Ivan Illich and a Call for a New Story

“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story . . . one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step . . . If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.” Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest, philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)

This gentle cynic wants to be less ambiguous and ambivalent about and be intellectually honest about the social reality of competing and incomplete stories—the often conventional, usually unquestioned variations of a dominate script—which serve only to distract from a story that is purely and rightly a “new” and “good” story, one worthy of our allegiance.

We could say that the dominant scripting in our American society is one of “technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism” which socializes all on both extremes, liberal and conservative. It is a script that for most part is about “certitude, privilege, and entitlement” and has always and will always—as long as it is the dominant script—promise safety, prosperity, and happiness. However it is not hard to conclude that we are one of the most discontent (unhappiest) societies in the world. Thus, the dominant script has failed and it cannot make us safe or happy.

Remember the response after September 11, 2001, when the dominant script exhibited itself? People, prompted by our governmental leadership, knew nothing better to do than to go shopping. Then there came the abuse and opportunism by banks and mortgage services on the backs of the consumer. And yet, most revealing, our society has become the most determinative killers without even thinking about it. If we are to pause, listen, and contemplate before acting (something we should have done as a whole society after September 11, 2001), we would do well to consider the call of Ivan Illich for an alternative, “new” story, which may in its emergence seem like a extraordinary act of disengagement from and relinquishment of that dominant script by way of a counterspeech, seizing the conventional and habitually unquestioned script that has been leading us to unhealthy choices, unhappiness, and abuse by the powerful over the naïve and the weak. Such a story and such an act will gradually restore us on a path to health and wholeness.