempre con sicurezza, diventa un sostituto relazionale: la chat come sportello medico perenne, senza esitazioni, senza triage, senza responsabilità. In sanità questa dinamica è particolarmente pericolosa perché sposta l'asticella: non serve che l'output sia spesso sbagliato, basta che in rari momenti critici dia una risposta che ritarda l'accesso a cure reali.Dentro questa storia c'è anche una tesi più ampia: quando usiamo tecnologia per risolvere problemi che non sono tecnologici (fiducia, solitudine decisionale, accesso alle cure), rischiamo effetti iatrogeni “di sistema”. Ivan Illich lo chiamava già mezzo secolo fa: oltre una certa soglia, l'apparato che dovrebbe curare finisce per ammalare. Oggi quel monopolio dell'interpretazione del “sto male” si sta spostando, silenziosamente, verso una casella di testo.00:00 Il consiglio che uccide01:15 Chi è Scott Winters02:19 Accuse e richiesta al giudice02:51 TOS vs uso reale in salute03:36 Illich e Nemesi Medica04:35 La chat come monopolio05:20 Perché l'LLM non fa triage06:59 Quando chiamare persone vere#ChatGPT #OpenAI #SamAltman~~~Ciao Internet! - Il primo e più seguito canale di TECH POLICY in italia, con Matteo FloraINFO E AZIENDE: https://matteoflora.comIl CORSO di AI: https://zero.matteoflora.comNewsletter: https://link.mgpf.it/nlSocial: https://io.matteoflora.comEnglish: https://www.youtube.com/@CiaoInternetPrivacy » https://privacy.matteoflora.comAI Policy » https://privacy.matteoflora.com/aiMail #adv: sales (at) matteoflora.com

100. doğum gününde 20. yüzyılın en radikal ve sıra dışı düşünürlerinden Ivan Illich'i anıyoruz. Endüstriyalizm ve kurumsallaşma eleştirileriyle ekolojik düşünceye önemli bir ilham kaynağı olan Illich'in modern toplum, kalkınma ve ekonomik büyümeye yönelik sorgulamaları ele alırken; eserlerinin Türkiye'deki yayın serüvenine ve düşüncelerinin aradan geçen yıllara rağmen neden hâlâ çarpıcı biçimde güncelliğini koruduğuna bakıyoruz.

durée : 00:38:49 - Le meilleur de la science - par : Mathieu Vidard - Penseur critique de la société industrielle, enseignant nomade, théologien iconoclaste, Ivan Illich reste aujourd'hui méconnu. Pourtant, sa pensée stimulante et anticonformiste accompagne ceux qui cherchent des alternatives au capitalisme globalisé. - réalisation : Jérôme Boulet, Lucie Sarfaty, Anna Massardier, Joelle Levert, Jean-Philippe Veret - invités : Thierry Paquot Philosophe et essayiste Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France

La liberté telle que nous l'entendons aujourd'hui, que ce soit à gauche et à droite de l'échiquier politique, se fonde sur l'idée de délivrance. C'est à dire le fait d'être déchargé par d'autres ou par la technologie d'une partie des tâches quotidiennes de la vie : cuisiner, s'occuper des enfants, faire le ménage, etc. Pourtant, si cette définition de la liberté semble hégémonique à l'heure actuelle, elle n'est pas la seule. Celle-ci s'est imposée au dépend d'autres manières d'entrevoir la liberté comme une autonomie collective qui vise à prendre en main sa propre subsistance.Dans cet épisode du podcast Ozé, je reçois Aurélien Berlan, maître de conférences en philosophie à l'université Jean-Jaurès et auteur du livre Terre et liberté dans lequel il offre une analyse des différentes conceptions de la liberté pour en exhumer les hypothèses sous-jacentes et proposer des alternatives salutaires.Crédit photo @Libération

Dr. Hoffman continues his conversation with bioethicist and psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, author of “Making the Cut: How to Heal Modern Medicine.” 

Bioethicist and psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, author of “Making the Cut: How to Heal Modern Medicine,” discusses declining public trust in healthcare. Kheriaty describes his medical training and argues medicine has become an industrial, bureaucratic “turnstile” system that dehumanizes care, turns physicians into data-entry clerks, and relies on reimbursement-driven “guidelines” and narrow evidence-based medicine that favors costly pharmaceuticals. He proposes creating “parallel” grassroots medical institutions—such as direct primary care—analogous to homeschooling and Eastern European dissidents' “parallel polis,” since systemic reform from within is difficult. Kheriaty recounts opposing COVID vaccine mandates at UC Irvine, being fired after suing, and participating in Missouri v. Biden and Ho v. Newsom, which challenged government-influenced social-media censorship and California's physician “misinformation” law. He also discusses informed consent, assisted suicide opposition, and advocating opt-in organ donation.

David Moulton wrote an article called 'Towards a Gay Art of Suffering', which was published in Verdurin's collection 'Inversion: Gay Life After the Homosexual'. In it, he uses the framing of Ivan Illich's concept of suffering, and the works of Péter Nádas, Gean Genet, and more, to talk about all sorts of uncontroversial topics. These topics include the 'state religion' of LGBTQ+, revisionist AIDS history, the domestication of gay men by gay marriage, COVID-19, LGB without the T, and so on. We talk about similarly temperate things here.David's writing in Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/contributor/david-moulton/Inversion: Gay Life After the Homosexual: https://verdur.in/inversion/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2026 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Paul, Nate, Karl, Jim, and Andy discuss the work of renegade Catholic Priest Ivan Illich in his criticism of institutional Christianity as giving shape to modern nationalism and the profound failures of modern society.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron! (Sign up for “Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled: Perspectives on Peace” Starting April 8th and running through May 27th on from 7 pm to 9 pm central time. This class, with Ethan Vander Leek, examines “peace” from various perspectives: Biblical, theological, philosophical, and inter-religious. Go to https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings.)

Limits to Medicine (1975) describes how and why industrialised medicine contributes to an 'iatrogenic society', in which all political grievances are converted into demands for more industrial commodities. Helping me out with this easy and straightforward topic is Lucas Smith, ruling theocrat of Bonfire Books, an excellent small publisher who will be releasing my next novel, Audience Capture, in October of this year.Apologies if the audio in a few sections is a bit scratchy, we had recording issues and I've tried my best to surgically (in a holistic, Illichian sense, one preserving an art of suffering) reconstruct our conversation. Furthermore, I realise that I have done two episodes on similar topics recently. I apologise profusely for this, and can guarantee that upcoming episodes will have absolutely nothing to do with medicine or Ivan Illich.Spare Us Yet: https://www.amazon.com/dp/195131994xBonfire Books website: bonfirebooks.orgBonfire Books on X: @BooksBonfireBonfire Books on Substack: https://substack.com/@bonfirebooksVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Derek Rishmawy, James Wood, and Alastair Roberts welcome Dr. Lyndon Jost, author of Transfiguring Headship: A Figural Theology of Gender. Jost argues that headship is rooted in Old Testament figural theology rather than Greco-Roman culture, that it fundamentally means representation rather than authority, and that this reframes debates between complementarians and egalitarians alike.  — Get your copy of our free ebook, Spiritual Formation for the Family, at http://mereorthodoxy.com/family. Mere Fidelity is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership. Get 30% of the Baker Book of the Month, Keeping Kids Christian: Recovering A Biblical Vision For Lifelong Discipleship, by going to: http://bakerbookhouse.com/pages/mere-fidelity Apply for Beeson Divinity School's Ph.D program by April 1 for Fall 2026 admission here: https://bit.ly/BeesonPhD — Chapters 01:15 - Overview of Transfiguring Headship 03:06 - Headship as Representation, Not Authority 06:09 - Critiquing Complementarian and Egalitarian Readings 10:32 - Figural Theology and the Fourfold Senses of Scripture 17:05 - Against Greco-Roman Readings of Headship 20:13 - 1 Corinthians 11:3 and Trinitarian Headship 25:35 - Ivan Illich, Gender vs. Sex, and Vernacular Gender 32:48 - Headship, Marriage, and the One-Flesh Union 43:23 - Essentialism, Gender Realism, and Minimalist Claims 50:36 - Headship as Unity, Not Opposition 55:59 - Male Responsibility and the Final Account 58:28 - Headship, Creation Order, and External Representation 01:02:14 - Closing Remarks  

David Cayley is an author and broadcaster from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. he has written extensively on Ivan Illich, including books based on their conversations together.https://www.davidcayley.com/

Turning our economies upside down for people and planet require some fundamentally different understandings of how we relate to each other and to more-than-humans. Conviviality is a central concept for Degrowthers, a term first used by Ivan Illich to describe an intrinsic ethical imperative to use our autonomy in relation to others and respecting our interdependence rather than just for our own individual benefit. In today's episode, Andrea Vetter explains whyconviviality is so important from a Degrowth perspective and how it relates to other concepts such as freedom and commoning. Hosted by Alexandra Köves. Edited by Aidan Knox. Episode picture by Arthur Poulin.

La liberté telle que nous l'entendons aujourd'hui, que ce soit à gauche et à droite de l'échiquier politique, se fonde sur l'idée de délivrance. C'est à dire le fait d'être déchargé par d'autres ou par la technologie d'une partie des tâches quotidiennes de la vie : cuisiner, s'occuper des enfants, faire le ménage, etc. Pourtant, si cette définition de la liberté semble hégémonique à l'heure actuelle, elle n'est pas la seule. Celle-ci s'est imposée au dépend d'autres manières d'entrevoir la liberté comme une autonomie collective qui vise à prendre en main sa propre subsistance.Dans cet épisode du podcast Ozé, je reçois Aurélien Berlan, maître de conférences en philosophie à l'université Jean-Jaurès et auteur du livre Terre et liberté dans lequel il offre une analyse des différentes conceptions de la liberté pour en exhumer les hypothèses sous-jacentes et proposer des alternatives salutaires.Crédit photo @Libération

Federico Ferrari"Ritratti"Luca Sossella Editorewww.lucasossellaeditore.itPer eseguire un buon ritratto occorre che il modello stia fermo, possibilmente immobile. Se il soggetto si muove, se è irrequieto o si rifiuta di stare in posa, di assumere una posa, allora il ritratto si rivela impossibile.Chi legge troverà nelle pagine che seguono, dunque, dei ritratti sui generis, perché le autrici e gli autori che ne dovrebbero essere al centro sono tra i più irrequieti che il secolo scorso abbia prodotto. Sfuggenti come pochi altri, permettono a malapena di tracciare uno schizzo, una figura mossa, talvolta, al limite dell'irriconoscibile. Questi ritratti sono, in fondo, un modo per liberare questi grandi autori dalla propria identità o, forse in un eccesso di fiducia, per liberarli da ogni identità, dall'ingombro che ogni identità porta con sé. E poiché, come noto, ogni dipintore dipinge se stesso, è anche un modo di liberare chi scrive dalla propria identità.Ritratti di Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Harold Bloom, Adone Brandalise, Cristina Campo, Guido Ceronetti, Ioan Petru Culianu, David Graeber, Ivan Illich, Pierre Klossowski, Anna Maria Ortese, Tom Seidmann-Freud, Ferdinando Tartaglia.Federico Ferrari, docente di Filosofia dell'arte all'Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, è stato visiting professor in diverse università europee e ha scritto una decina di libri, tradotti nelle principali lingue del mondo.Per LSe ha pubblicato Lo spazio critico (2004), Il re è nudo (2011), Il silenzio dell'arte (2021), L'anarca (2023) e, con Jean-Luc Nancy, Iconografia dell'autore (2006) e Estasi (2022).Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

Rocco Ronchi"Ivan Illich. La salvezza nella salute"Kum! Festivalwww.kumfestival.itKum! Festival, PesaroDomenica 19 ottobre 2025, ore 10:00"Ivan Illich. La salvezza nella salute"con Rocco RonchiIvan Illich è un pensatore inclassificabile. Prete e attivista politico, riformatore religioso e tradizionalista incrollabile, anarchico e credente, anti-illuminista e libertario. Anche sul piano disciplinare, la sua ricerca è sospesa tra teoria critica e teologia, storia delle idee ed epistemologia delle scienze umane, economia politica e storia della medicina. Ma c'è un'idea di fondo che orienta tutta la sua vita e tutta la sua opera. Proveremo a esplicitarla prendendo come filo rosso l'idea di salute che Illich elaborò e a più riprese contrappose a quel processo di medicalizzazione della vita e della morte che ha caratterizzato la nostra modernità e la nostra contemporaneità.Rocco Ronchi, filosofo, insegna presso l'Università degli Studi dell'Aquila e presso l'IRPA (Istituto di ricerca di psicoanalisi applicata) di Milano e Ancona. Tiene corsi e seminari in varie università italiane e straniere.Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

In this episode of Million Dollar Flip Flops, Rodric sits down with Blake Stratton — coach, consultant, dad, and self-proclaimed “pivot artist.” Blake helps moms and dads escape the golden handcuffs of unfulfilling careers or rigid business models so they can reclaim time, freedom, and impact during the fleeting “good old days” of raising a family.Together, Rodric and Blake dive deep into:Why risk avoidance is an illusion — and how to reframe what you're really risking in life and business.The toleration point where people either retreat to comfort or break through to transformation.Lessons from Ivan Illich, KFC logos, and why the best coaches don't just hand you spreadsheets — they coach the person, not just the business.How mindset, courage, and clarity create more growth than any tactic or PDF ever will.Why investing in help (employees, coaches, systems) is the difference between scaling and stagnation.This is a powerful conversation about the courage to change course, the risk of staying stuck, and how to live a life you won't regret at the end.Quote Highlights:“Risk avoidance in a vacuum doesn't exist. You're always risking something.” – Blake Stratton “It's never been about the money for me… and that's why I make a lot of money.” – Rodric LenhartTimestamps:(0:00) Blake's latest pivots and client focus(4:00) The bittersweet choice to step away from Boardroom(9:45) CAC, LTV, and million-dollar pace conversations(16:00) Escaping the golden handcuffs & parenting perspective(20:00) Risk vs. tolerance and Ivan Illich's legacy(27:00) Coaching through mindset shifts (investment vs. expense)(39:00) Walking the talk with family, travel, and lifestyle design(45:00) Coaching the person vs. giving spreadsheets(52:00) How Blake prioritizes tasks (and why the Eisenhower Matrix isn't enough)

Grandpa Bill discusses-Magnetic Memory Method+The Memory Garden: Cultivating a Mind That Never ForgetsFeeling scattered?

BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour (Podcast)Join Grandpa Bill, your host and guide on the path to holistic health and personal wisdom. In this special episode, we'll dive deep into the ideas of Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text, exploring how our ancient relationship with books can offer a roadmap to a more meaningful and holistic life. We'll uncover the secrets of "reading toward wisdom," and how a return to contemplative practices can heal the modern mind.Grandpa Bill Asks:How does the modern, digital way of consuming information impact our ability to achieve true holistic healing and personal wisdom?Can the monastic practice of "reading toward wisdom," as described by Illich, be adapted for our modern lives to improve our mental and spiritual well-being?

In this wide-ranging and unforgettable episode of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, host Ginny Yurich sits down with the bold and brilliant Dr. Tom Cowan—physician, author, and longtime advocate for common sense parenting. Drawing from his new book Common Sense Child Rearing, Dr. Cowan urges parents to truly listen to their children, resist blind conformity, and reclaim their role as their child's fiercest protector. From the story of a misunderstood 7-year-old boy to hard-hitting critiques of the education and medical systems, Cowan's message is as emotionally gripping as it is mind-expanding. Together, Ginny and Dr. Cowan explore controversial but vital topics—vaccines, ultrasounds, cancer screenings, the current education system, and the radical idea that children are often right about what they need. With wisdom from Waldorf schools, Nourishing Traditions, and Ivan Illich, this conversation will challenge what you think you know about raising healthy, resilient kids in today's world. You may not agree with everything, but you'll leave this episode thinking more critically, feeling more empowered, and most importantly—more committed to being on your child's side, no matter what.

Healthcare is an environment of blaming. Throughout my professional life as a cosmetic surgeon, I experienced threats, lawsuits, and a surprising array of other hassles despite doing my best to help people. I wrote about it in Butchered by “Healthcare.” Like any practitioner, my work was imperfect, but I struggled to understand why my experience was so brutal.Here is Seamus O'Mahony's eloquent explanation:More than most professions, medicine colonizes one's life. After graduation, I was consumed by the demands of the job. Years went by in a blur of weekends on call and post-graduate examinations. My horizon was always near: the next job, the next qualification. For many years, I embraced this way of living and thinking. It is not without its advantages: medical career structures, and what passes for success in the profession, are so rigid and clearly laid out that the true careerist knows instinctively what to do in any given situation.I slowly ascended the ladder to the status of consultant in a British National Health Service teaching hospital, spending many years along the way in various training positions. As a young consultant, I became something of a Pharisee, a vector of institutional and professional culture. By the age of forty, I had achieved a state of perpetual busyness, and might have continued along this well-trodden pathway for the remainder of my career.A series of events during my forties changed everything; the details are both too tedious and too personal to recount here. When, at the age of fifty, I surveyed the wreckage, I concluded that I had somehow sabotaged this promising career. The sabotage may have been subconsciously deliberate: the real problem was a loss of faith, an apostasy. The cartoon character Wile E. Coyote falls to his doom in the canyon only when he no longer believes; as long as he is unaware of his situation, he remains blissfully suspended in mid-air.My apostasy did not extend to the clinical encounter, and old-fashioned doctoring. I lost faith in all the other things: medical research, managerialism, protocols, metrics, even progress. I became convinced that medicine had become an industrialized culture of excess, and that Ivan Illich's assertion that it had become a threat to health–which seemed ludicrous to many doctors in the mid-1970s–was true.I qualified just as the golden age of medicine was ending. In the thirty-five years since then, I have worked in three countries and many hospitals. I have witnessed the public's disenchantment with medicine, the emergence and global domination of what might be called the medical–industrial complex, and the corruption of my profession. This medical–industrial complex includes not just the traditional villain known as Big Pharma, but many other professional and commercial groups, including biomedical research, the health-food industries, medical devices manufacturers, professional bodies such as the royal colleges, medical schools, insurance companies, health charities, the ever-increasing regulatory and audit sector, and secondary parasitic professions such as lobbyists and management consultants....The real problem was a loss of faith, an apostasy. — Can Medicine Be Cured? (2020).As I approached retirement, I began studying medical corruption. What I learned eventually evolved into Butchered by “Healthcare.” During this process, I learned to write, solidified my ideas, and became increasingly radicalized as I uncovered more about the systemic degeneracy of healthcare.During my research, I discovered that the entire system—not just corporate entities but also doctors—is engaged in harmful practices. Every medical specialty and every corporation is guilty.I approached the subject cautiously, but as my understanding deepened, I realized Western medicine was a disasteSupport the show

Estimados oyentes, esta entrevista requirió que Aldo y Gloria se conectaran desde zonas rurales. Por lo tanto, la conexión a internet fue intermitente. Hay algunos momentos del episodio en los que puede resultar difícil comprender lo que se dice. Para mayor claridad, consulten la transcripción abajo. Gracias por su comprensión.Mis entrevistados en este episodio son Aldo Gonzalez y Gloria Romero López. Aldo es zapoteco de la comunidad de Guelatao de Juárez, Oaxaca, México. Ingeniero de formación, promueve el pleno reconocimiento y la implementación de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Trabaja en defensa de la biodiversidad local del maíz, especialmente de una variedad de maíz autofertilizante llamada olotón.Gloria es una mujer Mixteca que nacio en Lázaro Cardenas, Coicoyan de las Flores, Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca. Curse sus estudios de ingeniería en Tecnologías de la información y comunicaciones en el Instituto Tecnológico Superior - San Miguel el Grande. Actualmente Realizó registros de Nacimientos en el Municipio de Coicoyan de las Flores. Ella gusta mucho platicar en Mixteco.Notas del Episodio* Las consecuencias al pueblo* El derecho a no migrar* Cambios atraves del NAFTA y el derecho a no migrar* “Yo tengo maiz, no necessito dinero”* La complejidad de las remesas* Las contradicciones y discriminaciones entre migrantes* La posibilidad del retorno masivo de migrantes* La violencia como causa de migracionTareaEl Derecho a No Migrar (Libro) - AmazonEl DERECHO A PERMANECER EN CASATranscripcion en espanol (English Below)Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenido Aldo y bienvenida Gloria al podcast al fin de turismo. Gracias a ambos por estar dispuestos a hablar conmigo hoy sobre estos temas. Tengo curiosidad por saber si ustedes dos se están bien dispuestos a ofrecer una pequeña introducción o resumen sobre ustedes mismos.Ah, ado, no te escuchamos. Aldo: Bueno sobre mis viajes, bueno, no me dedico a viajar. Casi no tengo vacaciones. Pero por las cuestiones del trabajo me he tocado ir a diferentes lugares del mundo. Podríamos decir. Este básicamente por el trabajo que realizo? Más que ir a conocer los lugares a donde a donde me han invitado, lo que he hecho es ir a platicar con la gente que está en esos lugares sobre los problemas que tenemos aquí en la región.Los problemas que tenemos en México y [00:01:00] quien lo que me ha posibilitado, poder viajar a distintas partes ha sido el problema de la contaminación del maize transgénicos. Entonces eso ha hecho que, con esa bronca que peso en el año 2001, este yo haya tenido la posibilidad de ir a otros lugares a platicar un poco sobre ese problema en particular y muchos otros que se relacionan con él no o el tema de los transgénicos o el tema de los agroquímicos o el tema de el control de las corporaciones hacia la alimentación, hacia las semillas también.Entonces, digamos que en general, la mayoría de los viajes que yo he realizado están relacionados con estos acentos o con los derechos de los pueblos indígenas también. Chris: Gracias, Aldo. Y nos podrías decir donde te encuentres hoy? Aldo: Eh? Bueno, hoy estoy en Guelatao y es mi comunidad y estoy en las oficinas de la organización de mi organización, que es la unión de organizaciones de la Sierra Juarez Chris: Muchas gracias, [00:02:00] audo Aldo y gloria.Gloria: Sí, igual. Yo casi no he salido así del estado, pero sí conozco mucha gente que si emigra por lo regular a los estados unidos, es que es donde la mayoría de acá, pero casi no emigran mucho así hacia otros estados. Pero si la mayoría emigra para estados unidos, ya si tengo muchos vecinos, familia y mucho de acá de Coycoyan, si emigran más para allá que son para los estados unidos. Chris: Muy bien. Muchas gracias por eh, a tiempo con nosotros hoy. Entonces, aunque es temprano en la conversación, mi pregunta es sobre cómo han visto que el regreso de los migrantes a sus pueblos ha afectado a la comunidad en sus propios lugares o pueblos?Gloria: Sí en en cuando han cómo ha afectado la comunidad? Que muchos cuando regresan, pues ya tienen otras ideas, otras cultura, otra forma de ver la vida y a veces mucho ya no [00:03:00] quieren este participar así en las asambleas de la comunidad o ya vienen con otras técnicas, digamos, de cultivo y las técnicas que anteriormente habían acá, pues ya se van perdiendo y yo más cada veo como también esto afecta también en sus vidas personales, porque muchos cuando regresan ya regresan ya enfermos, cansados. En en el mejor de los casos, muchos ya regresan con dinero, no? Y eso hace que la gente que está en el pueblo, ve que como ellos les fue bien, pues también quieren emigrar y ya después ya son más personas que quieren migrar y ya se se hacen más y de idea de que, pues allá en estados unidos existe la oportunidad de que puedan mejorar sus vidas.Pero yo digo que así en ,general el impacto es un tanto positivo como [00:04:00] también negativo, porque igual, como digo, muchos regresan ya cansados, enfermos. Muchos igual dejan aquí sus familiares y cuanto regresan, pues sus familia ya no los encuentran, o algunos que dejan sus papás, cuando regresan sus papás ya, ya murieron o ha o esas situaciones que impacta así su vida personal.Chris: Gracias, Gloria. Aldo, querrías responder? Aldo: Aunque aquí en la comunidad de Guelatao, no hay muchos, no hay una migración tan alta como en otras comunidades cercanas. Digamos que una de las cosas que nosotros vemos que ha afectado, es que se elevan los precios, porque traen dinero, ya no trabajan en el campo. Entonces, para sus familias reciben recursos.Y pues eso hace que ellos tengan mayor capacidad para poder pagar a los mozos, por ejemplo, para que vayan a ser la [00:05:00] misma. Entonces, eso hace que el resto de la población pues se sienta afectada, porque no tiene los recursos para poder pagar lo que está pagando un migrante. Bueno, eso en alguna medida, está afectando la producción también de maíz, de por sí, ya la había afectado, porque muchos salen y dejan de trabajar la tierra. Los que quieren que se siga trabajando la tierra por parte de su familia mandan recursos, pero digamos que allí los costos se elevan para el resto de la población porque ellos pagan salarios más altos. Entonces, si alguien viene a la comunidad a trabajar, te va a cobrar más de lo que te cobraba anteriormente y muchos no lo pueden pagar.Entonces nos dice, "ya no voy a sembrar, porque el mozo está muy caro." No? Y eso es una afectación, pues directa, digamos a la economía de quien no migra. Y como hay pocos migrantes también, o digo [00:06:00] como hay poca gente que se que que se queda trabajar el campo en la comunidad, ya no hay suficientes personas para que se pueda hacer lo que nosotros llamamos gozona.O sea que vayamos entre todos a trabajar la parcela de cada uno de los que entran a ese tipo de trabajo. Bueno, también, eso es una afectación por la migración. No? Chris: Y Gloria, tú piensas que esa misma dinámica existe o ha pasaron en tu pueblo?Gloria: No, yo digo que igual, sí, estoy de acuerdo con lo que dicen algo y si sí, ha influenciado mucho de las personas que emigran si pagan más que los que no migran. Sí, si se ve mucho ese cambio.Chris: Gracias. Este pues parte de mi mi interés o cómo empecé, eh, acercándome a la cuestión de inmigración fue en parte por mi familia. [00:07:00] También eran migrantes de Macedonia y Grecia, y el otro lado de Inglaterra hacia Canadá hace como 50 años. Entonces este lo que he sentido, es que las dinámicas, las consecuencias de la migración en los pueblos y la gente que no migren, que hay patrones en el nivel mundial, y son casi bueno, muy parecidos. . Encontré un un libro en inglés, pero también existía en español. Eh? Que se llama El Derecho A No M igrar o The Right To Stay Home por David Bacon. Y ese libro, es titulado por una declaración que la gente de FIOB o La Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales hicieron en ahí en Santiago Juxtlahuaca en La Mixteca, Después de días de días de discutir sobre las [00:08:00] consecuencias de migraciones en los lugares de los migrantes, o sea, los pueblos originarios de los migrantes, resultó una declaración: "el derecho a no migrar conjunto con el derecho a migrar." Entonces tengo curiosidad por saber si ustedes podrían hablar sobre esos tiempos y la declaración, si saben cómo se formó o cómo se fue recibida en la mixteca o en la sierra norte de Oaxaca.Aldo: Bueno, nosotros aquí en la organización. Sí, hemos hablado del derecho a no migrar, porque estamos interesados en fortalecer la identidad de las personas que vivimos en nuestras comunidades. Pues, al final, somos parte de un pueblo más grande. No solamente es nuestra comunidad, sino que hay varias otras comunidades que pertenecemos al mismo pueblo, al pueblo zapoteca y en ese sentido, pues lo que estamos tratando [00:09:00] de hacer es que se fortalezcan nuestras comunidades, que se fortalezcan nuestra comunalidad, que es nuestra forma de organización comunitaria, y por esa razón es que preferiríamos que la gente no migra.Pero el problema es que ha habido un empobrecimiento muy brutal del campo en general, no solamente en México. Lo vemos también en otros países, que los que emigran principalmente son gente que sale del campo y van hacia los estados unidos a trabajar al campo en estados unidos, pero en condiciones que son completamente distintas a como se trabajaba en la comunidad. Incluso aquí en México, algunos van a trabajar en los campos del norte del país, también este en condiciones, pues terribles, con muchos agroquímicos.La gente regresa en algunos casos regresan enfermos, no? O regresan con las patas por delante, dijeron en el pueblo, porque [00:10:00] ya pues están muertos. Regresan nada más para que los entierren en la comunidad. Pero pues, prácticamente toda su vida la hicieron fuera, no? Entonces, quienes se van sufre porque añoran estar en la comunidad. Quieren comer lo que en la comunidad. Quieren escuchar la música de la comunidad. Quieren hacer la vida como si estuvieran en la comunidad, pero ya no está. Quienes se quedan a vivir fuera de la comunidad, digamos en estados unidos, sobre todo, pues sus hijos ya no los van a entender, porque ellos son educados de una manera distinta en escuelas que no tienen nada que ver con su cultura.Digamos que son colonizados mentalmente en las escuelas en estados unidos. Hay muy pocas escuelas que podríamos decir tienen la la eh capacidad de poder ser interculturales y enseñar en español y inglés y [00:11:00] enseñar la cultura de la comunidad y la cultura pues que se viven en los estados unidos, el individualismo.Entonces es muy complejo que un niño de inmigrantes, nacido en estados unidos pueda regresar a la comunidad, porque pues ya se adaptó a otra forma, a otra civilización, a otra forma de vida completamente distinta a la comunitaria. Y bueno, eso a nosotros nos preocupa. Estamos interesados en que la gente se quede.Sabemos que es difícil porque hay pocos recursos económicos en las comunidades, pero aun así pues, estamos haciendo el esfuerzo para que la gente se sienta orgullosa de ser de sus orígenes y no tengan la necesidad de migrar o en último de los casos, si tiene la necesidad de emigrar, por lo menos que tenga una referencia de lo que es su comunidad y la lleve a donde esté, [00:12:00] no?Porque pues, a veces, pues la gente lo hace por necesidad. Y esa necesidad, te lleva a a otros lugares, pero si tú te sientes orgulloso de tu identidad cultural, vas a llevar ese identidad donde tú estés. En el caso de la sierra, hay gente de varias comunidades que hace comunidad en donde está. Pero bueno, obviamente no lo va a poder hacer de la misma manera como si viviera en la comunidad, pero al menos algo se llevan. Otra forma de de ver el mundo se puede llevar también, aunque no la vas a poder practicar como como lo vas a hacer en tu comunidad, no? Y en general, digamos el trabajo que nosotros hacemos en la organización está enfocado a que se fortalezcan, pues distintos mecanismos para que la gente se quede.Por ejemplo, ahorita estamos trabajando en la en el establecimiento de la escuela de agroecología, para que los jóvenes tengan herramientas para [00:13:00] poder sembrar la tierra sin depender de los herbicidas de todos los agroquímicos que vienen con la revolución verde y que son los que utilizan normalmente en los estados unidos para la producción agrícola de la mayoría de las cosas que se hacen allá. Y dentro de este esquema de agroecología, pues obviamente que para nosotros el elemento cultural es es fundamental porque no podemos hacer solamente la agricultura fuera de nuestro contexto territorial-cultural. Entonces, todo esto tiene que estar englobado en esas, iniciativas que estamos tratando de impulsar eso.Chris: Mm ya. Gracias. Gracias, Aldo. Y Gloria, esa declaración surgió en la región en la Mixteca donde estás y pues me gustaría, saber si recuerdes la declaración, si era parte de la política o la gente de tu pueblo?Gloria: Bueno, me enteré que esta declaración surgió debido a las grandes [00:14:00] injusticias que sufre los migrantes. Como dice algo desde el memento en que salen de sus hogares hasta llegar allá en, digamos en estados unidos, donde tienen que trabajar igual y siguen sufriendo lo que son abusos físicos, psicológicos.Y qué más quisiéramos que la gente? Pues no, no emigrara no, pero sabemos que debido a sus necesidades emigran, pero ojalá y cuanto emigraran tuvieran esas so oportunidades de tan si quiere emigrar lo mejor posible que puedan y no pasar tu portando sufrimiento. Mm-hmm. La declaración surgió en esta zona de Juxtlahuaca, según lo que yo he encontrado igual, no sabía mucho sobre esta declaración, pero debido a esto ya cheque. Y sí, la declaración surgió especificamente por las injusticias que sufre la gente desde salir de su hogar, hasta llegar en estados unidos.Todos los abusos que llegan a [00:15:00] sufrir en el camino y hasta igual muchos hasta allá, aunque estén en el trabajo allá, también siguen sufriendo. Y por eso, pues, qué más quisiera la gente que no inmigrara no? Qué más quisiéramos que toda la gente tuviera la dicha de tener una vida digna en su país, en su tierra, para que no tuviera que emigrar, pero sucede, sucede que si emigran, sucede por muchas razones que a veces no están en nuestro alcance poderlos ayudar, pero digamos tan siquiera ofrecerles las oportunidades para que emigren de la mejor manera posible y no tengan tantas desventajas al memento de emigrar.Chris: Gracias. No, pues sí, el pueblo de mi papá, por ejemplo, era un pueblo campesino en Grecia y ya no esta abandonado, pero cuando si salieran hubiera 800 personas. Y el día de hoy hay como 50. Y hay como unos dos, tres campesinos todavía, entonces [00:16:00] este entiendo bien el de lo que dicen y que tan importante es de crear las condiciones para que la gente no necesitan migrarse si no necesitan.Pero me gustaría también preguntarles sobre el éxito quizás que ha existido. Entonces, si hubo una declaración en que salió de la verdad no es muy conocido, a pesar del éxito del libro y y esas cosas. No es muy conocido, por lo que he visto en México y por hablar con algunas personas de FIOB en estados unidos, pero vamos a eso en un memento. Quería preguntarles si hay programas o han visto ciertos éxitos dentro o a través de esas programas que, por ejemplo, que mencionaste Aldo y Glorias si en los pueblos hay como un cambio. Si algo ha cambiado en esos 15 años.Gloria: [00:17:00] Ajá de mi parte. Yo digo que sí. Sí, ha habido un cambio. Tal vez no un cambio directo. No ha habido la declaración. Sí, sí ha ayudado, nada más que nosotros, no lo hemos visto porque casi no se menciona. Pero si ha habido. Gracias a eso, pues se han formado programas, proyectos que se han apoyado a los migrantes, pero que muchas veces nuestros desconocemos.Pero sí, sí existe, digamos el impacto positivo que ha generado esa declaración.Aldo: Bueno, en el caso de la sierra Juárez, la sierra norte de Oaxaca, digamos, hay algunas comunidades que tienen un alto índice de migración y bueno, ahí en algunos casos, han llegado algunos programas, por ejemplo, como " dos por uno," donde los migrantes, digamos, ponen una parte de recursos, el estado pone otra parte o pone dos partes, digamos el gobierno federal, el gobierno del estado para hacer alguna obra en la comunidad.Pero realmente eso no está [00:18:00] solucionando ningún problema, no porque básicamente lo que está haciendo es obligar a los migrantes a que contribuyan a realizar alguna mejor alguna obra en su en su comunidad y cuando esos recursos los podían destinar para sus familias o para otra cosa o para cumplir con sus obligaciones comunitarias, pero no necesariamente realizando las acciones que el gobierno está obligado a rerealizar obras sociales o cosas por el estilo.Entonces, pues yo podría decir que de los programas que que han aparecido en los últimos años, pues tampoco nos han ayudado mucho a a frenar la migración. Por ejemplo, el programa del sexenio pasado más anunciado fue el de Sembrando Vida, no? Y si bien ese apoyo a algunos campesinos en algunas comunidades, no en todas, pues, podríamos [00:19:00] decir que si los capturó para que no migraran hacia los estados unidos, pero dejaron de sembrar maíz cuando inicialmente el programa este era para que sembraran más maíz. Nos pusieron a sembrada arbolitos, no árboles que muchos casos ni siquiera son de la región que no iban a pegar o si iban a pegar, no iban a ser útiles aquí, porque venían de otras regiones o si crecían, ya no iba se ya no iba a poder cultivarse maíz en esos lugares porque les iban a hacer sombra al maíz.Nosotros vivimos en laderas. Aquí no hay lugares planos como en estados unidos, no? Entonces, digamos que programas gubernamentales que hayan beneficiado en alguna medida. El flujo migratorio que hayan hecho que haya menos migratorio, pues tampoco se ven. No se ven con mucha claridad. Nosotros vemos que se siguen estableciendo políticas para destruir el tejido comunitario, para expulsar a la población [00:20:00] del campo hacia las ciudades o hacia los estados unidos.Chris: Gracias, Aldo. Y has mencionado? Que tu trabajo tiene mucho que ver con la regeneración de maíz y obviamente maíz criollo o sea local también. Porque es tan importante para el pueblo frente de las consecuencias de la migración? Aldo: El Maiz para nosotros es un elemento muy importante. Nosotros podríamos decir que es el corazón de la comunidad porque lo vamos a comer todos los días. Nosotros decimos "nativo". Les dicen c"criollo" desde las instituciones de muchos lugares por costumbre, pero la palabra está mal empleada. Nosotros decimos que son nuestros maíces nativos. Y no es lo mismo comer una tortilla de maíz nativo, un elote de nuestros maices, a que comprar un elote que ahora venden en la ciudad que fue hecho con [00:21:00] maíces híbridos o que tengamos que comer tortillas hechas con maíces transgen. Desgraciadamente, en los últimos años, yo creo que no solamente pasa en la sierra, sino en muchos otros lugares del país, se ha incrementado el uso de las tortillerías y entonces ya no sabemos con qué maíz están produciendo esas tortillas, pero no se pueden comparar con las tortillas de nuestros maíces hechas con nuestras propias tecnologías. No? Entonces, yo creo que el maíz para nosotros, además de ser nuestro alimento principal o el que más consumimos, también nos da identidad. El maíz nos convoca, por ejemplo, a trabajar juntos, cosa que en estados unidos, no lo hacen. Todos ellos contratan migrantes para que hagan su trabajo, no? Y ellos van a producir lo que vayan a producir para vender aquí.El maíz que se siembra [00:22:00] normalmente es para consumir. Casi no se vende el maíz. Y por ejemplo, ahora que están poniendo precios de garantía, no? Precio garantía las de MXN $6. En nuestras comunidades, el maíz, no lo puedes vender a MXN $6, o sea, por lo menos, lo vendes a MXN $20, si es que lo vendes, porque es el esfuerzo de tu trabajo y también por la misma gente que la comunidad o incluso por los migrantes o por las familias inmigrantes, es valorado como una, un un alimento que es completamente distinto a el maíz que se compra en la tienda, en la CONASUPO o en Diconsa o en cualquier tienda comercial o qué viene de la tortilla? Entonces hay un aprecio especial por nuestros maíces. Eso es importante, pero cada vez se está produciéndo menos. Ahora anteriormente quien tenía maíz era considerado rico. [00:23:00] Desde una perspectiva comparado de hoy, quien tiene maíz es considerado tonto o pobre porque no tiene dinero. Sin embargo, pues sobre todo los campesinos viejos que dicen bueno, pues "si yo tengo maíz, no necesito dinero" para vivir porque tengo el alimento suficiente. Incluso anteriormente, por ejemplo, cuando la gente tenía que realizar sus cargos comunitarios que no eran pagados ahora en muchas comunidades, han empezado a pagar el cargo. Quien podía ocupar el cargo era un agente mayor, que sus hijos ya habían crecido, pero que además, él tenía maíz para no pedirle favor a nadie de cómo iba a solventar la alimentación de su familia por el año o el tiempo que tuviera que estar al frente del cargo comunitario.Entonces, digamos que el maíz también hace comunidad? Y con estas políticas, falta de apoyos o de [00:24:00] eliminación de apoyo, el campo mexicano están lastimando también nuestras formas de organización communitaria. Eso.Chris: Qué fuerte. Sí, me acordé en lo que dijiste Aldo, unas palabras que que escribió el filósofo Ivan Illich y no sé si es exactamente lo que escribió, pero básicamente dijo que durante casi toda la historia de la humanidad, la mayor medida de la pobreza era si uno tenía o no que comprar su alimento, su comida. Es decir, si tenías comprar tu comida en el pasado, era un señal, una medida de de pobreza, de decir que buenas eres pobre si tienes que comprar. Gloria, tienes algo para agregar a ese punto. Gloria: Ese punto no, no,Chris: [00:25:00] está bien, está bien. Pues me gustaría también seguir con ese lo que mencionaste Aldo, de los recursos y lo que se llaman remisas y por lo que he visto las estadísticas, no dicen que es más o menos seis porciento de la economía mexicana está compuesta por remesas enviadas por familiares o amigos en estados unidos. En algunos de los pueblos a los que me han invitado, me han dicho que el pueblo no sobreviviría sin remesas. En otros. Me han dicho que el pueblo sobreviviría mucho mejor si la gente no se fuera. Este es un tema muy complejo y mi pregunto. Si ustedes dos podrían hablar sobre esa complejidad que han visto en sus pueblos y en otros lugares como resultado de las remesas.Y pues siento que se sale [00:26:00] como ese tema a una pregunta vital o central que es como si una persona puede o no ser responsable de un lugar estando al otro lugar?Gloria: Yo digo que sí. Las remesas si han influido positivamente porque gracias a ellos ha habido muchos negocios, comercio y siento que si le quitáramos esas remesas, esos negocios se caería, porque el dinero que mucha gente que va a gastar en esos negocios es dinero que sus familiares envían de estados unidos. Gracias a ello, pues compran sus alimentos, los materiales que ocupan desde útiles escolares hasta cosas personales que ocupe. Y si en las remesas, yo siento que sí, estaría complicado porque como hasta ahorita, no hay suficientes oportunidades dentro del país para que pueda satisfacer esa demanda, yo siento que si las [00:27:00] quitáramos, sí, sería un impacto muy fuerte negativamente.Aldo: Decía yo que el lunes es el día de mercado en Ixtlan. Es la comunidad más grande de esta región. Y este cuando va uno llegando a isl, lo primero que ve uno es la fila en el banco. Es una fila mayor que cualquier otro día. La mayoría de la gente que está formada ahí va a recibir remesas y luego la va a gastar en en el mercado. En el mejor de los casos, pues sería bueno que comprara cosas de la región, pero muchas de las cosas que compran también son procesadas. Vienen de fuera, no? Incluso una cosa que da hasta miedo a veces es ver cómo la la señora se llevan sus paquetes de maruchan, no? Entonces dice eso es lo [00:28:00] que van a comer los niños. Y sí están cambiándole la alimentación a los niños porque es más fácil poner hervir la sopa que ya viene en esa caja, le echa en agua, se hierve y hasta la comida.Entonces, si se reciben recursos que sostienen a la familia, pero nos están cambiando la forma de vida, porque pues no puedes sobrevivir como estaban haciendo anteriormente nuestros antepasados, nuestros papás, nuestros abuelos, pero nos están cambiando la vida y nos están haciendo dependientes del dinero. Nos están haciendo individualistas también porque ahora tener dinero, pues puede ser una cosa de prestigio, no?Pero realmente las remesas no están resolviendo un problema de fondo en la comunidad. Están resolviendo un problema de una sobrevivencia impuesta, no? [00:29:00] Porque te quitan tu forma de ser, te quitan tu forma de vivir comunitaria y te imponen una forma de vida individual que se basa en el dinero y no en las relaciones familiares o las relaciones comunitarias que existían anteriormente. Entonces, digamos que las remesas te van a ayudar a vivir. Te van a ayudar a comprar cosas, no? Muchas de esas cosas no van a ser locales. O sea, llega el dinero a la comunidad y se va de la comunidad para el que compró cosas fuera de la comunidad y que vino a vender a este lugar, no? Pero, entonces está ayudando podríamos decir que la economía capitalista no está ayudando a la economía comunitaria. Aun cuando sean gentes de la comunidad las que vendan las cosas, no? Digamos que puede ser que una parte se quede en la comunidad porque el comerciante de la comunidad fue a la ciudad, compró las cosas y las trajo aquí.El se va a quedar con su ganancia, pero finalmente le está haciendo el trabajo al [00:30:00] capitalista que produjo esas cosas y las llevó a la comunidad a través de ese comerciante. Entonces las remesas se están ayudando a fortalecer el sistema capitalista y a destruir el sistema comunitario.Chris: Anoche, un amigo me ha contado que hay algunos pueblos aquí en Oaxaca que apenas se juntaron en sus asambleas para platicar sobre la posibilidad que la amenaza del memento de Trump en estados unidos para deportar todos los migrantes.Bueno, no todos los migrantes, pero los migrantes que no conformen con el mundo de Trump ahi en estados unidos. Y qué pasaría? O sea, la gente en las asambleas están hablando de qué pasaría si eso pasaría? Si, de repente hay cientos, si no miles, de compañeros y [00:31:00] familiares que de repente lleguen de nuevo al pueblo y obviamente sin ese esos fondos? Quizás es un poco de lo que pasó en la pandemia. También hubo muchas historias de gente de del norte allá, volviendo a sus pueblos. Y se empezaron a trabajar en las milpas, pero luego se fueron de nuevo a al norte pues a trabajar. Gloria: Sí, bueno, si eso digamos si esa amenaza se llegara a cumplir y todos los migrantes regresaran, yo siento que sería muy complicado para el país sostener a todos esos migrantes, porque hasta ahorita no hay tantas oportunidades. Digamos si hay un programa del más conocido sembrando vida, pero está cumpliendo muy poquito el trabajo que debe de cumplir.Y si te regresaran todos los migrantes nos quedaríamos como que atascados como sería un impacto, yo siento que, negativo, porque no tenemos la posibilidad de de [00:32:00] recibirlos. No tenemos las oportunidades, no tenemos programas, no tenemos, hay muchas cosas que no nos van a favorecer, porque ellos, si ellos regresan, van a ver muchos migrantes, pero sin un sustento, sin algo que los pueda sostener para que tengan una vida más o menos como la que ya tenían cuando estaban allá.Y porque no solo va a afectar a ellos, sino también sus familias que tienen acá al ver que sus familiares que estaban allá ya van a estar acá.Chris: Gracias. Gloria. Sí, Aldo.Aldo: Bueno, algunos empiezan a preguntar a mí. Nosotros vemos que, incluso en estados unidos, hay algunos migrantes que votaron por Trump. Muchos que votaron por Trump. Platicando con algunas personas digamos que los que pagan impuestos y ya tienen su residencia en estados unidos, ven a los migrantes documentados como estorbo, como una competencia [00:33:00] desleal, porque ellos no están obligados a pagar impuestos. Y entonces no.Porque es parte del modelo, el model modelo capitalista diseñado. Digamos que entre los mismos mexicanos inmigrantes, hay contradicciones, hay discriminación. Digamos un migrante que ya es residente, a veces no va a apoyar a un migrante illegal porque puede quitar el empleo.Y bueno, esto nos meten en situaciones complejas al final de cuentas, porque, incluso estos migrantes votaron por Donald Trump. Estarían de acuerdo en que deportaran a los migrantes similares.Es un extremo. Ahora, los migrantes en general, si son deportados, los migrantes indocumentados y son deportados, van afectar la economía también de los estados unidos? No? Porque hay muchas cosas que en estados unidos dejarían de funcionar, si no hay inmigrantes. [00:34:00] O sea, quién va a cuidar a los viejitos, por ejemplo? Muchos migrantes, sobre todo mujeres se dedican al cuidado de personas enfermas o personas mayores de edad que no tienen familia o que si tienen familia de todas formas, los mantienen prácticamente en el abandono o viven de su pensión y ya no pueden hacer su vida normal porque tienen algún padecimiento, etcétera.Y necesitan una gente que las corre Normalmente son mexicanos o son migrantes indocumentados los que hacen ese tipo de trabajo. Este sector de la población de estados unidos se debería afectar. Los granjeros que siembran, digamos, para vender los productos en el mercado de estados unidos, la mayoría contratan migrantes no documentados.Entonces ellos también van a tener un problema de que su producción agrícola va a bajar porque no va a ver migrantes. Y hay otros sectores de la economía en estados unidos que también resultarían afectados. No sé [00:35:00] si Trump no lo está viendo o se hace el que no lo ve o es solamente un amague, como quien dice.Y esta es como una amenaza que no va a cumplir porque finalmente eso afectaría la economía de los estados unidos. Si llegara a hacerse, aunque fuera de manera parcial, que es lo más probable, pues los migrantes que fueran deportados hacia México, no sabemos si traigan remesas o no. No sabemos si hayan tenido ahorros o no.Puede ser que algunos sí, puede ser que algunos no. Muchos de los que regresan ya no están acostumbrados a vivir en comunidad o en su comunidad. No están acostumbrados a vivir a realizar las actividades en el campo y preferirían vivir en la ciudad, pero en la ciudad no va a haber empleo. No va a haber suficientes empleos para que ellos puedan hacer una vida menos [00:36:00] rural, digamos en su regreso a México.Algunos otros dicen bueno, pues si a mí me deporten, pues yo me regreso a sembrar maiz y no pasa nada, pero no creo que sea la mayoría o no creo que sea la totalidad, al menos no los que vayan a regresar a su comunidad. Quienes han trabajado desde niños en la comunidad y saben realizarlas el trabajo de campo, no van a tener problema, pero quienes ya se acostumbraron a realizar actividades que no son agrícolas y han sido obligados a migrar, pues iban a tener ese problema de que no van a saber que hacer cuando retornen a este país o cuando los obliguen a retornar a este país.Chris: Si yo recuerdo leyendo un libro hace unos años, y era un poco raro porque el libro era publicado en 1940. Y fue una historia social de la migración llegando en estados unidos en el [00:37:00] siglo anterior y básicamente dijo que si llegaron como los alemanes o una ola de migrantes alemanes. Los que ya estuvieran allá odiaban los alemanes porque los alemanes estaban listos a pagar más renta y aceptar menos ingresos de trabajo. Y luego otro 10 años, pasa no? Y quizás ya hay más alemanes ahora, pero ya vienen los ucráneos y los alemanes están enojados porque los u cráneos están listos para pagar más renta y trabajar por menos. Y luego los los alemanes se van a la periferia o se encuentran nuevos pueblos o ciudades. Se migran, básicamente. Y es un ciclo que hasta la fecha vemos en lo que dijiste Aldo respeto de la gente que ya tiene residencia en estados unidos, por ejemplo, los mexicanos diciendo que, "pues ya no, ya tengo el mío, [00:38:00] entonces nadie más," no? Ese tiene una historia muy, muy largo.Y además, la cosa que yo crecía en en Toronto en Canadá. Canadá está conocido y también se promueven el país como un país de multiculturalismo. O sea, la gran mayoría de nuestros papás son de otros países. O sea, es un país de migrantes. Pero, crecimos con este idea nacional que la población del país siempre estuvo disminuyendo, o sea menos y menos gente cada generación. Entonces, por eso teníamos que invitar y aceptar un montón de inmigrantes cada año, o sea, un montón de montón. Pero leyendo las historias sociales, me di cuenta que, pues esas invitaciones y sentido de estar abierto al otro, no era parte de la compasión del país canadiense.Era porque [00:39:00] necesitaban cada vez más, entrecomillas "labor barato", o sea, gente que estaban dispuestos a trabajar los trabajos que nadie más querían hacer y por dinero que nadie más querían trabajar. Y entonces el estado tenían que seguir invitando, trayendo gente de afuera para hacer ese trabajo.Y la pregunta sería, entonces quizás, qué haríamos? Como dijo gloria, para asegurar que hay un trabajo digno, hay una vida digna para la gente. Y lo digo porque cuando hablé con un representante de FIOB que era representante de FIOB en 2009 durante la declaración a no migrar. Y le pregunté entonces, por qué esa declaración no ha salido viral o popular en estados unidos y otros países? Y me dijo "ah, bueno, no, es que en estados unidos, la cosa es que si eres de la parte izquierda de la [00:40:00] política, no podrías criticar nada de la migración." O sea, toda la migración es bonito, no? No hay un espejo a las realidades y pero si te criticas la migración en cualquiera manera, eres automáticamente parte de la derecha o ultra derecha. Eres un hijo de Trump, etcétera. Aldo: De hecho, por ejemplo, Trump, no podríamos decir que sea un nativo americano, verdad? Los nativos americanos no tienen el pelo anaranjado. Entonces el vino de otro país, vino de Europa. Y bueno a la mejor ahora ya se siente estadounidense y no quiere que otros vayan a ese país de manera ilegal, como a lo mejor sus papás llegaron a los estados unidos a pagar rentas caras y a recibir salarios bajos. Pero pues él ya se hizo al modo capitalista de estados unidos. Tiene la [00:41:00] nacionalidad de los estados unidos y ahora no quiere que otros migren. Pero tampoco creo que quiera reconocer derechos de los nativos americanos que son quienes han vivido ahí por muchas más generaciones que las de la familia de tronco de muchos otros que se sienten estadounidenses ahora. Estaba viendo hace unos días un video de como viven, algunas familias en Mongolia. Mongolia es un país en donde todavía hay pastores nómadas que no viven en una ciudad o en una comunidad agraria. Viven en un territorio amplio y van siguiendo a su ganado. Que va cambiando de lugar, defendiendo de la estación del año.Ellos no tienen necesidad de emigrar. O sea, ellos han hecho su vida así desde hace mucho tiempo por muchas generaciones. E incluso no tienen la necesidad de tener los recursos económicos para [00:42:00] comprar cosas porque no necesitan tantas cosas. Está en una tienda de campaña para poder irse para otro lado que a lo mejor los muebles más básicos para poder vivir adentro de su tienda de campaña y se acabo.Y eso no quiere decir que sean pobres. El capitalismo mide la pobreza en función de los ingresos económicos. Si ganas menos de al día, pues eres una persona muy pobre. Pero. Pues el dinero no te va a solucionar todos los problemas del mundo. Entonces, creo que tenemos que empezar a mirarnos de otra manera y ver que los recursos económicos no son la única solución para la vida.Nos han hecho creer eso en los últimos años. Entonces, hoy, quien no tiene dinero es pobre, no? Pero creo que hay otras formas en que hemos vivido la mayor parte de la humanidad en este planeta que no eran como esta forma de vida capitalista que hoy nos están imponiendo, no? Y nos la están imponiendo porque [00:43:00] pues cada vez son menos gente las que quieren controlar la economía mundial.O sea, nosotros lo vemos. Cada vez son menos compañías tras nacionales las que tienen, por ejemplo, el negocio de las semillas y las semilleros que había en México hasta hace 30 años, ya desaparecieron en estos últimos años. Y ahora los tienen cuatro grandes empresas a nivel mundial. Pues obviamente que ellos quieren tener el negocio de las semillas y si no quieren que nadie más tenga negocio de las semillas o que los campesinos no tengan sus propias semillas para poder sobrevivir, entonces están expropiando la posibilidad de generar una vida de una manera distinta, no? Entonces ellos nos van a obligar o nos quieren obligar a que hagamos la vida como dependiendo de lo que ellos nos puedan vender, y desaparecer esas otras formas de sobrevivir en el planeta.Yo creo que esas otras formas, aunque muy deterioradas, [00:44:00] muy golpeadas, siguen vigentes en muchos lugares y habrá gente que las quiera reivindicar, nosotros las queremos reivindicar y creemos que hay otra forma de hacer la vida en esta planeta. Hay muchas otras formas de hacer la vida en tu planeta que son.Chris: Gracias, Aldo. Este Gloria, te gustaría agregar algo? Gloria: Sí, bueno, igual por parte de lo como lo que afecta también a que la declaración no sea tan famosa, es porque, como dice Aldo, es que estamos tan enfocados en el capitalismo que si por un memento, no nos enfocáramos en ese ámbito del capitalismo, yo siento que, pues todos dirían que tienen una vida digna en sus tierras y se quedarían más, pero como todos estamos enfocados en lo material, en el dinero y todo eso, pues decimos que para qué vamos a dar tanto mención a la declaración, si no es útil, [00:45:00] supuestamente? Pero es porque hemos tenido tanto esa idea del capitalismo de que siempre queremos ver dinero, todo lo que implica el capitalismo, y nos olvidamos un poco de lo que realmente significa tener la vida digna, porque pues somos esos ricos en muchas cosas, no? Tenemos agua, tenemos tierra. Y podríamos ser felices con eso. Pero igual no nos conformamos con eso. Siempre queremos más porque esas son las ideas que el capitalismo nos ha metido. Mm-hmm.Chris: Gracias, gloria. Igual, para mí, como aunque he pasado mucho tiempo, visitando y trabajando unos pueblos de Oaxaca, creciendo en un metrópolis urbano, occidental moderno, etcétera, yo tengo que imaginar una vida digna. Yo no crecí en una sociedad donde podían apuntar a un ejemplar de una vida digna. [00:46:00] En ese libro que escribió de David be David bacon sobre la ola o caravana más reciente de inmigrantes que se dirigen a los estados unidos, esta vez de este Venezuela, se mencionó en 2023 creo, se estima que 200,000 migrantes ingresaron a los estados unidos caras. Teniendo en cuenta esas cifras y las diversas crisis que obligan a las personas a mudarse en nuestros tiempos, qué consejos o comentarios les daría a las personas, ya sean campesinos indígenas o modernos que ven la migración como la única respuesta?Gloria: Sí. Sí. Bueno, el consejo que yo daría así sería que si tienen las posibilidades, como digo, si tienen.Aunque no [00:47:00] tengan mucho, no, pero si me nací en una zona donde no hay violencia donde más o menos, si pueden vivir más o menos, si pueden tener una vida digna o a lo que se puede asemejar a una vida digna, pues que se queden ahí. No hay necesidad. Bueno, sí. Sabes que si hay necesidad, pero que no se vean tan forzados a migrar?Porque pues hay es complicado, es difícil todo lo que van a sufrir toda lo que implica, como digo, también un principio, muchos emigran para mejorar sus vidas, pero igual o mejorar la vida de sus familias. Pero muchos cuando regresan esas familias por las que se fueron, cuando regresan, esa familia ya no la encuentran. Ya está muerta. Muchos que igual tengo motivos que igual emigraron. Y se fueron para dar mejor vida a sus papás, pero sus papás ya murieron y ellos todavía siguen sin regresar. Y la vida a y se supuestamente le [00:48:00] iban a dar mejor vida, pero nunca sucedió. Simplemente están sobreviviendo, pero nunca, nunca cumplieron ese sueño.Y yo digo, el consejo que yo les daría es que si tiene la posibilidad de tener una vida digna en sus tierras, pues que se queden ahí y que no vean la migración como el gran sueño, como como todos este lo imaginamos, no?Aldo: Bueno, yo creo que la migración no es una decisión de las personas que se ven obligadas a migrar. Hay muchos factores. Estados unidos necesita mano de obra barata, como tú decías. Entonces, pues aunque Trump diga que no quiere emigrantes, si quiere migrantes. Y lo que sucede en Venezuela, pues al final de cuentas es parte de las políticas que se hicieron en estados unidos, no? Ahí metieron a ese país en crisis.Y luego llegó un ticket de los estados unidos [00:49:00] y les dijo a sus paisanos que se inmigraban hacia los estados unidos. Iban a ser bien recibidos. Nunca se imaginaron el calvario que tenían que sufrir en el tránsito para poder llegar a estados unidos. Y cuando llegan a estados unidos, pues tampoco son bien recibidos como les habían ofrecido que sería su bienvenida, no?Y en México, nosotros vemos ahora en nuestro país, por ejemplo, como se ha incrementado de manera exponencial la violencia en las zonas rurales. Esa violencia no solamente está obligando a la gente a migrar, sino que, pues los está desalojando de sus tierras, no? Y normalmente esto se hace porque, hay otros intereses en esas tierras y las quieren, quieren las tierras, pero las quieren sin gente.Y entonces se va a implementar el mecanismo de la violencia para que esa [00:50:00] gente se vea obligada a salir y por lo tanto, se vea obligada a migrar a donde sea, porque ya no puede vivir en paz en la comunidad donde nació, donde se acostumbra a vivir, no? Entonces la migración no es un fenómeno natural. Es un fenómeno que ha sido creado por el mismo capital, que lo necesita para sobrevivir como sistema capitalista, y que está quitándole la posibilidad de vivir bien a la gente que vive en lugares muy remotos donde no necesitaban incluso de su existencia como sistema.Eso.Chris: Gracias, Aldo. Sí, seguramente las causas de la migración muchas veces vienen del motor de capitalismo de [00:51:00] guerra, plagas y hambre.Y podemos pensar más en que hay ciertas personas que que tienen que emigrar, que tienen que emigrar. No tienen opción. Y además, cuando se emigran y las noticias del dinero, del prestigio, privilegio, vuelve a los pueblos, a las familias que también el tema puede quedar en asuntos de ambición, envidia, deseo, que la gente que tiene opción puede entender las consecuencias a su propio pueblo, a su propia gente, a los que se quedan o dejan atrás, no? Y bueno, me gustaría en el nombre de nuestros oyentes, agradecerles muchísimo por sus tiempo y [00:52:00] presencia hoy por sus reflexiones y consideraciones por sus trabajos y compromisos en el mundo.Lo agredezco mucho. Les agradezco mucho. Y hasta la próxima, gracias, Aldo. Gracias, Gloria. Gloria: Igual, gracias! Aldo: Pues mucho gusto. Mucho gusto. Gloria. Nos vemos. Chris, si. English TranscriptionChris: [00:00:00] Welcome Aldo and welcome Gloria to the podcast the end of tourism. Thank you both for being willing to talk with me today about these topics. I'm curious if you two would be willing to give a little introduction or summary about yourselves.Ah, ado, we didn't hear you.Aldo: Well, about my trips, well, I don't travel. I hardly have any vacations. But because of work, I have had to go to different places in the world. We could say, basically because of the work I do?Rather than going to see the places where I have been invited, what I have done is go and talk to the people who are in those places about the problems we have here in the region.The problems we have in Mexico and [00:01:00] who has allowed me to travel to different places has been the problem of contamination by transgenic corn. So that has made it so that, with that anger that weighed on me in 2001, I have had the opportunity to go to other places to talk a little about that particular problem and many others that are related to it, not the issue of transgenics or the issue of agrochemicals or the issue of corporate control over food, over seeds as well.So, let's say that in general, most of the trips I have made are related to these accents or to the rights of indigenous peoples as well.Chris: Thanks, Aldo. And could you tell us where you are today?Aldo: Eh? Well, today I am in Guelatao and it is my community and I am in the offices of my organization, which is the union of organizations of the Sierra Juarez.Chris: Thank you very much, [00:02:00] Hello Aldo and Gloria.Gloria: Yes, the same. I have rarely left the state, but I do know a lot of people who usually emigrate to the United States, which is where most of them live, but they don't emigrate much to other states. But most of them do emigrate to the United States. I have a lot of neighbors, family, and a lot of people from here in Coycoyan. They do emigrate more to the United States.Chris: Okay. Thank you so much for uh, being on time with us today. So, although it's early in the conversation, my question is about how have you seen the return of migrants to their villages affect the community in your own places or towns?Gloria: Yes, in how long has it affected the community? That many when they return, well, they already have other ideas, other culture, another way of seeing life and sometimes many no longer [00:03:00] want to participate in the community assemblies or they come with other techniques, let's say, of cultivation and the techniques that they had here before, well, they are already lost and I see more and more how this also affects their personal lives, because many when they return they already return sick, tired.In the best of cases, many of them return with money, right? And that makes the people who are in the town see that since they did well, they also want to emigrate and then there are more people who want to migrate and they become more and they have the idea that, well, there is an opportunity for them to improve their lives in the United States.But I say that in general the impact is both positive and [00:04:00] negative, because as I say, many return tired, sick. Many also leave their families here and when they return, their families can no longer find them, or some who leave their parents, when they return their parents have already died or there are situations like that that impact their personal life.Chris: Thanks, Gloria. Aldo, would you like to respond?Aldo: Although there aren't many of them here in the community of Guelatao, there isn't as much migration as in other nearby communities. Let's say that one of the things that we see that has affected us is that prices are rising, because they bring money and no longer work in the fields. So, they receive resources for their families.And that makes them have a greater capacity to pay the waiters, for example, so that they can be the same . So, that makes the rest of the population feel affected, because they do not have the resources to be able to pay what a migrant is paying. Well, that to some extent is affecting corn production as well, in itself, it had already affected it, because many leave and stop working the land. Those who want their family to continue working the land send resources, but let's say that there the costs rise for the rest of the population because they pay higher salaries. So, if someone comes to the community to work, they will charge you more than they charged you before and many cannot pay it.Then he tells us, "I'm not going to plant anymore, because the boy is too expensive." Right?And that has a direct impact on the economy of those who do not migrate.And since there are few migrants too, or I say [00:06:00] since there are few people who stay to work the fields in the community, there are no longer enough people to be able to do what we call gozona.So let's all work together on the part of each of those who enter this type of work. Well, that is also an impact of migration, right?Chris: And Gloria, do you think that the same dynamic exists or has happened in your town?Gloria: No, I say that it is the same, yes, I agree with what they say and yes, it has greatly influenced the people who emigrate if they pay more than those who do not migrate. Yes, that change is very noticeable.Chris: Thank you. Well, part of my interest or how I started, uh, approaching the immigration issue was partly because of my family. [00:07:00] They were also migrants from Macedonia and Greece, and the other side from England to Canada about 50 years ago. So what I've felt is that the dynamics, the consequences of migration on the people and the people who don't migrate, that there are patterns at the global level, and they are almost, well, very similar.I found a book in English, but it also existed in Spanish. Eh? It's called The Right Not to Migrate or The Right To Stay Home by David Bacon. And that book, it's titled after a declaration that the people of FIOB or the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations made there in Santiago Juxtlahuaca in La Mixteca,After days and days of discussing the consequences of migration in the places of the migrants, that is, the native peoples of the migrants, a declaration was made: "the right not to migrate together with the right to migrate." So I'm curious to know if you could talk about those times and the declaration, if you know how it was formed or how it was received in the Mixteca or in the northern mountains of Oaxaca.Aldo: Well, here in the organization, yes, we have talked about the right not to migrate, because we are interested in strengthening the identity of the people who live in our communities. Well, in the end, we are part of a larger community. It is not only our community, but there are several other communities that belong to the same people, to the Zapotec people, and in that sense, what we are trying to do is [00:09:00] What we have to do is strengthen our communities, strengthen our communality, which is our form of community organization, and for that reason we would prefer that people do not migrate.But the problem is that there has been a brutal impoverishment of the countryside in general, not only in Mexico. We also see it in other countries, that those who emigrate are mainly people who leave the countryside and go to the United States to work in the fields in the United States, but in conditions that are completely different from how they worked in the community. Even here in Mexico, some go to work in the fields in the north of the country , too . It is in terrible conditions , with many agrochemicals.People come back, in some cases they come back sick, right? Or they come back with their feet up, they said in the village, because [00:10:00] they are already dead. They come back just to be buried in the community. But well, they practically lived their whole life outside, right?So, those who leave suffer because they long to be in the community. They want to eat what they eat in the community. They want to listen to the music of the community. They want to live as if they were in the community, but it is no longer there. Those who stay to live outside the community, let's say in the United States, especially, because their children will no longer understand them, because they are educated in a different way in schools that have nothing to do with their culture.Let's say that they are mentally colonized in schools in the United States. There are very few schools that we could say have the capacity to be intercultural and teach in Spanish and English and [00:11:00] teach the culture of the community and the culture that is experienced in the United States, individualism.So it is very difficult for a child of immigrants, born in the United States, to return to the community, because he or she has already adapted to another way, to another civilization, to another way of life completely different from the community. And well, that worries us. We are interested in people staying.We know that it is difficult because there are few economic resources in the communities, but even so, we are making the effort so that people feel proud of their origins and do not have the need to migrate or, in the last case, if they have the need to emigrate, at least they have a reference of what their community is like and take it to wherever they are, [00:12:00] right?Because sometimes people do it out of necessity. And that necessity takes you to other places, but if you feel proud of your cultural identity, you will take that identity wherever you are. In the case of the mountains, there are people from various communities who make a community where they are. But obviously they won't be able to do it in the same way as if they lived in the community, but at least they take something with them.You can also take another way of seeing the world, although you won't be able to practice it like you would in your community, right? And in general, let's say the work we do in the organization is focused on strengthening different mechanisms so that people stay.For example, right now we are working on establishing an agroecology school, so that young people have the tools to [00:13:00] be able to plant the land without depending on herbicides and all the agrochemicals that come with the green revolution and that are the ones normally used in the United States for agricultural production of most of the things that are done there.And within this agroecology framework, obviously for us the cultural element is fundamental because we cannot do only agriculture outside of our territorial-cultural context. So, all of this has to be included in these initiatives that we are trying to promote.Chris: Mm, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Aldo. And Gloria, that statement arose in the Mixteca region where you are and I would like to know if you remember the statement, if it was part of the politics or the people of your town?Gloria: Well, I learned that this statement came about because of the great [00:14:00] injustices that migrants suffer. As it says something from the moment they leave their homes until they get there, let's say in the United States, where they have to work the same and continue to suffer physical and psychological abuse.And what else would we want from people? Well, no, they wouldn't emigrate, no, but we know that they emigrate due to their needs, but I hope that those who emigrate have those opportunities so that if they want to emigrate as best they can and not go through suffering. Mm-hmm.The declaration arose in this area of Juxtlahuaca, according to what I have found, I did not know much about this declaration, but because of this I have already checked. And yes, the declaration arose specifically because of the injustices that people suffer from leaving their homes until arriving in the United States.All the abuses that they [00:15:00] end up suffering along the way and even many of them there, even if they are working there, they also continue to suffer. And for that reason, well, what more would people want than for them not to immigrate, right? What more would we want for all people to have the good fortune of having a dignified life in their country, in their land, so that they do not have to emigrate, but it happens, it happens that if they emigrate, it happens for many reasons that sometimes it is not within our reach to be able to help them, but let's say at least to offer them the opportunities so that they emigrate in the best way possible and do not have so many disadvantages at the time of emigrating.Chris: Thank you. No, yes, my father's village, for example, was a peasant village in Greece and it is no longer abandoned, but when they left there were 800 people. And today there are about 50. And there are still about two, three peasants, so [00:16:00] I understand well what they are saying and how important it is to create the conditions so that people do not need to migrate if they do not need to.But I would also like to ask you about the success that has perhaps existed. So, if there was a statement that came out of the truth, it is not very well known, despite the success of the book and those things. It is not very well known, from what I have seen in Mexico and from speaking with some people from FIOB in the United States, but we will get to that in a moment. I wanted to ask you if there are programs or have you seen certain successes within or through those programs, for example, that you mentioned Aldo and Glorias, if there is a change in the towns. If something has changed in those 15 years.Glory: [00:17:00] Aha, from my side. I say yes. Yes, there has been a change. Maybe not a direct change. There has not been a declaration. Yes, it has helped, but we have not seen it because it is hardly mentioned. But there has been. Thanks to that, programs and projects have been created that have supported migrants, but which many times we are unaware of.But yes, there is, let's say, the positive impact that this statement has generated.Aldo: Well, in the case of the Sierra Juárez, the northern mountains of Oaxaca, let's say, there are some communities that have a high rate of migration and well, in some cases, some programs have arrived, for example, like "two for one," where the migrants, let's say, put up part of the resources, the state puts up another part or puts up two parts, let's say the federal government, the state government to do some work in the community.But that really isn't [00:18:00] solving any problem, not because basically what it's doing is forcing migrants to contribute to doing some better work in their community and when those resources could be used for their families or for something else or to fulfill their community obligations, but not necessarily carrying out the actions that the government is obliged to do, such as social works or things of that sort.So, I could say that the programs that have appeared in recent years have not helped us much to stop migration. For example, the most advertised program of the last six-year period was Sembrando Vida, right? And although that support was given to some farmers in some communities, not in all of them, we could [00:19:00] say that they were captured so that they would not migrate to the United States, but they stopped planting corn when initially the program was for them to plant more corn.They made us plant little trees, not trees that in many cases were not even from the region, that were not going to grow well or if they were going to grow well, they were not going to be useful here, because they came from other regions or if they grew, it was no longer going to be possible to grow corn in those places because they would shade the corn.We live on hillsides. There are no flat places here like in the United States, right? So, let's say that government programs that have benefited to some extent. The migratory flow that has made there less migration, well, they are not seen either. They are not seen very clearly. We see that policies continue to be established to destroy the community fabric , to expel the population . [00:20:00] from the countryside to the cities or to the United States. Chris: Thanks, Aldo. And you mentioned that your work has a lot to do with the regeneration of corn, and obviously local corn as well. Why is it so important for the people in the face of the consequences of migration?Aldo: Corn is a very important element for us. We could say that it is the heart of the community because we eat it every day. We say "native." Institutions in many places call it "criollo" out of habit, but the word is misused. We say that it is our native corn.And it is not the same to eat a tortilla made from native corn, an ear of corn from our corn, than to buy an ear of corn that they now sell in the city that was made with [00:21:00] hybrid corn or that we have to eat tortillas made with transgenic corn. Unfortunately, in recent years, I think it happens not only in the mountains, but in many other places in the country, the use of tortilla factories has increased and so we no longer know what corn they are producing those tortillas with, but they cannot be compared to the tortillas made from our corn with our own technologies. Right?So, I think that corn, for us, besides being our main food or the one we consume the most, also gives us identity. Corn, for example, calls us to work together, which is something that is not done in the United States. They all hire migrants to do their work, right? And they are going to produce what they are going to produce to sell here.The corn that is planted [00:22:00] is normally for consumption. Corn is hardly sold. And for example, now that they are setting guaranteed prices, right? Guaranteed price is MXN $6. In our communities, corn, you cannot sell it for MXN $6, or at least, you sell it for MXN $20, if you sell it, because it is the effort of your work and also by the same people in the community or even by migrants or immigrant families, it is valued as a, a food that is completely different from the corn that is bought in the store, at CONASUPO or at Diconsa or in any commercial store or what comes from tortillas? So there is a special appreciation for our corn. That is important, but it is being produced less and less. Now previously, whoever had corn was considered rich. [00:23:00] From a comparative perspective of today, anyone who has corn is considered stupid or poor because he has no money. However, especially the older peasants who say, well, "if I have corn, I don't need money" to live because I have enough food.Even before, for example, when people had to carry out their community duties, which were not paid in many communities, they started to pay for the position. The person who could occupy the position was an older agent, whose children had already grown up, but who also had corn so that he did not ask anyone for a favor about how he was going to pay for the food of his family for the year or the time that he had to be in charge of the community office.So, let's say that corn also creates community? And with these policies, lack of support or [00:24:00] elimination of support, the Mexican countryside is also hurting our forms of community organization. That's it.Chris: That's powerful. Yes, I remembered what you said, Aldo, some words that the philosopher Ivan Illich wrote, and I don't know if it's exactly what he wrote, but he basically said that for almost all of human history, the greatest measure of poverty was whether or not one had to buy one's food. That is, if you had to buy your food in the past, it was a sign, a measure of poverty, to say that you are poor if you have to buy. Gloria, do you have anything to add to that point?Gloria: Not that point, no,Chris: [00:25:00] Okay, okay. Well, I would also like to continue with what you mentioned, Aldo, about the resources and what are called remittances, and from what I have seen in the statistics, they do not say that more or less six percent of the Mexican economy is made up of remittances sent by family or friends in the United States.In some of the villages I have been invited to, I have been told that the village would not survive without remittances. In others, I have been told that the village would survive much better if people did not leave. This is a very complex issue and I wonder if the two of you could talk about that complexity that you have seen in your villages and elsewhere as a result of remittances.[00:26:00] goes beyond that topic to a vital or central question, which is whether a person can or cannot be responsible for one place while being in another place?Gloria: I say yes. Remittances have had a positive influence because thanks to them there have been many businesses, commerce and I feel that if we took away those remittances, those businesses would fall, because the money that many people spend in those businesses is money that their relatives send from the United States. Thanks to that, they buy their food, the materials they need from school supplies to personal things they need. And if in remittances, I feel that yes, it would be complicated because as until now, there are no

Starting June 19, the Maurin Academy will host a class by Deacon Chris May on Ivan Illich. Here Deacon May discusses who Illich was and why we should know more about him. … More Introduction to Ivan Illich: A New Maurin Academy Class Starting June 19

Gandpa Bill explores :Ivan Illich, in his commentary on Hugh of Saint Victor's Didascalion, explores the medieval understanding of knowledge and learning. He uses the powerful metaphor of "God's Play on Wisdom" to describe how divine wisdom is manifested and communicated through the created world and, particularly, through the study of sacred texts. This isn't a rigid, deterministic transmission, but rather a playful unfolding, inviting human interpretation and engagement.We can draw a compelling analogy here when discussing the concept of God on my podcast. Instead of viewing "God" as a static, fully knowable entity, we can explore how the human understanding of the divine might be akin to interpreting a complex and multifaceted "play" orchestrated by a higher wisdom. This "play" unfolds through our experiences, our relationships, our search for meaning, and even our struggles with doubt and faith.Grandpa Bill WILL BE asking these Questions when Byron Athene actually joins on May 29th (incorporating Illich's analogy):Byron, considering Illich's concept of "God's Play on Wisdom," how might the diverse and often contradictory interpretations of God throughout history be seen as different human readings or engagements with this complex "play"? What psychological factors might influence these varying interpretations?Illich suggests a playful unfolding of divine wisdom. How might this perspective inform our understanding of the role of questioning and doubt in an individual's spiritual or existential journey? Is doubt perhaps an inherent part of engaging with this "play"?The "text" in Illich's analogy refers to sacred writings and the created world. In a modern context, what might be considered the "texts" through which individuals seek to understand or experience the divine, and how does our "reading" of these contemporary "texts" (science, nature, personal experience) shape our concept of God?If our understanding of God is akin to interpreting a "play," how does this analogy impact our perception of religious dogma and doctrine? Are these perhaps like different interpretations or stagings of the same underlying "wisdom"? What are the psychological implications of adhering rigidly to one interpretation versus embracing a more fluid understanding?Illich emphasizes the active engagement of the reader with the text. How does this translate to our personal relationship with the concept of God? Is it a passive reception of information or an active, ongoing process of interpretation and meaning-making?The metaphor of "play" suggests an element of mystery and perhaps even unpredictability. How does this resonate with the human experience of faith, which often involves uncertainty and moments of profound mystery?Drawing on Illich's idea, how might psychological well-being be influenced by an individual's ability to find their own meaningful interpretation within this "play of wisdom," rather than feeling constrained by prescribed understandings of God?Grandpa Bill Asks:Thinking about your own understanding of the divine, what aspects feel like a clearly defined script, and what aspects feel more like an open-ended, improvisational "play" that you are actively participating in? Share your reflections!In what "texts" (whether traditional religious texts, nature, personal experiences, art, etc.) do you find the most compelling "clues" or "insights" into the nature of something greater than yourself? How do you "read" these "texts"?#GodsPlay,#IvanIllich,#InTheVineyardOfTheText,#HughOfSaintVictor,#Wisdom,#Interpretation,#Philosophy,#Theology,#Spirituality,#Psychology,#Podcast,#GrandpaBill,#ByronAthene,#VirtualCreative Solutions for Holistic Healthcare

In this episode of Conversations with Dr. Cowan and Friends, Dr. Tom Cowan and guest Michael critique the foundations and effects of compulsory schooling. They argue that modern public education is rooted in coercion and control, not genuine learning. Drawing on thinkers like Ivan Illich and John Taylor Gatto, they claim that the school system conditions obedience, suppresses creativity, and disconnects children from meaningful, real-life experiences. They advocate for “deschooling” society—replacing forced schooling with child-led, play-based, and intrinsically motivated learning rooted in family, nature, and real work.Support the showWebsites:https://drtomcowan.com/https://www.drcowansgarden.com/https://newbiologyclinic.com/https://newbiologycurriculum.com/Instagram: @TalkinTurkeywithTomFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTomCowan/Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/CivTSuEjw6Qp/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzxdc2o0Q_XZIPwo07XCrNg

Guest Manish Jain - a radical "unlearner" and rethinker of education - is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems, cultural imaginations and inter-cultural dialogue. Inspired by MK Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Ivan Illich, his village grandmother, Indigenous communities and Jain spiritual philosophy, Manish is one of the leading planetary voices for de-schooling our lives. He has helped thousands of young people escape from factory schooling and recover their dignity, self-worth and "alivelihoods." Manish, a Harvard alumnus and former investment banker with Morgan Stanley, has also worked for UNESCO and UNICEF among other, came to question the dominant economic model, and not least, the Western-style education model that is perpetuating destructive growth and development, and fomenting a 'West is Best' mindset. He is the co-founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, Swaraj University, India's first self-designed people's university where each learner (ages 17-28) can join and work on their unique path, and the Ecoversities Alliance, a global network of alternative universities.Guest Felipe Viveros is an independent researcher, strategist and consultant specializing in campaigning, program design and fundraising. He has worked with governments and organizations globally pioneering the prototyping and implementation of a new development paradigm, and has served as the European representative of the GNH Centre Bhutan, the board Chair of /TR and at the Sacred Head Waters Initiative. Felipe also is co-writer of "In the Anthropocene" (a favorite FVR song over the years) performed by Nick Mulvey.Production Credits:Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Host and Executive ProducerLiz Hill (Red Lake Ojibwe), ProducerOrlando DuPont, Radio Kingston Studio EngineerMusic Selections:1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song)Artist: Moana and the Moa HuntersAlbum: Tahi (1993)Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand)2. Song Title: In the AnthropoceneArtist: Nick MulveyAlbum: N/A - released as a single in October 2019Label: N/A; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnaQIvBRAEAbout First Voices Radio:"First Voices Radio," now in its 32nd year on the air, is an internationally syndicated one-hour radio program originating from and heard weekly on Radio Kingston WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM in Kingston, New York. Hosted by Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), who is the show's Founder and Executive Producer, "First Voices Radio" explores global topics and issues of critical importance to the preservation and protection of Mother Earth presented in the voices and from the perspective of the original peoples of the world.Akantu Intelligence:Visit Akantu Intelligence, an institute that Tiokasin founded with a mission of contextualizing original wisdom for troubled times. Go to https://akantuintelligence.org to find out more and consider joining his Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/Ghosthorse

The Canadian broadcaster David Cayley describes his groundbreaking interviews with the thinker and theologian Ivan Illich, in which Illich describes how it is the very best, the church, became the very worst, in modernity. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!  

In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus sets love above custom, law, and religious institutions but the corruption of this very best also poses the possibility of the very worst, in the words of Ivan Illich, in the institutionalization of the Church.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Orsborn shares the concept of embracing old age as a transformative process. She emphasizes the importance of accepting reality, embracing mortality, and recognizing one's belovedness. She also touches on the evolutionary purpose of old age and the role of spiritual practices in navigating life's challenges, including illness and loss. Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. received her Masters of Theological Studies and Doctorate in History and Critical Theory of Religion from Vanderbilt University, with post-graduate work in Spiritual Counseling at the New Seminary in Manhattan. She specialized in adult development and ritual studies. She has served on the faculties of Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, and Georgetown Universities. She is the author of Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection (self-published 2019), The Making of an Old Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life's Promise (White River Press 2021)and Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life (Park Street Press 2024).Interview Date: 1/10/2025 Tags: Carol Orsborn, Joan Chittister, fear, denial, God, grace, Tolstoy, Death of Ivan Illich, Ram Dass, hope, expectation, curiosity, Personal Transformation, Spirituality, Aging

"Mi hipótesis es que no puede existir una sociedad que merezca el calificativo de “socialista” si la energía mecánica que utiliza aplasta al hombre." "Olvida que el territorio lo crea el hombre con su cuerpo, y toma por territorio lo que no es más que un paisaje visto a través de una ventanilla por un hombre amarrado a su butaca. Ya no sabe marcar el ámbito de sus dominios con la huella de sus pasos, ni encontrarse con los vecinos, caminando en la plaza. Ya no encuentra al otro sin chocar, ni llega sin que un motor lo arrastre. Su órbita puntual y diaria lo enajena de todo." "Perdió la fe en el poder político de caminar"

In this episode, Detlef Schlich and AI co-host Sophia explore the fascinating evolution of human cognition by revisiting key milestones in our intellectual development, beginning with the silent reading revolution inspired by Hugh of St. Victor, as discussed in In the Vineyard of the Text by Ivan Illich. They delve into how silent reading transformed cognitive processes in the 12th century and set the stage for modern introspection. By comparing this cognitive leap to today's advancements in AI, Detlef and Sophia pose the question: Are we on the brink of another cognitive evolution? Join us as we discuss how these shifts in reading, writing, and now artificial intelligence form our collective ‘cultural magma,' each layer bringing profound societal change.Detlef Schlich is a rock musician, podcaster, visual artist, filmmaker, ritual designer, and media archaeologist based in West Cork. He is recognized for his seminal work, including a scholarly examination of the intersections between shamanism, art, and digital culture, and his acclaimed video installation, Transodin's Tragedy. He primarily works in performance, photography, painting, sound, installations, and film. In his work, he reflects on the human condition and uses the digital shaman's methodology as an alter ego to create artwork. His media archaeology is a conceptual and practical exercise in uncovering the unique aesthetic, cultural, and political aspects of media in culture.WEBSITE LINKS WAW BandcampSilent NightIn a world shadowed by conflict and unrest, we, Dirk Schlömer & Detlef Schlich, felt compelled to reinterpret 'Silent Night' to reflect the complexities and contradictions of modern life.https://studiomuskau.bandcamp.com/track/silent-nightWild Atlantic WayThis results from a trip to West Cork, Ireland, where the beautiful Coastal "Wild Atlantic Way" reaches along the whole west coast!https://studiomuskau.bandcamp.com/track/wild-atlantic-wayYOU TUBE*Silent Night Reimagined* A Multilayered Avant-Garde Journey by WAW aka Dirk Schlömer & Detlef Schlichhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAbytLSfgCwDetlef SchlichInstagramDetlef Schlich ArTEEtude I love West Cork Artists FacebookDetlef Schlich I love West Cork Artists Group ArTEEtudeYouTube Channelsvisual PodcastArTEEtudeCute Alien TV official WebsiteArTEEtude Detlef Schlich Det Design Tribal Loop Download here for free Detlef Schlich´s Essay about the Cause and Effect of Shamanism, Art and Digital Culturehttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/303749640_Shamanism_Art_and_Digital_Culture_Cause_and_EffectSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/arteetude-a-podcast-with-artists-by-detlef-schlich/donations

On this episode of the pod, my guest is David Cayley, a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster. For more than thirty years (1981-2012) he made radio documentaries for CBC Radio One's program Ideas, which premiered in 1965 under the title The Best Ideas You'll Hear Tonight. In 1966, at the age of twenty, Cayley joined the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), one of the many volunteer organizations that sprang up in the 1960's to promote international development. Two years later, back in Canada, he began to associate with a group of returned volunteers whose experiences had made them, like himself, increasingly quizzical about the idea of development. In 1968 in Chicago, he heard a lecture given by Ivan Illich and in 1970 he and others brought Illich to Toronto for a teach-in called “Crisis in Development.” This was the beginning of their long relationship: eighteen years later Cayley invited Illich to do a series of interviews for CBC Radio's Ideas. Cayley is the author of Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (2022), Ideas on the Nature of Science (2009), The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich (2004), Puppet Uprising (2003),The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives (1998), George Grant in Conversation (1995), Northrop Frye in Conversation (1992), Ivan Illich in Conversation (1992), and The Age of Ecology (1990).Show Notes:The Early Years with Ivan IllichThe Good Samaritan StoryFalling out of a HomeworldThe Corruption of the Best is the Worst (Corruptio Optimi Pessima)How Hospitality Becomes HostilityHow to Live in ContradictionRediscovering the FutureThe Pilgrimage of SurpriseFriendship with the OtherHomework:Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (Penn State Press) - Paperback Now Available!David Cayley's WebsiteThe Rivers North of the Future (House of Anansi Press)Ivan Illich | The Corruption of Christianity: Corruptio Optimi Pessima (2000)Charles Taylor: A Secular AgeTranscript:Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome, David, to the End of Tourism Podcast. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. David: Likewise. Thank you. Chris: I'm very grateful to have you joining me today. And I'm curious if you could offer our listeners a little glimpse into where you find yourself today and what the world looks like for you through the lenses of David Cayley.David: Gray and wet. In Toronto, we've had a mild winter so far, although we did just have some real winter for a couple of weeks. So, I'm at my desk in my house in downtown Toronto. Hmm. Chris: Hmm. Thank you so much for joining us, David. You know, I came to your work quite long ago.First through the book, The Rivers North of the Future, The Testament of Ivan Illich. And then through your long standing tenure as the host of CBC Ideas in Canada. I've also just finished reading your newest book, Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey. For me, which has been a clear and comprehensive homage [00:01:00] to that man's work.And so, from what I understand from the reading, you were a friend of Illich's as well as the late Gustavo Esteva, a mutual friend of ours, who I interviewed for the podcast shortly before his death in 2021. Now, since friendship is one of the themes I'd like to approach with you today, I'm wondering if you could tell us about how you met these men and what led you to writing a biography of the former, of Ivan.David: Well, let me answer about Ivan first. I met him as a very young man. I had spent two years living in northern Borneo, eastern Malaysia, the Malaysian state of Sarawak. As part of an organization called the Canadian University Service Overseas, which many people recognize only when it's identified with the Peace Corps. It was a similar initiative or the VSO, very much of the time.And When I returned to [00:02:00] Toronto in 1968, one of the first things I saw was an essay of Ivan's. It usually circulates under the name he never gave it, which is, "To Hell With Good Intentions." A talk he had given in Chicago to some young volunteers in a Catholic organization bound for Mexico.And it made sense to me in a radical and surprising way. So, I would say it began there. I went to CDOC the following year. The year after that we brought Ivan to Toronto for a teach in, in the fashion of the time, and he was then an immense celebrity, so we turned people away from a 600 seat theater that night when he lectured in Toronto.I kept in touch subsequently through reading mainly and we didn't meet again until the later 1980s when he came to Toronto.[00:03:00] He was then working on, in the history of literacy, had just published a book called ABC: the Alphabetization of the Western Mind. And that's where we became more closely connected. I went later that year to State College, Pennsylvania, where he was teaching at Penn State, and recorded a long interview, radically long.And made a five-hour Ideas series, but by a happy chance, I had not thought of this, his friend Lee Hoinacki asked for the raw tapes, transcribed them, and eventually that became a published book. And marked an epoch in Ivan's reception, as well as in my life because a lot of people responded to the spoken or transcribed Illich in a way that they didn't seem to be able to respond to his writing, which was scholastically condensed, let's [00:04:00] say.I always found it extremely congenial and I would even say witty in the deep sense of wit. But I think a lot of people, you know, found it hard and so the spoken Illich... people came to him, even old friends and said, you know, "we understand you better now." So, the following year he came to Toronto and stayed with us and, you know, a friendship blossomed and also a funny relationship where I kept trying to get him to express himself more on the theme of the book you mentioned, The Rivers North of the Future, which is his feeling that modernity, in the big sense of modernity can be best understood as perversionism. A word that he used, because he liked strong words, but it can be a frightening word."Corruption" also has its difficulties, [00:05:00] but sometimes he said "a turning inside out," which I like very much, or "a turning upside down" of the gospel. So, when the world has its way with the life, death and resurrection and teaching of Jesus Christ which inevitably becomes an institution when the world has its way with that.The way leads to where we are. That was his radical thought. And a novel thought, according to the philosopher Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher, who was kind enough to write a preface to that book when it was published, and I think very much aided its reception, because people knew who Charles Taylor was, and by then, they had kind of forgotten who Ivan Illich was.To give an example of that, when he died, the New York [00:06:00] Times obituary was headlined "Priest turned philosopher appealed to baby boomers in the 60s." This is yesterday's man, in other words, right? This is somebody who used to be important. So, I just kept at him about it, and eventually it became clear he was never going to write that book for a whole variety of reasons, which I won't go into now.But he did allow me to come to Cuernavaca, where he was living, and to do another very long set of interviews, which produced that book, The Rivers North of the Future. So that's the history in brief. The very last part of that story is that The Rivers North of the Future and the radio series that it was based on identifies themes that I find to be quite explosive. And so, in a certain way, the book you mentioned, Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey, [00:07:00] was destined from the moment that I recorded those conversations. Chris: Hmm, yeah, thank you, David. So much of what you said right there ends up being the basis for most of my questions today, especially around the corruption or the perversion what perhaps iatrogenesis also termed as iatrogenesis But much of what I've also come to ask today, stems and revolves around Illich's reading of the Good Samaritan story, so I'd like to start there, if that's alright.And you know, for our listeners who aren't familiar either with the story or Illich's take on it, I've gathered some small excerpts from An Intellectual Journey so that they might be on the same page, so to speak. So, from Ivan Illich, An Intellectual Journey:"jesus tells the story after he has been asked how to, quote, 'inherit eternal life,' end quote, and has replied that one must love God and one's neighbor, [00:08:00] quote, 'as oneself,' but, quote, who is my neighbor? His interlocutor wants to know. Jesus answers with his tale of a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, who is beset by robbers, beaten, and left, quote, 'half dead' by the side of the road.Two men happen along, but, quote, 'pass by on the other side.' One is a priest and the other a Levite, a group that assisted the priests at the Great Temple, which, at that time, dominated the landscape of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. Then, a Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans belonged to the estranged northern kingdom of Israel, and did not worship at the Temple.Tension between the Samaritans and the Judeans in the Second Temple period gives the name a significance somewhere between 'foreigner' and 'enemy.' [00:09:00] In contemporary terms, he was, as Illich liked to say, 'a Palestinian.' The Samaritan has, quote, 'compassion' on the wounded one. He stops, binds his wounds, takes him to an inn where he can convalesce and promises the innkeeper that he will return to pay the bill.'And so Jesus concludes by asking, 'Which of the three passers by was the neighbor?'Illich claimed that this parable had been persistently misunderstood as a story about how one ought to act. He had surveyed sermons from the 3rd through 19th centuries, he said, 'and found a broad consensus that what was being proposed was a, quote, rule of conduct.' But this interpretation was, in fact, quote, 'the opposite of what Jesus wanted to point out.'He had not been asked how to act toward a neighbor, but rather, 'who is my neighbor?' And he had replied, [00:10:00] scandalously, that it could be anyone at all. The choice of the Samaritan as the hero of the tale said, 'in effect, it is impossible to categorize who your neighbor might be.' The sense of being called to help the other is experienced intermittently and not as an unvarying obligation.A quote, 'new kind of ought has been established,' Illich says, which is not related to a norm. It has a telos, it aims at somebody, some body, but not according to a rule. And finally, The Master told them that who your neighbor is is not determined by your birth, by your condition, by the language which you speak, but by you.You can recognize the other man who is out of bounds culturally, who is foreign linguistically, who, you can [00:11:00] say by providence or pure chance, is the one who lies somewhere along your road in the grass and create the supreme form of relatedness, which is not given by creation, but created by you. Any attempt to explain this 'ought,' as correspond, as, as corresponding to a norm, takes out the mysterious greatness from this free act.And so, I think there are at least, at the very least, a few major points to take away from this little summary I've extracted. One, that the ability to choose one's neighbor, breaks the boundaries of ethnicity at the time, which were the bases for understanding one's identity and people and place in the world.And two, that it creates a new foundation for hospitality and interculturality. And so I'm [00:12:00] curious, David, if you'd be willing to elaborate on these points as you understand them.David: Well if you went a little farther on in that part of the book, you'd find an exposition of a German teacher and writer and professor, Claus Held, that I found very helpful in understanding what Ivan was saying. Held is a phenomenologist and a follower of Husserl, but he uses Husserl's term of the home world, right, that each of us has a home world. Mm-Hmm. Which is our ethnos within which our ethics apply.It's a world in which we can be at home and in which we can somehow manage, right? There are a manageable number of people to whom we are obliged. We're not universally obliged. So, what was interesting about Held's analysis is then the condition in which the wounded [00:13:00] man lies is, he's fallen outside of any reference or any home world, right?Nobody has to care for him. The priest and the Levite evidently don't care for him. They have more important things to do. The story doesn't tell you why. Is he ritually impure as one apparently dead is? What? You don't know. But they're on their way. They have other things to do. So the Samaritan is radically out of line, right?He dares to enter this no man's land, this exceptional state in which the wounded man lies, and he does it on the strength of a feeling, right? A stirring inside him. A call. It's definitely a bodily experience. In Ivan's language of norms, it's not a norm. It's not a duty.It's [00:14:00] not an obligation. It's not a thought. He's stirred. He is moved to do what he does and he cares for him and takes him to the inn and so on. So, the important thing in it for me is to understand the complementarity that's involved. Held says that if you try and develop a set of norms and ethics, however you want to say it, out of the Samaritan's Act, it ends up being radically corrosive, it ends up being radically corrosive damaging, destructive, disintegrating of the home world, right? If everybody's caring for everybody all the time universally, you're pretty soon in the maddening world, not pretty soon, but in a couple of millennia, in the maddening world we live in, right? Where people Can tell you with a straight face that their actions are intended to [00:15:00] save the planet and not experience a sense of grandiosity in saying that, right?Not experiencing seemingly a madness, a sense of things on a scale that is not proper to any human being, and is bound, I think, to be destructive of their capacity to be related to what is at hand. So, I think what Ivan is saying in saying this is a new kind of ought, right, it's the whole thing of the corruption of the best is the worst in a nutshell because as soon as you think you can operationalize that, you can turn everyone into a Samaritan and You, you begin to destroy the home world, right?You begin to destroy ethics. You begin to, or you transform ethics into something which is a contradiction of ethics. [00:16:00] So, there isn't an answer in it, in what he says. There's a complementarity, right? Hmm. There's the freedom to go outside, but if the freedom to go outside destroys any inside, then, what have you done?Right? Hmm. You've created an unlivable world. A world of such unending, such unimaginable obligation, as one now lives in Toronto, you know, where I pass homeless people all the time. I can't care for all of them. So, I think it's also a way of understanding for those who contemplate it that you really have to pay attention.What are you called to, right? What can you do? What is within your amplitude? What is urgent for you? Do that thing, right? Do not make yourself mad with [00:17:00] impossible charity. A charity you don't feel, you can't feel, you couldn't feel. Right? Take care of what's at hand, what you can take care of. What calls you.Chris: I think this comes up quite a bit these days. Especially, in light of international conflicts, conflicts that arise far from people's homes and yet the demand of that 'ought' perhaps of having to be aware and having to have or having to feel some kind of responsibility for these things that are happening in other places that maybe, It's not that they don't have anything to do with us but that our ability to have any kind of recourse for what happens in those places is perhaps flippant, fleeting, and even that we're stretched to the point that we can't even tend and attend to what's happening in front of us in our neighborhoods.And so, I'm curious as to how this came to be. You mentioned "the corruption" [00:18:00] and maybe we could just define that, if possible for our listeners this notion of "the corruption of the best is the worst." Would you be willing to do that? Do you think that that's an easy thing to do? David: I've been trying for 30 years.I can keep on trying. I really, I mean, that was the seed of everything. At the end of the interview we did in 1988, Ivan dropped that little bomb on me. And I was a diligent man, and I had prepared very carefully. I'd read everything he'd written and then at the very end of the interview, he says the whole history of the West can be summed up in the phrase, Corruptio Optimi Pessima.He was quite fluent in Latin. The corruption of the best is the worst. And I thought, wait a minute, the whole history of the West? This is staggering. So, yes, I've been reflecting on it for a long time, but I think there are many ways to speak [00:19:00] about the incarnation, the idea that God is present and visible in the form of a human being, that God indeed is a human being in the person of Jesus Christ.One way is to think of it as a kind of nuclear explosion of religion. Religion had always been the placation of a god. Right? A sacrifice of some kind made to placate a god. Now the god is present. It could be you. Jesus is explicit about it, and I think that is the most important thing for Iman in reading the gospel, is that God appears to us as one another.Hmm. If you can put it, one another in the most general sense of that formula. So, that's explosive, right? I mean, religion, in a certain way, up to that moment, is society. It's the [00:20:00] integument of every society. It's the nature of the beast to be religious in the sense of having an understanding of how you're situated and in what order and with what foundation that order exists. It's not an intellectual thing. It's just what people do. Karl Barth says religion is a yoke. So, it has in a certain way exploded or been exploded at that moment but it will of course be re instituted as a religion. What else could happen? And so Ivan says, and this probably slim New Testament warrant for this, but this was his story, that in the very earliest apostolic church. They were aware of this danger, right? That Christ must be shadowed by "Antichrist," a term that Ivan was brave enough to use. The word just has a [00:21:00] terrible, terrible history. I mean, the Protestants abused the Catholics with the name of Antichrist. Luther rages against the Pope as antichrist.Hmm. And the word persists now as a kind of either as a sign of evangelical dogmatism, or maybe as a joke, right. When I was researching it, I came across a book called "How to Tell If Your Boyfriend Is The Antichrist." Mm-Hmm. It's kind of a jokey thing in a way, in so far as people know, but he dared to use it as to say the antichrist is simply the instituted Christ.Right. It's not anything exotic. It's not anything theological. It's the inevitable worldly shadow of there being a Christ at all. And so that's, that's the beginning of the story. He, he claims that the church loses sight of this understanding, loses sight of the basic [00:22:00] complementarity or contradiction that's involved in the incarnation in the first place.That this is something that can never be owned, something that can never be instituted, something that can only happen again and again and again within each one. So, but heaven can never finally come to earth except perhaps in a story about the end, right? The new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem come down from heaven.Fine. That's at the end, not now. So that's the gist of what he, what he said. He has a detailed analysis of the stages of that journey, right? So, within your theme of hospitality the beginnings of the church becoming a social worker in the decaying Roman Empire. And beginning to develop institutions of hospitality, [00:23:00] places for all the flotsam and jetsam of the decaying empire.And then in a major way from the 11th through the 13th century, when the church institutes itself as a mini or proto state, right? With a new conception of law. Every element of our modernity prefigured in the medieval church and what it undertook, according to Ivan. This was all news to me when he first said it to me.So yeah, the story goes on into our own time when I think one of the primary paradoxes or confusions that we face is that most of the people one meets and deals with believe themselves to be living after Christianity and indeed to great opponents of Christianity. I mean, nothing is more important in Canada now than to denounce residential schools, let's say, right? Which were [00:24:00] the schools for indigenous children, boarding schools, which were mainly staffed by the church, right?So, the gothic figure of the nun, the sort of vulpine, sinister. That's the image of the church, right? So you have so many reasons to believe that you're after that. You've woken up, you're woke. And, and you see that now, right? So you don't In any way, see yourself as involved in this inversion of the gospel which has actually created your world and which is still, in so many ways, you.So, leftists today, if I'm using the term leftists very, very broadly, "progressives," people sometimes say, "woke," people say. These are all in a certain way super Christians or hyper Christians, but absolutely unaware of themselves as Christians and any day you can read an analysis [00:25:00] which traces everything back to the Enlightenment.Right? We need to re institute the Enlightenment. We've forgotten the Enlightenment. We have to get back to the, right? There's nothing before the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is the over, that's an earlier overcoming of Christianity, right? So modernity is constantly overcoming Christianity. And constantly forgetting that it's Christian.That these are the ways in which the Incarnation is working itself out. And one daren't say that it's bound to work itself out that way. Ivan will go as far as to say it's seemingly the will of God that it should work itself out that way. Right? Wow. So, that the Gospel will be preached to all nations as predicted at the end of the Gospels." Go therefore and preach to all nations," but it will not be preached in its explicit form. It will enter, as it were, through the [00:26:00] back door. So that's a very big thought. But it's a saving thought in certain ways, because it does suggest a way of unwinding, or winding up, this string of finding out how this happened.What is the nature of the misunderstanding that is being played out here? So. Chris: Wow. Yeah, I mean, I, I feel like what you just said was a kind of nuclear bomb unto its own. I remember reading, for example, James Hillman in The Terrible Love of War, and at the very end he essentially listed all, not all, but many of the major characteristics of modern people and said if you act this way, you are Christian.If you act this way, you are Christian. Essentially revealing that so much of modernity has these Christian roots. And, you know, you said in terms of this message and [00:27:00] corruption of the message going in through the back door. And I think that's what happens in terms of at least when we see institutions in the modern time, schools, hospitals, roads essentially modern institutions and lifestyles making their way into non modern places.And I'm very fascinated in this in terms of hospitality. You said that the church, and I think you're quoting Illich there, but " the church is a social worker." But also how this hospitality shows up in the early church and maybe even how they feared about what could happen as a result to this question of the incarnation.In your book it was just fascinating to read this that you said, or that you wrote, that "in the early years of Christianity it was customary in a Christian household to have an extra mattress, a bit of candle, and some dry bread in case the Lord Jesus should knock at the door in the form of a stranger without a roof, a form of behavior that was utterly [00:28:00] foreign to the cultures of the Roman Empire."In which many Christians lived. And you write, "you took in your own, but not someone lost on the street." And then later "When the emperor Constantine recognized the church, Christian bishops gained the power to establish social corporations." And this is, I think, the idea of the social worker. The church is a social worker.And you write that the first corporations they started were Samaritan corporations, which designated certain categories of people as preferred neighbors. For example, the bishops created special houses financed by the community that were charged with taking care of people without a home. Such care was no longer the free choice of the householder, it was the task of an institution.The appearance of these xenodocheia? Literally, quote, 'houses for foreigners' signified the beginning of a change in the nature of the church." And then of course you write and you mentioned this but "a gratuitous and truly [00:29:00] free choice of assisting the stranger has become an ideology and an idealism." Right. And so, this seems to be how the corruption of the Samaritan story, the corruption of breaking that threshold, or at least being able to cross it, comes to produce this incredible 'ought,' as you just kind of elaborated for us.And then this notion of, that we can't see it anymore. That it becomes this thing in the past, as you said. In other words, history. Right? And so my next question is a question that comes to some degree from our late mutual friend Gustavo, Gustavo Esteva. And I'd just like to preface it by a small sentence from An Intellectual Journey where he wrote that, "I think that limit, in Illich, is always linked to nemesis, or to what Jung calls [00:30:00] enantiodromia, his Greek word for the way in which any tendency, when pushed too far, can turn into its opposite. And so, a long time ago, Illich once asked Gustavo if he could identify a word that could describe the era after development, or perhaps after development's death.And Gustavo said, "hospitality." And so, much later, in a private conversation with Gustavo, in the context of tourism and gentrification, the kind that was beginning to sweep across Oaxaca at the time, some years ago, he told me that he considered "the sale of one's people's radical or local hospitality as a kind of invitation to hostility in the place and within the ethnos that one lives in."Another way of saying it might be that the subversion and absence of hospitality in a place breeds or can breed hostility.[00:31:00] I'm curious what you make of his comment in the light of limits, enantiodromia and the corruption that Illich talks about.David: Well I'd like to say one thing which is the thought I was having while you, while you were speaking because at the very beginning I mentioned a reservation a discomfort with words like perversion and corruption. And the thought is that it's easy to understand Illich as doing critique, right? And it's easy then to moralize that critique, right? And I think it's important that he's showing something that happens, right? And that I daren't say bound to happen, but is likely to happen because of who and what we are, that we will institutionalize, that we will make rules, that we will, right?So, I think it's important to rescue Ivan from being read [00:32:00] moralistically, or that you're reading a scold here, right? Hmm. Right. I mean, and many social critics are or are read as scolds, right? And contemporary people are so used to being scolded that they, and scold themselves very regularly. So, I just wanted to say that to rescue Ivan from a certain kind of reading. You're quoting Gustavo on the way in which the opening up of a culture touristically can lead to hostility, right? Right. And I think also commenting on the roots of the words are the same, right? "hostile," "hospice." They're drawing on the same, right?That's right. It's how one treats the enemy, I think. Hmm. It's the hinge. Hmm. In all those words. What's the difference between hospitality and hostility?[00:33:00] So, I think that thought is profound and profoundly fruitful. So, I think Gustavo had many resources in expressing it.I couldn't possibly express it any better. And I never answered you at the beginning how I met Gustavo, but on that occasion in 1988 when I was interviewing Illich, they were all gathered, a bunch of friends to write what was called The Development Dictionary, a series of essays trying to write an epilogue to the era of development.So, Gustavo, as you know, was a charming man who spoke a peculiarly beautiful English in which he was fluent, but somehow, you could hear the cadence of Spanish through it without it even being strongly accented. So I rejoiced always in interviewing Gustavo, which I did several times because he was such a pleasure to listen to.But anyway, I've digressed. Maybe I'm ducking your question. Do you want to re ask it or? Chris: Sure. [00:34:00] Yeah, I suppose. You know although there were a number of essays that Gustavo wrote about hospitality that I don't believe have been published they focused quite a bit on this notion of individual people, but especially communities putting limits on their hospitality.And of course, much of this hospitality today comes in the form of, or at least in the context of tourism, of international visitors. And that's kind of the infrastructure that's placed around it. And yet he was arguing essentially for limits on hospitality. And I think what he was seeing, although it hadn't quite come to fruition yet in Oaxaca, was that the commodification, the commercialization of one's local indigenous hospitality, once it's sold, or once it's only existing for the value or money of the foreigner, in a kind of customer service worldview, that it invites this deep [00:35:00] hostility. And so do these limits show up as well in Illich's work in terms of the stranger?Right? Because so much of the Christian tradition is based in a universal fraternity, universal brotherhood. David: I said that Ivan made sense to me in my youth, as a 22 year old man. So I've lived under his influence. I took him as a master, let's say and as a young person. And I would say that probably it's true that I've never gone anywhere that I haven't been invited to go.So I, I could experience that, that I was called to be there. And he was quite the jet setter, so I was often called by him to come to Mexico or to go to Germany or whatever it was. But we live in a world that is so far away from the world that might have been, let's say, the world that [00:36:00] might be.So John Milbank, a British theologian who's Inspiring to me and a friend and somebody who I found surprisingly parallel to Illich in a lot of ways after Ivan died and died I think feeling that he was pretty much alone in some of his understandings. But John Milbank speaks of the, of recovering the future that we've lost, which is obviously have to be based on some sort of historical reconstruction. You have to find the place to go back to, where the wrong turning was, in a certain way. But meanwhile, we live in this world, right? Where even where you are, many people are dependent on tourism. Right? And to that extent they live from it and couldn't instantly do without. To do without it would be, would be catastrophic. Right? So [00:37:00] it's it's not easy to live in both worlds. Right? To live with the understanding that this is, as Gustavo says, it's bound to be a source of hostility, right?Because we can't sell what is ours as an experience for others without changing its character, right, without commodifying it. It's impossible to do. So it must be true and yet, at a certain moment, people feel that it has to be done, right? And so you have to live in in both realities.And in a certain way, the skill of living in both realities is what's there at the beginning, right? That, if you take the formula of the incarnation as a nuclear explosion, well you're still going to have religion, right? So, that's inevitable. The [00:38:00] world has changed and it hasn't changed at the same time.And that's true at every moment. And so you learn to walk, right? You learn to distinguish the gospel from its surroundings. And a story about Ivan that made a big impression on me was that when he was sent to Puerto Rico when he was still active as a priest in 1956 and became vice rector of the Catholic University at Ponce and a member of the school board.A position that he regarded as entirely political. So he said, "I will not in any way operate as a priest while I'm performing a political function because I don't want these two things to get mixed up." And he made a little exception and he bought a little shack in a remote fishing village.Just for the happiness of it, he would go there and say mass for the fishermen who didn't know anything about this other world. So, but that was[00:39:00] a radical conviction and put him at odds with many of the tendencies of his time, as for example, what came to be called liberation theology, right?That there could be a politicized theology. His view was different. His view was that the church as "She," as he said, rather than "it," had to be always distinguished, right? So it was the capacity to distinguish that was so crucial for him. And I would think even in situations where tourism exists and has the effect Gustavo supposed, the beginning of resistance to that and the beginning of a way out of it, is always to distinguish, right?To know the difference, which is a slim read, but, but faith is always a slim read and Ivan's first book, his first collection of published essays was [00:40:00] called Celebration of Awareness which is a way of saying that, what I call know the difference. Chris: So I'm going to, if I can offer you this, this next question, which comes from James, a friend in Guelph, Canada. And James is curious about the missionary mandate of Christianity emphasizing a fellowship in Christ over ethnicity and whether or not this can be reconciled with Illich's perhaps emphatic defense of local or vernacular culture.David: Well, yeah. He illustrates it. I mean, he was a worldwide guy. He was very far from his roots, which were arguably caught. He didn't deracinate himself. Hmm. He was with his mother and brothers exiled from Split in Dalmatia as a boy in the crazy atmosphere of the Thirties.But he was a tumbleweed after [00:41:00] that. Mm-Hmm. . And so, so I think we all live in that world now and this is confuses people about him. So, a historian called Todd Hart wrote a book still really the only book published in English on the history of CIDOC and Cuernavaca, in which he says Illich is anti-missionary. And he rebukes him for that and I would say that Ivan, on his assumptions cannot possibly be anti missionary. He says clearly in his early work that a Christian is a missionary or is not a Christian at all, in the sense that if one has heard the good news, one is going to share it, or one hasn't heard it. Now, what kind of sharing is that? It isn't necessarily, "you have to join my religion," "you have to subscribe to the following ten..." it isn't necessarily a catechism, it may be [00:42:00] an action. It may be a it may be an act of friendship. It may be an act of renunciation. It can be any number of things, but it has to be an outgoing expression of what one has been given, and I think he was, in that sense, always a missionary, and in many places, seeded communities that are seeds of the new church.Right? He spent well, from the time he arrived in the United States in 51, 52, till the time that he withdrew from church service in 68, he was constantly preaching and talking about a new church. And a new church, for him, involved a new relation between innovation and tradition. New, but not new.Since, when he looked back, he saw the gospel was constantly undergoing translation into new milieu, into new places, into new languages, into new forms.[00:43:00] But he encountered it in the United States as pretty much in one of its more hardened or congealed phases, right? And it was the export of that particular brand of cultural and imperialistic, because American, and America happened to be the hegemon of the moment. That's what he opposed.The translation of that into Latin America and people like to write each other into consistent positions, right? So, he must then be anti missionary across the board, right? But so I think you can be local and universal. I mean, one doesn't even want to recall that slogan of, you know, "act locally, think globally," because it got pretty hackneyed, right?And it was abused. But, it's true in a certain way that that's the only way one can be a Christian. The neighbor, you said it, I wrote it, Ivan said it, " the neighbor [00:44:00] can be anyone." Right?But here I am here now, right? So both have to apply. Both have to be true. It's again a complementary relation. And it's a banal thought in a certain way, but it seems to be the thought that I think most often, right, is that what creates a great deal of the trouble in the world is inability to think in a complementary fashion.To think within, to take contradiction as constituting the world. The world is constituted of contradiction and couldn't be constituted in any other way as far as we know. Right? You can't walk without two legs. You can't manipulate without two arms, two hands. We know the structure of our brains. Are also bilateral and everything about our language is constructed on opposition.Everything is oppositional and yet [00:45:00] when we enter the world of politics, it seems we're going to have it all one way. The church is going to be really Christian, and it's going to make everybody really Christian, or communist, what have you, right? The contradiction is set aside. Philosophy defines truth as the absence of contradiction.Hmm. Basically. Hmm. So, be in both worlds. Know the difference. Walk on two feet. That's Ivan. Chris: I love that. And I'm, I'm curious about you know, one of the themes of the podcast is exile. And of course that can mean a lot of things. In the introduction to An Intellectual Journey, you wrote that that Illich, "once he had left Split in the 30s, that he began an experience of exile that would characterize his entire life."You wrote that he had lost "not just the home, but the very possibility [00:46:00] of home." And so it's a theme that characterizes as well the podcast and a lot of these conversations around travel, migration, tourism, what does it mean to be at home and so, this, This notion of exile also shows up quite a bit in the Christian faith.And maybe this is me trying to escape the complementarity of the reality of things. But I tend to see exile as inherently I'll say damaging or consequential in a kind of negative light. And so I've been wondering about this, this exilic condition, right? It's like in the Abrahamic faith, as you write "Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all begin in exile.And eventually this pattern culminates. Jesus is executed outside the gates of the city, nailed to a cross that excludes him even from his native earth." And you write that "exile is in many ways the [00:47:00] Christian condition." And so, you know, I've read that in the past, Christian monks often consider themselves to be homeless, removed from the sort of daily life of the local community in the monasteries and abbeys and yet still of a universal brotherhood. And so I'd like to ask you if you feel this exilic condition, which seems to be also a hallmark of modernity, this kind of constant uprooting this kind of as I would call it, cultural and spiritual homelessness of our time, if you think that is part of the corruption that Illich based his work around?David: Well, one can barely imagine the world in which Abram, who became Abraham said to God, no, I'm staying in Ur. Not going, I'm not going. Right? I mean, if you go back to Genesis and you re read that passage, when God shows [00:48:00] Abraham the land that he will inherit, it says already there, "there were people at that time living in the land," right?Inconvenient people, as it turns out. Palestinians. So, there's a profound contradiction here, I think. And the only way I think you can escape it is to understand the Gospel the way Ivan understood it, which is as something super added to existing local cultures, right? A leaven, right?Hmm. Not everything about a local culture or a local tradition is necessarily good. Mm hmm. And so it can be changed, right? And I would say that Illich insists that Christians are and must be missionaries. They've received something that they it's inherent in what they've [00:49:00] received that they pass it on.So the world will change, right? But Ivan says, this is in Rivers North of the Future, that it's his conviction that the Gospel could have been preached without destroying local proportions, the sense of proportion, and he put a great weight on the idea of proportionality as not just, a pleasing building or a pleasing face, but the very essence of, of how a culture holds together, right, that things are proportioned within it to one another that the gospel could have been preached without the destruction of proportions, but evidently it wasn't, because the Christians felt they had the truth and they were going to share it. They were going to indeed impose it for the good of the other.So, I think a sense of exile and a sense of home are as [00:50:00] necessary to one another as in Ivan's vision of a new church, innovation, and tradition, or almost any other constitutive couplet you can think of, right? You can't expunge exile from the tradition. But you also can't allow it to overcome the possibility of home.I mean, Ivan spoke of his own fate as a peculiar fate, right? He really anticipated the destruction of the Western culture or civilization. I mean, in the sense that now this is a lament on the political right, mainly, right? The destruction of Western civilization is something one constantly hears about.But, he, in a way, in the chaos and catastrophe of the 30s, already felt the death of old Europe. And even as a boy, I think, semi consciously at least, took the roots inside himself, took them with him [00:51:00] and for many people like me, he opened that tradition. He opened it to me. He allowed me to re inhabit it in a certain way, right?So to find intimations of home because he wasn't the only one who lost his home. Even as a man of 78, the world in which I grew up here is gone, forgotten, and to some extent scorned by younger people who are just not interested in it. And so it's through Ivan that I, in a way, recovered the tradition, right?And if the tradition is related to the sense of home, of belonging to something for good or ill, then that has to be carried into the future as best we can, right? I think Ivan was searching for a new church. He didn't think. He had found it. He didn't think he knew what it was.I don't think he [00:52:00] described certain attributes of it. Right. But above all, he wanted to show that the church had taken many forms in the past. Right. And it's worldly existence did not have to be conceived on the model of a monarchy or a parish, right, another form that he described in some early essays, right.We have to find the new form, right? It may be radically non theological if I can put it like that. It may not necessarily involve the buildings that we call churches but he believed deeply in the celebrating community. As the center, the root the essence of social existence, right? The creation of home in the absence of home, or the constant recreation of home, right? Since I mean, we will likely never again live in pure [00:53:00] communities, right? Yeah. I don't know if pure is a dangerous word, but you know what I mean?Consistent, right? Closed. We're all of one kind, right? Right. I mean, this is now a reactionary position, right? Hmm. You're a German and you think, well, Germany should be for the Germans. I mean, it can't be for the Germans, seemingly. We can't put the world back together again, right?We can't go back and that's a huge misreading of Illich, right? That he's a man who wants to go back, right? No. He was radically a man who wanted to rediscover the future. And rescue it. Also a man who once said to hell with the future because he wanted to denounce the future that's a computer model, right? All futures that are projections from the present, he wanted to denounce in order to rediscover the future. But it has to be ahead of us. It's not. And it has to recover the deposit that is behind us. So [00:54:00] both, the whole relation between past and future and indeed the whole understanding of time is out of whack.I think modern consciousness is so entirely spatialized that the dimension of time is nearly absent from it, right? The dimension of time as duration as the integument by which past, present and future are connected. I don't mean that people can't look at their watch and say, you know, "I gotta go now, I've got a twelve o'clock." you know.So, I don't know if that's an answer to James.Chris: I don't know, but it's food for thought and certainly a feast, if I may say so. David, I have two final questions for you, if that's all right, if you have time. Okay, wonderful. So, speaking of this notion of home and and exile and the complementarity of the two and you know you wrote and [00:55:00] spoke to this notion of Illich wanting to rediscover the future and he says that "we've opened a horizon on which new paradigms for thought can appear," which I think speaks to what you were saying and At some point Illich compares the opening of horizons to leaving home on a pilgrimage, as you write in your book."And not the pilgrimage of the West, which leads over a traveled road to a famed sanctuary, but rather the pilgrimage of the Christian East, which does not know where the road might lead and the journey end." And so my question is, What do you make of that distinction between these types of pilgrimages and what kind of pilgrimage do you imagine might be needed in our time?David: Well, I, I mean, I think Ivan honored the old style of pilgrimage whether it was to [00:56:00] Canterbury or Santiago or wherever it was to. But I think ivan's way of expressing the messianic was in the word surprise, right? One of the things that I think he did and which was imposed on him by his situation and by his times was to learn to speak to people in a way that did not draw on any theological resource, so he spoke of his love of surprises, right? Well, a surprise by definition is what you don't suspect, what you don't expect. Or it couldn't be a surprise.So, the The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela is very beautiful, I think. I've only ever seen pictures of it, but you must expect to see it at the end of your road. You must hope to see it at the end of your road. Well the surprise is going to be something else. Something that isn't known.[00:57:00] And it was one of his Great gifts to me that within the structure of habit and local existence, since I'm pretty rooted where I am. And my great grandfather was born within walking distance of where I am right now. He helped me to look for surprises and to accept them also, right?That you're going to show up or someone else is going to show up, right? But there's going to be someone coming and you want to look out for the one who's coming and not, but not be at all sure that you know who or what it is or which direction it's coming from. So, that was a way of life in a certain way that I think he helped others within their limitations, within their abilities, within their local situations, to see the world that way, right. That was part of what he did. Chris: Yeah, it's really beautiful and I can [00:58:00] see how in our time, in a time of increasing division and despondency and neglect, fear even, resentment of the other, that how that kind of surprise and the lack of expectation, the undermining, the subversion of expectation can find a place into perhaps the mission of our times.And so my final question comes back to friendship. and interculturality. And I have one final quote here from An Intellectual Journey, which I highly recommend everyone pick up, because it's just fascinating and blows open so many doors. David: We need to sell a few more books, because I want that book in paperback. Because I want it to be able to live on in a cheaper edition. So, yes. Chris: Of course. Thank you. Yeah. Please, please pick it up. It's worth every penny. So in An Intellectual Journey, it is written[00:59:00] by Illich that "when I submit my heart, my mind, my body, I come to be below the other. When I listen unconditionally, respectfully, courageously, with the readiness to take in the other as a radical surprise, I do something else. I bow, bend over toward the total otherness of someone. But I renounce searching for bridges between the other and me, recognizing that a gulf separates us.Leaning into this chasm makes me aware of the depth of my loneliness, and able to bear it in the light of the substantial likeness between the Other and myself. All that reaches me is the Other in His Word, which I accept on faith."And so, David at another point in the biography you quote Illich describing faith as foolish. Now assuming that faith elicits a degree of danger or [01:00:00] betrayal or that it could elicit that through a kind of total trust, is that nonetheless necessary to accept the stranger or other as they are? Or at least meet the stranger or other as they are? David: I would think so, yeah. I mean the passage you've quoted, I think to understand it, it's one of the most profound of his sayings to me and one I constantly revert to, but to accept the other in his word, or on his word, or her word, is, I think you need to know that he takes the image of the word as the name of the Lord, very, very seriously, and its primary way of referring to the Christ, is "as the Word."Sometimes explicitly, sometimes not explicitly, you have to interpret. So, when he says that he renounces looking for bridges, I think he's mainly referring [01:01:00] to ideological intermediations, right, ways in which I, in understanding you exceed my capacity. I try to change my name for you, or my category for you, changes you, right?It doesn't allow your word. And, I mean, he wasn't a man who suffered fools gladly. He had a high regard for himself and used his time in a fairly disciplined way, right? He wasn't waiting around for others in their world. So by word, what does he mean?What is the other's word? Right? It's something more fundamental than the chatter of a person. So, I think what that means is that we can be linked to one another by Christ. So that's [01:02:00] the third, right? That yes, we're alone. Right? We haven't the capacity to reach each other, except via Christ.And that's made explicit for him in the opening of Aylred of Riveau's Treatise on Friendship, which was peculiarly important to him. Aylred was an abbot at a Cistercian monastery in present day Yorkshire, which is a ruin now. But he wrote a treatise on friendship in the 12th century and he begins by addressing his brother monk, Ivo, and says, you know, " here we are, you and I, and I hope a third Christ."So, Christ is always the third, right? So, in that image of the gulf, the distance, experiencing myself and my loneliness and yet renouncing any bridge, there is still a word, the word, [01:03:00] capital W, in which a word, your word, my word, participates, or might participate. So, we are building, according to him, the body of Christ but we have to renounce our designs on one another, let's say, in order to do that. So I mean, that's a very radical saying, the, the other in his word and in another place in The Rivers North of the Future, he says how hard that is after a century of Marxism or Freudianism, he mentions. But, either way he's speaking about my pretension to know you better than you know yourself, which almost any agency in our world that identifies needs, implicitly does. I know what's best for you. So Yeah, his waiting, his ability to wait for the other one is, is absolutely [01:04:00] foundational and it's how a new world comes into existence. And it comes into existence at every moment, not at some unimaginable future when we all wait at the same time, right? My friend used to say that peace would come when everybody got a good night's sleep on the same night. It's not very likely, is it? Right, right, right. So, anyway, there we are. Chris: Wow. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to listening to this interview again, because I feel like just like An Intellectual Journey, just like your most recent book my mind has been, perhaps exploded, another nuclear bomb dropped.David: Chris, nice to meet you. Chris: Yeah, I'll make sure that that book and, of course, links to yours are available on the end of the website. David: Alright, thank you. Chris: Yeah, deep bow, David. Thank you for your time today. David: All the best. And thank you for those questions. Yeah. That was that was very interesting. You know, I spent my life as an interviewer. A good part of my [01:05:00] life. And interviewing is very hard work. It's much harder than talking. Listening is harder than talking. And rarer. So, it's quite a pleasure for me, late in life, to be able to just let her rip, and let somebody else worry about is this going in the right direction? So, thank you. Get full access to ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

Joey Taylor & Sam Pressler speak with Pete Davis about Join or Die, which he directed with Rebecca Davis.The Lost Prophets PodcastPete's Interview with SamDedicated by Pete DavisBowling Alone by PutnamThe Upswing by PutnamSum of Us by McGheeAgainst Everyone with Conner Habib PodcastWeird Studies PodcastLindy Effect - Nicholas Nassim TalebThe MaintainersQuest for Community by NisbetFebruary 2nd, 1968 by Wendell Berry Small is Beautiful by SchumacherThe Creation of the American Republic by WoodOur Divided Political Heart by DionneTriplets of Evil Speech by KingBoy in the Bubble by Paul SimonJane Macelevy, Eddie Glaude, Frederick Law Olmsted, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jane Jacobs, Buckminster Fuller, Ralph Nader, Paul Goodman, Ella Baker, Ivan Illich, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, Marshal McLuhan, Tony Judt, Thomas Merton, Michael Lind, Frank Capra, Elias Krim, Roberto Unger, Alexis De Tocqueville, Priya Parker

Grandpa Bill today talks about-In the Vineyard of the textGrandpa Bill's Holistic Healing Hour is a podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern wellness. Join host Grandpa Bill as he delves into holistic healing practices, natural remedies, and spiritual insights. In this episode, GB explores the philosophical and educational concepts presented in Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text, focusing on Chapter Five: Scholastic Reading. Brief Description of Chapter Five and the Book Overall: In the Vineyard of the Text is a seminal work by Ivan Illich that explores the history and culture of the book. Chapter Five: Scholastic Reading delves into the evolution of reading practices from the medieval period to the modern age. Illich critiques the standardization of education and the commodification of knowledge. He emphasizes the importance of individual agency and the cultivation of a personal relationship with books. Grandpa Bill Asks: How does the standardization of education impact the quality of learning? Do you believe that standardized tests and curricula stifle creativity and individuality? What is the role of technology in education? Does technology enhance or hinder the learning process? #GrandpaBill, #HolisticHealing, #InTheVineyardOfTheText,#IvanIllich, #Education, #Philosophy, #ScholasticReading, #Podcast, #YouTube,: "The Future of Education: A Deep Dive into Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text""Beyond Standardized Tests: A Holistic Approach to Learning""The Power of Personal Reading: A Reflection on Illich's Insights" Grandpa Bill today is Encouraging listeners to: Leave comments: Sharing your thoughts, questions, or personal experiences related to the podcast topic. Interact: Engaging with the podcast by liking, subscribing, and sharing it with friends and family. Holistic Health Secrets and Life-Sales Strategies with Grandpa BillNourish Your Soul, Boost Your Business:The BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Healing Hour ExperienceWebsite: https://www.7kmetals.com/grandpabillYouTube: Bill Holt@billholt8792Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/bill.sales.524Social Media:https://www.instagram.com/bradybrodyboy12/Voicemail Message Board: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bhsalesJOIN US EVERY TUESDAY AT 6PM. EST.Seth Leaf Pruzansky Freedom Snap-⁠https://freedomsnap.org/Seth/⁠https://www.imawakenowwhat.com/BH Sales Kennel Kelp Holistic Virtual MallPatriot Supply Link:⁠⁠⁠https://mypatriotsupply.com/?rfsn=5615494.137cb6⁠⁠⁠Health Ranger Link:⁠⁠⁠https://www.healthrangerstore.com/?⁠⁠rfsn=301296.96452b2&utm_source=HR_Affiliate&utm_campaign=14708&utm_affiliate=301296⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Healer.com⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.HealerCBD.com/?ref=11⁠⁠Tim Doyle Path to Oneness-https://thepathtooneness.com/Byron Athene -https://byronathene.com/Isabella Thor,NLP-https://isabellathor.com/Seth Leaf Pruzansky Freedom Snap-⁠https://freedomsnap.org/Seth/⁠

Questions? Comments? Text Us!What happens when your world is suddenly turned upside down, and the answers you seek seem elusive? In this episode of What's On Your Mind, we share the latest reflections from Rachel, a mother who felt a divine hug as she waited hour by hour as her son fought for his life. Through the support of loved ones and the act of journaling Bible verses, Rachel found the peace and strength she needed, ultimately witnessing her son's recovery. Rachel's story is a testament to resilient faith and communal love inspiring "fierce faith" and trust in divine guidance. Jerry and Scott discuss the necessity of living intentionally, filled with gratitude, even amid life's curveballs. Drawing from personal experiences and literary works like Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Illich," the two highlight the universal nature of suffering and the comfort that comes from trusting a higher power.You have a spiritual compass- are you following God's pull? Don't miss this enriching episode filled with heartfelt stories, practical advice, and spiritual wisdom. Other Series:Life Wisdom Project- How to live a wiser, happier, and more meaningful life with special guests.From God To Jerry To You- A series calling for the attention of spiritual seekers everywhere, featuring breakthroughs, pathways, and illuminations.Two Philosophers Wrestle With God- Sit in on a dialogue between philosophers about God and the questions we all have.What's On Our Mind- Connect the dots with Jerry and Scott over the most recent series of episodes.What's On Your Mind- What are readers and listeners saying? What is God saying?Resources:READ: "Yes, That Is Certainly Me."WATCH: What's On Your Mind Series PreviewWHAT'S ON YOUR MIND PLAYLISTHashtags: #whatsonyourmind #godanautobiography #experiencegodWould you like to be featured on the show or have questions about spirituality or divine communication? Share your story or experience with God! We'd love to hear from you!

It's here! Lecture 1 of Introduction to Ivan Illich at Theory Underground with Bryan Weeks, which took place on June 13th of 2024. You can access the rest of the course here: https://theoryunderground.com/courses/illich-1     ABOUT / CREDITS / LINKS Become a monthly TU Tier Subscriber to access to the TU HUB, which includes past, ongoing, and upcoming courses, special events, office hours, clubs, and critical feedback that will help you evolve your comprehension capacities and critical faculties, via the website here: https://theoryunderground.com/product/tu-subscription-tiers/    Don't have time for that but want to help anyway? Consider supporting the patreon here: Welcome to Theory Underground. https://www.patreon.com/TheoryUnderground   Get TU books at a discount: https://theoryunderground.com/publications   Theory Underground is a lecture, research, and publishing platform by and for working class intellectuals, autodidacts, and academics who want to do more than they are able to within the confines of academia.   Think of Theory Underground like a Jiu Jitsu gym for your brain. Or like a post-political theory church. It doesn't matter. None of the analogies will do it justice. We're post-identity anyway. Just see if the vibe is right for you. We hope you get something out of it!   If you want to help me get setup sooner/faster in a totally gratuitous way, or support me but you don't care about the subscription or want to bother with the monthly stuff, here is a way to buy me something concrete and immediately useful, then you can buy me important equipment for my office on this list (these items will be automatically shipped to my address if you use the list here) https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2MAWFYUJQIM58?   Buy me some coffee: https://www.venmo.com/u/Theorypleeb https://paypal.me/theorypleeb   If Theory Underground has helped you see that text-to-speech technologies are a useful way of supplementing one's reading while living a busy life, if you want to be able to listen to PDFs for yourself, then Speechify is recommended. Use the link below and Theory Underground gets credit! https://share.speechify.com/mzwBHEB Follow Theory Underground on Duolingo: https://invite.duolingo.com/BDHTZTB5CWWKTP747NSNMAOYEI See Theory Underground memes here: https://www.instagram.com/theory_underground/ https://tiktok.com/@theory_underground   Missed a course at Theory Underground? Wrong! Courses at Theory Underground are available after the fact on demand. https://theoryunderground.com/courses   MUSIC CREDITS Logo sequence music by https://olliebeanz.com/music https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode Mike Chino, Demigods https://youtu.be/M6wruxDngOk            

Bryan Weeks on Ivan Illich, the schooling system, and changing educational institutions. If you want to sign up for Introduction to Illich, you can enroll here: http://theoryunderground.com/courses/illich-1     ABOUT / CREDITS / LINKS Become a monthly TU Tier Subscriber to access to the TU HUB, which includes past, ongoing, and upcoming courses, special events, office hours, clubs, and critical feedback that will help you evolve your comprehension capacities and critical faculties, via the website here: https://theoryunderground.com/product/tu-subscription-tiers/    Don't have time for that but want to help anyway? Consider supporting the patreon here: Welcome to Theory Underground. https://www.patreon.com/TheoryUnderground   Get TU books at a discount: https://theoryunderground.com/publications   Theory Underground is a lecture, research, and publishing platform by and for working class intellectuals, autodidacts, and academics who want to do more than they are able to within the confines of academia.   Think of Theory Underground like a Jiu Jitsu gym for your brain. Or like a post-political theory church. It doesn't matter. None of the analogies will do it justice. We're post-identity anyway. Just see if the vibe is right for you. We hope you get something out of it!   If you want to help me get setup sooner/faster in a totally gratuitous way, or support me but you don't care about the subscription or want to bother with the monthly stuff, here is a way to buy me something concrete and immediately useful, then you can buy me important equipment for my office on this list (these items will be automatically shipped to my address if you use the list here) https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2MAWFYUJQIM58?   Buy me some coffee: https://www.venmo.com/u/Theorypleeb https://paypal.me/theorypleeb   If Theory Underground has helped you see that text-to-speech technologies are a useful way of supplementing one's reading while living a busy life, if you want to be able to listen to PDFs for yourself, then Speechify is recommended. Use the link below and Theory Underground gets credit! https://share.speechify.com/mzwBHEB Follow Theory Underground on Duolingo: https://invite.duolingo.com/BDHTZTB5CWWKTP747NSNMAOYEI See Theory Underground memes here: https://www.instagram.com/theory_underground/ https://tiktok.com/@theory_underground   Missed a course at Theory Underground? Wrong! Courses at Theory Underground are available after the fact on demand. https://theoryunderground.com/courses   MUSIC CREDITS Logo sequence music by https://olliebeanz.com/music https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode Mike Chino, Demigods https://youtu.be/M6wruxDngOk            

On this episode, my guest is Manish Jain, a man deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems, cultural imaginations and inter-cultural dialogue. Inspired by MK Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore,  Ivan Illich, his illiterate village grandmother, his unschooled daughter, indigenous communities and Jain spiritual philosophy, he is one of the leading planetary voices for deschooling our lives and reimagining education. He has served for the past 25 years as Chief Beaver (ecosystems builder) of Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of some of the most innovative educational experiments in the world - the Swaraj University, the Jail University, Complexity University, Tribal Farmversity, the Creativity Adda, the Learning Societies Unconference, the Walkouts-Walk-on network, Udaipur as a Learning City, the Families Learning Together network, Berkana Exchange.  He co-launched the global Ecoversities Alliance with 500+ members in 50 countries. Show Notes:Kidnapped by the American DreamGrandma's UniversityReclaiming our Cultural ImaginationCultural Imagination for the Culturally HomelessThe Radical and Exponential Power of TrustUnlearning Cultural Appropriation in the Oral TraditionJugard, or “playful improvisation”Being Reclaimed by AncestorsSwaraj University - Money, Love, and DeathAlivelihoods and DeadlihoodsTraditions of Hospitality in RajasthanEcoversitiesHomework:Swaraj University WebsiteEcoversities WebsiteJugaad (Wikipedia)Transcript:[00:00:00] Welcome, Manish, to the End of Tourism podcast. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Chris. Great to be here. Great to be with you. Speaking of here, I was wondering if you could share with our listeners where you find yourself today and maybe what the world looks like for you where you are. Yes, I live in a very magical place called Udaipur.It's in Rajasthan, India. I have been here for the last 25 years. Before that I was moving cities every year. I was living in the U. S. and Europe. And my village is about two hours from where I live, from the city. And I have lots of relatives here, lots of ancestors around. And this happens to be one of the major tourist destinations of India.So it's an interesting combination of very [00:01:00] cosmopolitan kind of global jet set coming in, but also lots of traditional culture, local knowledge, still alive. We were lucky to be called backwards and underdeveloped. And so many things have remained but again under, under continuous threat by kind of urbanization and global economy.But yeah, it's a very beautiful place, lots of palaces, lakes all kinds of animals on the street. On a good day you'll see an elephant walking down the street or a camel just in our neighborhoods and yeah, I love it here. So it's, I mean, it's found a place in my heart for sure. Hmm. What a gift. What a gift to, to live in a place that you love and, you know, it seems to be that question at the heart of the themes of the podcast and in that regard, I wanted to begin by asking you a little bit about your journey, Manish. So[00:02:00] from what I've read, from what I've heard, a lot of your work centers around de schooling and unlearning, specifically with Swaraj University and other educational endeavors, Ecoversities being one of them.And I'd like to return to those themes and projects in a little bit and start by asking you, among other things, about your earlier accolades as a Harvard graduate and someone with a degree from Brown University. One of your bios says that you worked for, among others the American multinational investment bank, Morgan Stanley, as well as UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, and USAID in South Asia, Africa, and the former Soviet Union.And so I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share what led to your initial involvement in these rather prominent institutions, and then subsequently, what led to leaving them behind thereafter? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, hearing that [00:03:00] always gives me the shivers a little bit. It's like such a long time ago now. But so I kind of actually grew up with a deep sense of wanting to serve, serve the world. And when I was growing up I actually, I tell people I was kidnapped when I was three years old, born in India, but then taken to the U. S. Kidnapped by the American dream, which I over time realized was a nightmare for most of the planet. So this deep sense of service has always been, been with me, maybe from my mother, from my father, from my grandparents, many, many sources from, inspired by also Gandhi and, and Tagore and many other Indian freedom fighters.But I kind of grew up with this narrative, if you want to serve, you should go to the big places, the places of big power, those institutions, that's where you can influence, that's where you can make the most impact. And so that kind of was a trajectory that I, I kind of [00:04:00] got put on I kind of was very good.I never liked being in these institutions, but I was very good at faking it I faked it through school all the way to Harvard and, and so I was pretty good at faking it and eventually it caught up with me and I started feeling like I was becoming a fake. So, but going to those places I thought there were, you know, those were the centers of power and that when I got there, I started feeling that these places, each of these places, one by one, I started realizing that they were actually quite powerless in many ways, surrounded by a sense of scarcity and fear and very limited imagination.And so one by one, I became disillusioned with each of each of those places. I was expecting that, you know, these would be the places which could help serve humanity, but I realized that they were built on, you know, this continuous model of extraction and colonization and exploitation of [00:05:00] life.And so even with education, I felt like, okay education will be the solution and I started realizing that education was a huge part of the problem. And so that's what led me started me on the de schooling path to try to see how we can find other ways besides relying on these institutions and the logic of capitalism and commodification to solve our problems. You know, over time I started really developing a severe mistrust of experts.I was one of them, like, although I'm fake and so are the rest of these guys. So by the time I was 28, I hit the wall. And I was like I don't have anywhere else to go, I've been to all these big places, and I don't really see, see any hope from them. I don't think they can be repaired either or that they can actually take the kinds of initiatives that are needed to change the game.So that's what led me back to India then[00:06:00] to be with my illiterate village grandmother. And I thought I'll take care of her. And then I, my wife and I realized that we had inadvertently become part of our grandmother's university and she was our unlearning guru. To both Get beyond I would say a lot of our own fears and anxieties, get beyond a lot of the, let's say Western liberal do gooder frameworks, get beyond our attachment to institutions just to solve things for us and start to understand and remember, I think remembering is a word that I have discussed many times with old common friend of ours, Gustavo Esteva, but start to remember that we have much more richness and wealth and creativity, possibility within us and our, and within our communities. So that's been a little bit of the journey to re remember and reclaim and reimagine things.I [00:07:00] remember seeing in one of your talks that you said that your work or to you, what you understood your work to be is, is a way of reclaiming our cultural imagination. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that. Yeah, I think basically I think the deepest form of colonization has happened is to our imaginations.And there is a phrase from the eighties from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher called TINA. "There Is No Alternative." So, as there was an uprising that started happening around the world questioning the dominant development paradigm, the global economy, it was quickly suppressed, repressed by this phrase, TINA.This is the best system that we have, and you know, there's, there's nothing beyond it, so you should just try to improve what's there. And so I think what then [00:08:00] people are forced into is to try to fix or let's say work with what is the existing frameworks and definitions that we have been fed about things like progress or development or success or happiness and then we are all in a very deep endless losing race to try to catch up with something.And we're not even sure what happens when you win. Maybe that's where it hit me. You know, there's a saying, if you, if you beat them at their own game, you lose everything. And so I kind of started realizing that personally, and also when I was looking at the development paradigm more different more closely.So I think, you know, what else is possible first of beyond the kind of logic of the rational mind, what's possible beyond the anthropocentric perspectives that we have on life, what's possible beyond global corporations and institutions deciding what's best for us, what's [00:09:00] possible beyond markets and technologies as the solutions for all of the planet's woes.I think that's what we're trying to explore when I talk about cultural imagination. And I, I think that the first step is to open up the definitions again. This is another thing I think many of my elders, Gustavo, and, Ivan Illich and a person here in India who was a friend of Gustavo's, Claude Alvarez, many were urging us that we need to open up the definitions of things.So that's what usually I think in a lot of the decolonial movements, what didn't happen that we accepted their definitions of development of the good life, all of those things. And then we started pursuing that, but actually it's a very exciting time that we can actually crack that open. And see, okay, what is it?Little Bhutan, a country of 700, 000. People asking, you know, what is happiness? And saying that[00:10:00] you know, the West, you guys have all the money, you guys have all the technology, you have all the armies, but are your people happy? So I think, you know, this is happening in obviously in Latin America, "buen vivir," in India, Swaraj, so many movements, which I think are challenging the given definitions and creating a space for us to dream differently, to tap into a different worldview which recognizes a sense of the sacred and recognizes that we are not just, you know, cogs in the machine in terms of our purpose on this earth. So I think those are, that's a little bit of what I mean by reclaiming the cultural imagination. Hmm. And you mentioned Swaraj and I'm really excited to dive into that and see where this notion of reclaiming cultural imagination fits there in a place and not just in philosophies.But I wanted to ask you this kind of this little follow up question in regards to the cultural imagination. Because we've [00:11:00] had the great honor to befriend and learn from people like Gustavo. But I think of my family and friends and compañeros, colleagues in Toronto, major North American metropolis.And I wonder how reclaiming the cultural imagination looks like or could be for people who would consider themselves either cultural orphans or culturally homeless. You know I mean, you and I have distinct ties, it seems, and a lived memory to the places our people moved or migrated from or still live in.And so there's a bridge of sorts that already exists that on some level can still be crossed. What about the people who have no lived memory of where their people come from or who would admit, or at least can offer up the idea that they have no culture? Yeah, so, oh, that's a great question. So, [00:12:00] I think maybe the first thing I would kind of offer in that situation is that one is a question of how to reconnect to the land and the territory you live in the place, the water, the rivers, the mountains, the forests. There's a tremendous amount of memory that, that lives in the place which can help us recover parts of ourselves that have been lost. The other is, I think, in terms of reconnecting to our bodies again, there's a tremendous amount of wisdom. We can recover again from our own bodies, from our breath also reconnecting to our breath in a very profound way and help us recover things.And also when I talk about culture, I think the essence of culture without being an essentialist, is is what I call gift culture. Mm-Hmm. So this culture of, of connection, of care, of kindness, of trust, of hospitality, of [00:13:00] forgiveness. There's so many traditions like that, wherever we are, and we can also create new traditions around these things.And so, a lot of times we confuse culture for the food or for the clothes or for the music of a place. But I think the deeper level of all culture is a gift culture, which is a reminder of the interconnectedness of life, the thread that is woven through all of us, connects us to something very sacred and even divine in some sense.So, I think that reconnecting to the spirit of kindness and care is a huge step. We've been doing a lot of experiments over the years around gift culture and reconnecting to a field of trust again. I call it the radical and exponential power of trust.Much of our work and I would almost say in the miracles that I see every day in our work are because of this field of trust that we have been able to reconnect to and this is what my [00:14:00] grandmother, I think, was helping me to reconnect to in terms of culture is because I remember growing up in the U. S. this continuous thing of don't trust anyone, don't trust your neighbors, don't trust anyone, somebody, anybody is being kind to you because they may have an angle. They may steal from you or cheat from you or whatever, and I think it took me a lot of healing to come out of that and that has been a phenomenal journey in terms of opening up possibilities for how I connect, and one other thing I would say is that.A lot of, I know this has been a major unlearning area because I used to be very critical of all of this cultural appropriation that we see in the West, people picking up things in here, here and there. But as I've been in India and I've become more connected to the oral traditions, very different kind of ethics and philosophy and ways of, of living and doing things that lives in an oral tradition.Like [00:15:00] I grew up with this strong fear of, you know, plagiarism. You know, that was the one thing Harvard and Brown hammer you is about plagiarizing. Cite every word. Chris said this, or Gustavo said this, right? And I found in the oral tradition, there's a different kind of trickster level playfulness that you can take anything, play with anything.You don't have to cite, you can modify, you can change, you can adapt. And I think I've been trying to bring that more into these conversations around cultural appropriation, because I think people get so afraid nowadays of being bashed for exploring a different culture for taking things.Obviously, there is a level of depth and engagement and commitment, dedication to understanding something that I would invite in that. But being able to pick up things, I think has been part of our culture. People take things and spread them and appropriate them in ways that keep them alive and moving so it's something I've been exploring a [00:16:00] lot is that it seems very much more controlling and part of the old paradigm to say that we need to protect and there are certain cultural gatekeepers and certain kinds of people who who will tell you you're right or wrong in the culture.So I also would want to open up that conversation, exploration with people. Thank you. You know what I mean? You know what I mean with that? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It definitely points towards a notion of cultures being static and that there being a degree of authenticity, a kind of original foundation or culture for a people which seems to be a relic of 19th century anthropology and things like that.And, and a restriction that we are just these bodies in this present time. You know, in India, obviously we talk about reincarnation and so there, there may be other, other cultures within us and that we've lived that [00:17:00] want to express themselves and want to be opened in this life as well, which maybe our body and our place doesn't necessarily give us that opportunity, but the possibility exists, or the the desire even if is there so. I would want to invite us to all of that as well. Mm hmm, and you've been speaking a lot about how your time in India has really been an opportunity for you to unlearn, maybe disassociate a little bit from the taught worldview that you had in the United States.And this next question comes from a friend of ours dear friend Erin, and She wanted to ask about your move to India or move back depending on how you choose to understand it and how that experience has been for you as someone who grew up on the other side of the world and what do you think it means in the context of [00:18:00] your migration to be claimed or reclaimed by a place.Beautiful. Yeah. I think it's been quite a powerful and even I would say magical journey because as you said, the place and the people reclaim me. Part of it is that, you know, my relatives are here, my ancestors are here. And so at times when I felt, you know, a little bit out of place they reminded me that I belong here and I'm welcome here.And I think what I've made a very strong effort to do is to reground myself in different ways and maybe those ways have been made the transition more smooth or beautiful in one way. So one is like, you know, a lot of the ideas, for example, or work that I'm doing I've tried to find cultural reference points and stories that makes sense because initially when I came, a lot of the things I was talking about, [00:19:00] people were like, oh, that's another Western idea. That's something you're just bringing. It's not Indian, blah, blah, whatever. So I started to look for stories in the past. So when I talk about my university, Swaraj University, I tell people it's 5, 000 years old. Our first chancellor was from the Mahabharata, Ekalavya, the story of Ekalavya, the first documented, self-designed learner and so that all of a sudden something clicks differently for people of how they hear it, how they connect it. When I talk about, for example, when we used to talk a lot, Erin, since you brought her up, we explored a lot of zero waste and upcycling together.There's a word in Hindi, jugard, which means playful improvisation. So, using our own words to describe it rather than trying to take everything from English and translate it. But also I'd say, you know, like people would say, again, zero waste. This is a Western sustainability thing. I said, no no, wait a second.Our grandmothers are all zero waste masters. So, you [00:20:00] know, let us understand that all of these ideas are actually connected to many things that we have in our own culture. So that's made it a very beautiful thing because it's not only being welcoming, it's actually unleashing a lot of energy that had been pent up with people like fear and you know, self -limiting, self-belief, self -suppression in a sense.So all of a sudden hearing that, Oh, this is actually has roots in who we are, has opened up a lot for ways we engage in people to accept me and some of the ideas and experiments we've been sharing. So that's been good. And I think the other thing is really a kind of regrounding. So when I moved back, I was good at PowerPoint and Excel.My worldview was through Microsoft products, right? So what I learned again was to reconnect to farming and our food systems. And I think Aerin and Yeyo's journey is also, we've been together on this for many years, but [00:21:00] also to local language again, and you know, making our own clothes, building our own buildings, you know our own healing techniques and plants here. So, just reconnecting to a lot of those things have helped the place to welcome me in different ways and also me to be able to build different relationships with a lot of diverse people here as well. And I think the third thing is really that just to add was like this, one of the deschooling ideas was to core is to shed these labels of failures of looking, you know, at only educated people as intelligent.So there's so much wisdom and creativity and beauty and love that is with people who don't have degrees. And so being able to see that because I was able to let go of these labels and these frameworks has really helped me again, beautifully connecting with many people and many energies here.Wonderful. And [00:22:00] do you think that those, those points that you just mentioned, that they were causes or consequences of you and your people there opening Swaraj University? Or did it evolve into that? It happened, you know, like I said, we have more than a thousand faculty in Swaraj University, and they are grandmothers and farmers and artisans and mountains and lakes and, and trees, the human, the more than human. The one other thing that's really been very powerful is, you know, the place I live in, I would say about 80 percent of the people living here talk to their ancestors. Like without a shaman, they can, you know, like my cousins or my aunt can channel ancestors and we would have all night prayer rituals to talk, connect with them, invite them.And it's like people, and for me with my western trained scientific mind, I [00:23:00] couldn't understand this initially and then it started to open up once I kind of allowed myself to breathe with it opened up a whole different set of possibilities also in engagement to the place where the ancestors were welcoming me. As well to this place. So, that has been beautiful. And another thing that happened was I met, again, a lot of traditional healers. So 25 years ago when I was meeting them was a huge amount of skepticism. My mother's a doctor in the U. S. and she doesn't trust anything Ayurvedic or folk medicines or anything.So when I met them, I was skeptical, but as I spent time with them, and started seeing that they're, they actually have some very deep power. And when I asked them, you know, how did you learn all of this stuff? Because you think of this plant with this, you know, the bark of this and the, you have to boil that with the roots of this and mix it with this.I'm like, so many combinations and permutations, right? And I'm like, they didn't have supercomputers. [00:24:00] So I asked them, how did you guys learn this? And they said, what do you think? And I very proudly used to say trial and error, you know, that must be the scientific method. And they would laugh like crazy.And I'm like, what, what was it like that? That's so primitive trial and error. It's so primitive. I'm like, what? And they would, I said, how did they do it? They said, Oh, we could, our ancestors could talk to the plants. And so once I kind of started to allow that worldview to permeate me, it started to create a different sense of connection to the place, I think.And so it's been a very beautiful journey to in a sense, one can say rewild myself here. And are those, are those themes incorporated into swarajs, and I don't want to say curriculum, because we all know that's a four letter word for a lot of people, but but in terms of de schooling, in terms of unlearning, in terms of, these kinds of old time [00:25:00] learnings, what does a student maybe encounter at Swaraj?Yeah. So there's no curriculum per se, but we have, you know, a few different elements to it. It's all derived from living together, right? So, one is obviously, we call it learning from the gift of conflict. So as you're living together, there's conflicts that start to emerge all the time.So those conflicts are very beautiful entry points into kind of reflecting, if you, once you move beyond the blame narrative to reflect on yourself, what's triggering you, why do you feel disturbed about it? So very, very powerful opportunities to reflect on oneself. We have also what we call a lot of unlearning challenges.So those are optional, but we've created different challenges because we felt there's a lot of conditioning that people come into. Swaraj with and they're around many different areas, but I would say three of the common ones are around most [00:26:00] common around money unlearning our free fear, anxiety scarcity that's related to the money system.Even our self worth gets tied so much to the money system. So, we have a lot of different experiments around that. The second is around love. Both starting with self love, but then how we understand love, how we relate, notions of jealousy, inferiority, all kinds of things which are tied to love.And the third is then death. Death. And so are so these are places that we explore a bit. We have different experiments where people can, you know, for example, and imagine your death would be an invitation that we would invite people into a process. So there's a lot of unlearning experiments. And then the third is that people actually then have a lot of space to design their own personal programs of what they want to explore.And in that process, because you're living in a community, lots of informal learning is happening. Peer to peer, your friend is doing [00:27:00] something. Maybe you start, like, I'm not interested, but after a month of seeing your friend, or a few months, you start, it's just something starts, you know, entering into your system and you realize, Oh, maybe I do like this or this is interesting.And your friend leaves it. I've seen cases, a friend leaves it and the other person picks it up and you know, takes it forward also. So, all of this kind of cross pollination is happening all the time, which is very beautiful. So those are some of the things that happen in Swaraj. And I think where we would invite this is we are becoming more, I think we've become more and more bold over the years, like with this idea of ritual and the sacred. So, in India, there was a lot of, you know first from the left, a lot of bashing of ritual and sacred as these were Brahmanical tools to suppress and these are superstitious. And these tools are, you know, the Marxist idea that these are to [00:28:00] control the masses.And then also, it was bashed because these are ways to cement a kind of fascist Hindu paradigm which is against minorities and things. So, there was a lot of, lot of stories running in our heads around ritual. And then our own personal experiences that oftentimes meaningless, they become fractured, they become rigid and so what we've tried to do is really reclaim the space of ritual in Swaraj.And part of that is with our ancestors or with the more than human. And so inviting people to look at ritual in a very different way has been very interesting. And sometimes I'm involved in rituals and I'm like, what are you doing? The inner voice says, dude, what are you doing?You know, like, who are you at this? And, you know, so all of that old stuff that we kind of grew up with in terms of the scientific analytical mind, which sees everything that it can't understand as [00:29:00] superstition sometimes reappears in certain ways, but I think it's been part of the journey to really create a space at least to engage with this, and so in Swaraj very much it's, it's there as well, and, and maybe the, the way we explain it is there's a need to go beyond the kind of the rational, there's a, there's limits to the rational, logical fragmented mind of how it can see or what it can make sense of.We often even talk about, you know, the way we're trained to think about the crisis is part of the crisis. So, you know, so this space of entering into kind of a liminal energy, a different frequency together is maybe very powerful. And those can be through many different ways, right? Through music, through dance, through food, through fasting.In India, it's really through silence, you know, so it doesn't always have to be plant medicines, which you find more in Latin America and Africa, but in India, meditation and silence and fasting were and [00:30:00] breathing were really different ways that have been experimented over the centuries for people to enter into a different kind of consciousness together.Well, it sounds like an incredible place and an incredible project. I hope if the winds allow me to travel again in a way that maybe they once did that I'd be able to experience that myself. Yes, we have a long, we Udaipur and Oaxaca. So the chances for those winds appearing are pretty good.Amen. Amen. And speaking of Oaxaca our mutual friend, Yeyo had wanted me to ask you about this formulation of yours and all he wrote was livelihoods as opposed to deadlihoods. Oh yes, a alivelihoods, alivelihoods. We made a distinction because a lot of people are wondering what can I do today [00:31:00] in the world. And so the first thing is to help them see that most of what the university, the conventional university is preparing us for are what I call deadlihoods. The work, whether you're in law or in finance or in psychology or I.T., somehow or other, they're tied to a deadlihoods economy that is extractive, military, violent. So, how can we start to understand how we ourselves are implicated in that kind of economy. And so that's one part of it. But then to also think about, you know, the work that's needed today in the world is what I call alivelihoods. And that starts with, you know, what makes my spirit come alive?Because we've we've heard this, "lots of work is soul sucking." So, what is the work that actually nourishes our soul? And gives us meaning and purpose, you know? Lets us reconnect that, you know meaning, purpose, spirituality is not something you [00:32:00] just do on a Sunday or you do in a class, but it's actually tied to the work you're doing in the world and how do we integrate that?What is the kind of work that is helping my community come alive? That is actually shifting power from global corporations back into communities, which are kind of, what is the work that's building, weaving the bonds of trust? And care, kindness, compassion back into community life. And what is the work that is regenerating our ecosystems?So what I call our real wealth. So how do we compost the money system? And start to regenerate real wealth with it. Our health, our forests, our soils, our waters, which are all over the world are in massive, massive degradation stages right now. And how do we regenerate the social bonds again?The trust networks again, that can give us a sense of security, of care, of belonging, of respect, of [00:33:00] dignity. So that's kind of the loose framework we have for that. And I think one other element is that what is the work that will help us shift the worldviews that we have?So the worldview of the planet is being a dead entity and human beings being the only intelligent beings on this planet and the kind of fear that is driving much of the decision making. How do we start to shift to a different worldview that many indigenous communities had a sense of, much better sense of.So, what is the work that can help us shift the narratives of who we are? Why are we on this earth together? Why are we, you know, perpetuating these ideas of ownership or of borders of you know, so many things that we have kind of internalized, which are fundamental to the modernist project.Is there a way to start to unravel these or shift these? So what is the work that allows us that? So I call all of that, all of that a livelihoods, really, and the invitation is to help [00:34:00] people think about how they can be doing that. And I think the other element in that, which is really important is, how do we move beyond this like individual self help kind of narrative we've been fed. You know, like the problem is in you. You have to fix yourself. Whereas how, how do we shift it more to how do we want to understand the systems and the institutions and how they're operating, but also, you how do we focus more of our care and our energy and our healing around healthy community, rebuilding healthy community, because that's what will give us a different sense of power, a different sense of possibility and things.So that's a little bit about it. There's much more, many layers, but just to give you a sense.Yeah, thank you for that. You know, I'm reminded in this, in this context of deadlihoods and the kind of modern condition and the economies that prevail as a result. There is and has been, especially in the last two centuries, this kind of not only degradation of community, but of course, the dissolution[00:35:00] of community and in the sense of people moving to the big city or other countries for better lives.And sometimes necessarily. So like sometimes it's simply their only option, right? And, this is very, very much evident to me in the work that I do here in Oaxaca. And you know, I had come across this declaration from 2009 in a, a very rural village in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, where a group of peasant families from different villages alongside their migrant kin or family spoke for days about the consequences of their movements, and at the end of that three day assembly, declared alongside the right to migrate, the right to stay home and the right to not migrate, and so I'm kind of curious what kind of dynamics you've seen in India In terms of that economic impulse to [00:36:00] move, to leave the village, to migrate and maybe what part Swaraj and endeavors like it might play in those dynamics.Yeah. So I think, part of it is you're saying is physically forced displacement due to development projects, massive development projects or war. But a lot of the displacement has been sold to people package as to people that the urban lifestyle or the American lifestyle is the lifestyle and what you're leading is impoverished, is insignificant, is backwards. You know, there's all kinds of ways. And so much of what education role was is to convince us that somehow the urban lifestyle is what is to be aspired for. So a lot of people move because of that. I have my experience with rural people and working with rural people is that a lot of them, they're like, "we're quite happy where we're at. But what happens is when our cousin comes from the city, they bring [00:37:00] fancy phones and motorcycles and money and they show off and that's what really makes us feel really bad." And then we have to, what we've tried to do is to counter that with, you know reminding people of what a shitty life urban life is.Most people are living in slums. Most people are, if you're not, you're living under continuous stress and tension to make ends meet in polluted environments these days and lots of traffic. And so I at least, you know, try to remind people that in their villages, they may not have that many material things but they're the Kings of the village.They have fresh air. They have clean places, good water to drink still. They have good food, fresh food they're eating. So that's been an interesting journey. Sometimes people understand, particularly the older people understand. This is the other thing that schooling played a major role is to try to kill the voices of wisdom.So, like my grandmother or other elders would be [00:38:00] told, "Oh, you're uneducated. What do you know about what is a good life or what is, you know, the way forward? And so those voices still are silenced quite a bit because young people go to school for some years and then they think they are much more knowledgeable about what life is all about or what's important in life.So, I think what's interesting is that what we're saying about the breakdown of what the urban success story was or the urban model, it's becoming more and more clear to people, like they're seeing that so there are people I know who are moving back. Udaipur is a very small city and a lot of people who have been connected with us have decided to stay in Udaipur rather than moving to Delhi or Bombay, which has been the trend.And so I think it's a very important thing to keep looking at. I think if people see if they have a good life in smaller places, a lot of people are ready to come [00:39:00] back. Because the stress, the continuous stress and speed of big city life is I feel is taking a toll on people and also the whole promise is there's jobs and everything.And so you see more and more unemployment also happening in big cities. So, I think there's an interesting question right now in people's minds of what, what to do and where to go.So you know, it very much seems that one of the ways that what I'll call, I guess, well, either modern people or cultural Americans seem impoverished by is in the realm of hospitality. The lack of hospitality towards not only their neighbors at home, but, but abroad among hosts, you know, most people stay in hotels or Airbnbs. Most tourists anyways, they eat at chain restaurants. They're taught a transactional worldview and all exchange tends to end up in a customer service evaluation. And I feel that this is very much what [00:40:00] tourism has done to that part of the culture, that we would otherwise refer to as hospitality.And so I'm curious in your opinion how would you define radical hospitality? And how have you seen it perhaps as an antidote for the industrial hospitality modern people so often encounter. Yeah. I would that's a great question. So I think I've had the experience in being in Rajasthan of many traditions of hospitality and I would even say radical in the sense that all over India we say that " treat our guests like gods." So that's probably as radical as you could get with hospitality, if I treat you like a god, right? And what it means to me is, not to God in the sense of the pedestal of God or somebody remote, but actually God in the sense of this is my way [00:41:00] to find another connection to the divine in all of us, the divine that connects all of us.And so when I am able to receive somebody with that spirit, I'm able to touch into something very deep within myself also. And we have so many traditions here which again, in our work, we're trying to recover and remind people, remember in different ways. I would just share a couple of things around that.So one is like, in the desert, when it gets really hot up to 50 degrees Celsius, probably the most hospitable and sacred thing you can do is offer somebody water. So with the industrial consumer tourism, we have a parallel underground system happening.So you can go to stores and you'll see bottled water, for example, where people are paying and they buy it. But if you kind of look closely, you'll see on almost every corner of the old city where, where [00:42:00] most of the tourists come, there are clay pots, which people fill up every day for which are called piaos.So the tradition was that to offer any passerby, any stranger, water, is one of the highest gifts you can honor with them because it's so hot and so I've seen women fill water and carry it from even very far away to offer it to strangers, which is so humbling and so powerful that people would actually be able to offer this.So you can see these pots, people are sitting there sometimes, sometimes the pots are just filled and left with a glass for people to fill themselves and drink. But this is a very powerful way to remind us that there is a different way to relate both to resources like water and how we see it, which is non commodified.And so my grandmother would never think of charging money for water. If I ever told her, she'd be like, what is wrong with those [00:43:00] people? There must be some real deep sickness in them. "Let's go charge money for water." And so I think that, you know, that's an example of an entry to a different understanding of what is water, what is our relationship with each other and I wouldn't say what is water, almost you could say who is water. That question gets opened up as well through this act.And so the other thing around radical hospitality and I care, I would say there's some traditions that are called guptan here, which is kind of the invisible giving tradition.So a lot of what do you find, hospitality these days, is around showing off or people should know who's serving you and who's giving you. And here, there's another sense of care that is given where nobody knows who is the giver and to try to remove that arrogance of the giver when care is offered.And so it's offered with a deep sense of service, but to try to remove the ego element that I am the giver, I'm the one who's [00:44:00] helping somebody or being hospitable to them in some way. So I think that's also been quite inspiring to me, how to enter into that real space of humility as part of a radical hospitality tradition.And I think that these things do have a very essential role to play in challenging what's happening in the world and, and building different kinds of models and systems, because if care and connection is not part of that I don't know what the, what the new models, what they would stand on.And so these are this has to be the foundation of something that can grow. And every time, you know, if you ask me every few years, it deepens and changes because of experiences here. When I first I heard about it from Gustavo. I was like, "Oh, this is so beautiful." But I had relatively little ideas of how it would actually look every day.I see more and more examples of it in living practice here where I live. So yeah, it gives me a lot of hope that [00:45:00] maybe that's one of the keys to finding our way forward.Well, thank you, Manish, for your time today and this wonderful, wonderful conversation. Before I let you go to sleep and probably tend to family, I'd like to ask, how might our listeners find out more about your work, about Swaraj University, and I know we didn't have time to speak about it, but the Ecoversities project.Yeah, it's been wonderful to, to talk with you, Chris. I do hope that we can welcome you someday to Udaipur as well. The one thing I would say is that Swaraj University is part of this alliance, translocal alliance around the world called Ecoversities, so a network of like 500 plus alternative universities in 50 countries. And the idea [00:46:00] was that, you know, these are, in a sense, kind of part of an underground railroad, if you would say for people who are walking out of the system or trying to figure out how they can live differently on the planet together. And the beautiful thing is that, you know, anyone can declare themselves an ecoversity, their community.And there's a huge diversity of things, ranging from the farmversities and the forestversities and the riverversities to, you know, like deathversities and travelersversities grandmothers' universities and jail universities and all kinds of spaces. So, this is really to reclaim different kinds of knowledge systems and different learning processes that have never been valued by conventional universities.And to maybe start to create a space, as I said, to live together, to reclaim our hands and our hearts and our bodies and [00:47:00] our homes as well as our holistic heads And to try to dream, to dream something together. So we have a website, we have gatherings, I would invite people to, to come and and visit us and connect with different eco overseas around the world.I have a 21 year old daughter. She's been unschooled. She never looked at a textbook or an exam or a classroom really in her life, except, you know, like we took her to see children in a classroom, like you take kids to see animals in the zoo so she could see what it was like for a couple of days.But so, you know, really wanted to create a model, not only, I mean, for myself, for her, for other young people to be able to learn and be in different kinds of communities and experiments around the world. So, we invite you all to help create the new models that the world needs with us.I'll make sure that all of those links and [00:48:00] resources that you mentioned, Manish, are there on the End of Tourism website when the episode launches. And on behalf of our listeners, blessings on your day, your path, your tongue, and thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for your wonderful work and good luck with the new projects that are emerging in your life.Thank you, Manish. Get full access to ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

Arjun Khemani is a 17-year-old writer and podcaster who dropped out of high school to help lead support at Airchat, the social network co-founded by Naval Ravikant. As the host of the Arjun Khemani podcast, Arjun has spoken to a wide range of guests including David Deutsch, David Perell and Naval Ravikant. His Substack, Progress Good, “serves as a defense against the anti-Enlightenment tradition, exploring progress, rationality, and optimism.” Arjun joins the show to discuss why education should be voluntary, the moral case for selfishness, the pessimism of ultimacy and MUCH more! Important Links: Arjun's Twitter Progress Good (Arjun's Substack) Show Notes: The Myth of the Good Old Days The Citadel of Science Generational Warfare Why Education Should Be Voluntary Misunderstanding Money Escaping the Altruism Trap: the Case for Selfishness Coercion & Moral Righteousness The Pessimism of Ultimacy The Hunt for Better Problems Arjun's Leap Into the Unknown Reimagining Education What's Next? Arjun as Emperor of the World MORE! Books Mentioned: One Summer: America 1927; by Bill Bryson The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science; by Robert Anton Wilson The Road to Serfdom; by Friedrich Hayek The Lessons of History; by Will & Ariel Durant Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaviour; by David R. Hawkins Deschooling Society; by Ivan Illich

THIS ONE IS AN AMAZING VIDEO SO PLEASE WATCH ON YT: https://youtu.be/d-FhCfjTPDk Ivan Illich is the most important thinker of institutions, technology, tools, and the human condition who got overhyped while simultaneously misunderstood and then eclipsed by Foucault and Habermas on the one side, and Freire, hooks, and Giroux on the other. We're calling for a critical, sincere, and earnest return to Ivan Illich. Bryan Weeks, one of the core TU instructors (who co-taught The Idea of the University course) has put this together and will be leading lectures and discussions around the texts he considers to be most essential to understanding Illich on his own terms but for our times. LIMITED TIME COUPON DEAL: for 20% off all tiers us ILLICH4PD (expires at the end of April) Sign up here: https://theoryunderground.com/product/illich-1/           ABOUT / CREDITS / LINKS Become a monthly TU Tier Subscriber to access to the TU HUB, which includes past, ongoing, and upcoming courses, special events, office hours, clubs, and critical feedback that will help you evolve your comprehension capacities and critical faculties, via the website here: https://theoryunderground.com/product/tu-subscription-tiers/ (Whatever tier you subscribe to in the month of March 2024 will be promoted to the privileges of the next one up (e.g. Tier 1 will have Tier 2 privileges, etc.!).)   Don't have time for that but want to help anyway? Consider supporting the patreon here: Welcome to Theory Underground. https://www.patreon.com/TheoryUnderground   Get TU books at a discount: https://theoryunderground.com/publications   Theory Underground is a lecture, research, and publishing platform by and for working class intellectuals, autodidacts, and academics who want to do more than they are able to within the confines of academia.   Think of Theory Underground like a Jiu Jitsu gym for your brain. Or like a post-political theory church. It doesn't matter. None of the analogies will do it justice. We're post-identity anyway. Just see if the vibe is right for you. We hope you get something out of it!   If you want to help me get setup sooner/faster in a totally gratuitous way, or support me but you don't care about the subscription or want to bother with the monthly stuff, here is a way to buy me something concrete and immediately useful, then you can buy me important equipment for my office on this list (these items will be automatically shipped to my address if you use the list here) https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2MAWFYUJQIM58?   Buy me some coffee: https://www.venmo.com/u/Theorypleeb https://paypal.me/theorypleeb   If Theory Underground has helped you see that text-to-speech technologies are a useful way of supplementing one's reading while living a busy life, if you want to be able to listen to PDFs for yourself, then Speechify is recommended. Use the link below and Theory Underground gets credit! https://share.speechify.com/mzwBHEB Follow Theory Underground on Duolingo: https://invite.duolingo.com/BDHTZTB5CWWKTP747NSNMAOYEI See Theory Underground memes here: https://www.instagram.com/theory_underground/ https://tiktok.com/@theory_underground   Missed a course at Theory Underground? Wrong! Courses at Theory Underground are available after the fact on demand. https://theoryunderground.com/courses   MUSIC CREDITS Logo sequence music by https://olliebeanz.com/music https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode Mike Chino, Demigods https://youtu.be/M6wruxDngOk            

Paris Marx is joined by Zachary Kaiser to discuss the power of tech interfaces, why data isn't an accurate reflection of the world, and why we need to discuss democratic decomputerization.Zachary Kaiser is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Experience Architecture at Michigan State University. He's also the author of Interfaces and Us: User Experience Design and the Making of the Computable Subject.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Paris is speaking in Auckland on February 18 at an event hosted by Tohatoha.Zachary wrote about dream reading technologies for Real Life.Zachary mentions specific works by David Golumbia, Ivan Illich, Aaron Benanav, John Cheney-Lippold, Thomas F. Tierney, Marisa Brandt, Arturo Escobar, and James Ferguson.Support the show

On how to respond to conformity.   Lias Saoudi, frontman of the British band Fat White Family, joins us to talk about rock, popular culture and contemporary unfreedom. We discuss: Why are the kids taking less drugs? Can we respond to our nihilistic times with nihilistic art? What is the nature of conformity today? How to challenge conformity without sneering at the masses? Is there a romantic revival going on? Why is Lias interested in Ivan Illich? If living cheaply in big cities is now very difficult for artists, will something new emerge from the provinces? Links: Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family & the Miracle of Failure, Lias Saoudi & Adelle Stripe, White Rabbit Books Punk's spirit is broken, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd Is modern medicine making us sick?, Lias Saoudi, UnHerd Forthcoming album: Forgiveness Is Yours /353/ Bunga Sells Out ft. Jason Myles - on music and the spectacle /359/ Apollo Gets High ft. Benjamin Fong - on drugs in America

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODETeach Your Kids: Website | LinkedIn | X | Instagram | Substack | Facebook | TikTokManisha: LinkedIn | X | Instagram | FacebookJoin our premium community with expert support and adviceTeach Your Kids Blog PostsNot school or homeschooling, but modular learningThe Ultimate Modular Learning ChecklistWhat's a typical homeschool day look like?Related ResourcesMastery Learning Hour  Time-Codes00:00:00 — Introduction to Modular Learning and Manisha Snoyer's Background00:02:00 — Critique of Traditional Schooling and Homeschooling Models00:09:00 — Educational Webs: Ivan Illich's Influence and Implementation00:10:20 — Practical Examples of Modular Learning in Diverse Settings00:14:20 — Building Community and Sharing Resources in Modular Learning00:15:00 — The Future of Education: Inviting Listeners to Join the Movement This podcast was recorded on Riverside and is made possible through a generous grant from the Vela Education FundVELA Education Fund is catalyzing a vibrant alternative education ecosystem. VELA provides trust-based funding to entrepreneurs, fosters community-building and knowledge-sharing, and increases visibility through storytelling that promotes cultural awareness and acceptance of the out-of-system space. Today, VELA serves the largest community of out-of-system education entrepreneurs in the country, with over 2,000 community members. About half of VELA's community members operate small learning environments, and the other half are ecosystem and community builders offering direct services and support across the out-of-system space. Learn more at velaedfund.org.This site contains product affiliate links. We may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links.

Author, activist and educator, Dougald Hine returns to the show this week for a discussion that is simultaneously timely and timeless. If you've been following along on the blog, you'll know that I have been wrestling with how to say things, with whom and to what end, given how the world is going. One of the topics I had been meaning to record on for months now was the resurgence of Christianity: whether it is surprising or not, whether it is automatically reactionary, whether it is a sign of things improving or devolving. And I tried coming at that from several angles -including recording a whole solo show before leaving Paraguay on the topic that I didn't release- but found none of them were satisfactory. Then I messaged Dougald about it, and it turns out it's an area he is also exploring, both personally and 'culturally' (whatever that means) right now. Plus, he's something of an aficionado of the works of Ivan Illich -whose insight is especially useful in these times. So he graciously agreed to come back on the show to prove that two heads are definitely better than one. We explore the possible why of Christianity's resurgence, who 'owns' it and what happens if we don't engage, plus its different forms and mutations. Then we turn to Ivan Illich himself, beginning with a biography and an overview of his thought, before finishing with what he might have to say about these very strange times we are living through. (And depending on when you catch this episode, there is still time to get in on some Illich discussions with Dougald. Details in the show notes. An excellent discussion. Enjoy!         Show Notes Dougald's Substack. Subscribe for access details for the Illich discussions. Here's a series from Dougald's substack called Into The Deep exploring Christianity's return: The Ruined Church. Stranger Friends. What Happened in the Cathedral. Regrowing A Living Culture: A School Called Home. Dougald's first appearance on the show, discussing At Work In The Ruins.

Philosopher and writer Nina Power is senior editor and columnist at Compact Magazine. She is the author of “One Dimensional Woman” (2009) and “What do Men Want? Masculinity & Its Discontents” (2022). She left her position as Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Roehampton University after more than a decade in academia. Peter Boghossian spoke with Nina about the current manifestation of the “battle of the sexes,” where men have become a socially permitted target of hatred and blame. Nina discusses the curious ideal of a homogenous human being, an aim to un-gender the sexes to make men and women interchangeable. She says it is a mistake that traditional masculine virtues—strength, judgment, responsibility—are being coded as right-wing values that must be dismantled alongside “the patriarchy.” Peter and Nina also discuss sex differences, male suicide, Nina's break with the Labour Party, the state of philosophy, Aristotle's categories of friendship, intellectual conformity, Ivan Illich, Rebecca Tuvel, activist attacks, leftism, the beauty of changing one's mind, and more. Nina received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Middlesex University and an MA and BA in philosophy from the University of Warwick. She was a senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University and has taught at various British universities. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the British Philosophical Association. She cohosts the podcast The Lack with Helen Rollins and Benjamin Studebaker. More from Nina:“What do Men Want? Masculinity & Its Discontents” by Nina Power Compact Magazine “The Lack” podcast Nina on X Nina on Substack Watch this episode on YouTube.

Connor and Carl continue to explore the origins of feminism with Ivan Illich's Gender (1983), Mary Harrington's Feminism Against Progress (2023), & Abigail Favale's The Genesis of Gender (2022); and discuss how the Industrial and Sexual Revolutions set the sexes at odds, and how that frayed social fabric might be rewoven.

Theologian and community gardener Sam Ewell reflects on his years as a missionary and a neighbour, and how a radical priest called Ivan Illich led him back to the soil. After the interview, Nomad hosts David Blower and Anna Robinson ponder how the life and teaching of Illich might help shape their evolving faith.  Interview starts at 10m 50s Show Notes → The creation of Nomad's thoughtful, wonderfully ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful, wonderful listeners. Supporting us gives access to Nomad's online communities through the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge and Nomad Book Club - as well as bonus content like Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. If you'd like to join our lovely supporters head to our Patreon Page to donate and you may even be rewarded with a pen or Beloved Listener mug! If you're hoping to connect with others who are more local, you can also take a look at our Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook page. Additionally, we share listener's stories on our blog, all with the hope of facilitating understanding, connection and supportive relationships.

Andrew and Mia discuss the radical potential of conviviality, its history, and work of theologian Ivan Illich on the subjectSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing our multi-part exploration of AI and its implication for These Capitalised Times we are living through and with, we look at the metaphysics of technology this week. What are the implications of Artificial Intelligence for The performing of magic? Living in a magical universe? What is an animist understanding not just of 'intelligence' but 'artifice'? What -if any- is the difference between a tool and a magical tool? This week we explore: The work of Ivan Illich. A metaphysics of tools. What it means to operate in the ruins. Steiner's description of Ahriman and what it means for our moment. Show Notes Donate to the Missing Witches fundraiser for the Native Women's Shelter. Towards a Definition of Magic. At Work in The Ruins. Unlocking the Secrets of Prophecy - For Sorcerers, Astrologers and Magicians. Are Humans The AI Of The Mineral Realm? w/ Matías De Stefano.