July 13, 2023 • 38 mins
Andrew and Mia discuss the radical potential of conviviality, its history, and work of theologian Ivan Illich on the subject
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of It Could Happen
Here with your guest host Andrew of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Today,
I'm joined by Mia, and I'm looking to discuss a
topic that I brought up in passing in a previous episode,
that being the idea of conviviality, and the episode in
(00:27):
question being in my podcast on the Growth. So, when
I first stumbled upon this concept of conviviality, I thought
it was just, you know, one of those exciting, fluffy
aged prop buzzwords, right, something you you throw into you know,
(00:50):
your your propaganda, your conversations, your descriptions of a better world.
You like, Oh, I would love to live in a
world it's more convivial on these different things, convivial being
defined in the Dictionary as the quality of being friendly
and lively. Right. Synonyms include amiability, affability, continuality, et cetera,
(01:11):
et cetera. I didn't come here to be a thesaurus.
I came here to talk about the deeper meanings behind
these things. Right. So, in such in this world, in
this term up in more depth, I ended up going
down this rabbit hole and I discovered there's a whole
history to the term that spans I mean, I mean,
(01:32):
I'm not going as far back as its Latin origins, right.
I mean, we could talk about the French and their
loan words making their way into the English language. We
could talk about the Spanish concept of contivencia being interpreted
literally as living in the company of others, or in
(01:54):
one particular context, such as in Spain between the eighteenth
and fifteenth centuries, describing deep, peaceful co existence between different
religious groups. But I'm not going that far back. I'm
sticking to the history of the term, from ivan Ilich
to the de growth movement to the conviviality manifestos that
(02:18):
have come out of online and offline discussions, academic and
non academic discussions of this idea of conviviality. Now, I
gave a sort of a basic dictionary definition before, but
I want to go a bit deeper, Right, So what
is conviviality exactly? Conviviality is about creating a fun and
(02:41):
friendly atmosphere where people can come together and have a
great time. That's it in this essence, right, It's I
feel and you get when you're surrounded by lively conversations
and laughter and a sense of celebration. You know, those
moments where everyone's enjoying each other's company and it's a
real sense of camaraderie. I think using conviviality as a
(03:05):
barometer is really helpful in organizing situations. Right. If you're
in an environment where you are organized and where you're
doing practice and you're not picking up those convivial vibes,
it may be a sign that there's some toxicity in
(03:26):
the mix there. I'm not saying that the work of
activism has to be a trip to amusement park, right,
It doesn't have to be a carnival, but I think
there does need to be facilidarity to exist. I think
there should have some level of camaraderie and conviviality in
(03:47):
the atmosphere. So you can think of conviviality as the
spirit of hospitality and warmth. Right, It's like when you
gather with your friends or when you have those family
occasions and bring it around together. Even in work, police
you know, when you and your workers get along really
well and you're organizing to create this union and you're
(04:08):
going to take down your boss. It's a fun time, right,
And so how do we get from this? You know,
sort of seemingly simple, sociable idea of living and enjoying
life in the company of others, making people feel welcome
and included. How do we move from that idea this
(04:30):
conviviality is a vital part of human interaction, to conviviality
in a more political context. How do we go from
just talking about social connections and adding meaning to our
lives and enjoying festivities and shift to conversations about the
social and political state of the world. Right now, Right
(04:55):
There's this one particular guy who's kind of responsible for this,
A guy I personally like to call the illest, that
being the one and only Australian philosopher, social critic and
Catholic priest Ivan elch Over. The course, it was nearly
eighty years of life since nineteen twenty six. This multi hyphenate,
(05:24):
I think that's the term where you use people who
have a lot of different titles. Right, This multi hyphenate
from Vienna, Italy had a significant impact on a bunch
of fields, you know, from education to medicines, technology to
social justice. I know his name because he came up
(05:45):
a lot when I was doing research on unschooling, te
school and and just the education system as a whole.
But apparently he's done a lot more than just that.
He's challenged. He's challenged conventional thinking in all sorts of fields,
and he's questioned the inherent assumptions and structures of modern society. Evans,
(06:07):
And I hope he doesn't mind that I call me
I Van, because I don't know if I'm pronouncing his
German name correctly, right, his German lasting correctly, So just
call him Ivan. He probably wouldn't mind, because he's dead.
But Evan's intellectual journey took him through a bunch of
different paths, right. He studied theology and philosophy and eventually
(06:29):
became a priest, and he lived and worked in different
parts of the world, including Latin America, where he witnessed
first hand the effects of development projects and the powerdynamics
between developed and developing nations, and those experiences deeply influenced
his critical perspective on the modern industrialized world. He also
became a very prolific author, known for his thought provoking
(06:52):
and often controversial writings, such as The School and Society,
which he published in nineteen seventy one. Tools for Contoviality,
published nineteen seventy three and Medical Nemesis, published in nineteen
seventy six, and in these books he challenged established institutions
and systems offered alternative visions that emphasized individual autonomy, community engagement,
(07:14):
and wait for it, convivial relationships, ilicious or evans critique
of education systems contributed to the development of altunative educational
approaches such as homeschooling, on schooling, and learner centered education.
His examination of the medical establishment sparked discussions on patient
(07:35):
empowerment and the need for a more participatory model of healthcare,
something I would like to discuss in a future episode,
though I would like to find someone in the disability
justice space to have that discussion with, because that is
an area of experiential ignorance for me. Yeah, So if
(07:58):
anybody has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. But Evan's legacy, right,
it extends far beyond his lifetime, as it's clear he
has elasting impact on critical theory, on social philosophy, and
the quest for a more just and humane world. And
I'm gassed up the guy a lot, and I'm sure
(08:18):
he has some flaws that someone will no doubt inform
me about and I have not read all of it. Yeah,
he does go. He did go sign the Catholic jage
barbing a priest. I s right, So I'm sure he
has his flaws. And I have not read all of
his literature. I haven't even read Medical Nemesis yet. But
in Tools of Conviviality in particular, I want to discuss
(08:41):
his perspective on conviviality and its role in society. Right
in the book, he expresses these deep concerns about the
negative effects of modern institutions and systems, and he argued
that they often hindered personal freedom, autonomy, and human flourishing.
He believed that many of our socialstructures had become oppressive,
(09:02):
as they dictated not only how we should live, learn,
and interact, but also how we saw ourselves as people.
He argued that our systems had become highly centralized, reliant
on professional expertise, and complex technologies that limited individual agency
(09:22):
and self determination. Now, one could be bad faith, I
suppose and say that, oh, is he saying that, you know,
Ivan was anti complex technology? Is some sort of popular
culture vastardization of Luodites or something. But his concern was
(09:43):
not necessarily on the technology itself and the complexity of technology,
but more so how that technology slotted into the structure
of society as a whole. Right, His concern was about
how these elite professional groups had established what he called
a rat monopoly over fundamental human activities, including health, agriculture,
(10:05):
home building, and learning. And this monopoly, it's monopoly is
criticized and all the technology, but the monopoly, according to Ivan,
had led to a detrimental war and subsistence that deprived
formerly pasant societies of the essential skills and know how.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, And I mean, like, I feel like that's a
pretty I think I think it's pretty hard to.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Like tour that line. Well, I don't know if I think.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think like I think specifically that line of agriculture
is pretty hard to like not fought, like, not agree
with if you look at the effects that the Green
Revolution had on other people who do agriculture. Oh yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I think this goes to it, like
this falls in with the sort of like you know,
like the sort of social technological aspect of it. Of
(10:55):
like the fact that this was combined with this massive
sort of social technological push to you know, drive farmers
into debt you know, so they could afford the inputs
for this stuff, and what it did to sort of
what it did to the actual farming communities, and what
it did to people's livelihoods, and you know the way
that like a lot of this was just the sort
of smoke screen for like consolidation of major landowners, et cetera,
(11:16):
et cetera. Like I think I think he's pretty on
the right point.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, For those who don't know, by the way,
the Green Revolution refers to a period of technological advance
moments and agricultural strategies that took place during the mid
twentieth century, primarily in developing countries. It aimed to increase
agricultural productivity and food production to the adoption of high
yielding crop varieties, increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, and modern
(11:42):
farming techniques. And the Green Revolution is basically responsible for
a lot of the most damaging practices that we see
in agriculture today, right from the heavy reliance on chemical
inputs like futilizers and pesticides, which leads to you know,
soil degradation, pollution, lost by diversity, you know, the emphasis
(12:03):
on monocultures and replacements of traditional crop varieties of high
yielding ones. The reduced agrobi diversity and led to diseases
proliferate in between certain species, intensive farming practices that could
not be kept up with by small scale farmers, like
Mio was saying, the consolidation of land and the ability
(12:26):
to manage that land into these acribusiness corporations and major landowners.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah. And I think it's worth emphasizing that this was
very explicitly seen as NATI communist thing. I mean, the
state departments, like actual explicit line was a great revolution
to stop a bred revolution. So like a big part
of what this was about was like stopping land reform
from happening, which right, yeah, is incredibly bleak.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, and now it's the dominant practice globally and it's
having detrimental impacts globally. And yeah, and and I mean
some of those blood some of them are going to
be dead very soon. Yeah, the rest of us have
to suffer the consequences story of my life, yeap, which
existence on this is right?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, you think that's sort of wild about it too,
is that like the countries that did land reform like
developed better capitalist economies and the ones who didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
But yeah, you know, like, yeah, yay, the better doing copless.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, well, I mean and like yeah, it's like they're
they're better. It turns out doing land reform actually does
help both like non capitalist and capitalist economies. But unfortunately
the green revolutionary people, the revolution people like already even
like people who care about the efficiency of capitalism, they
care about like the power of the land owning class.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well yeah, and I mean that I don't know if
this is a saying, but I might make it a
say in I think socialists are bets are doing copitless
and then copless.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So yeah, I mean that's the entire is this is
the entire story of China, right, It's like, yeah, like
Brush's Leninism is a really really efficient way to turn
a feudal economy into a capitalist economy.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, Like, if I was in charge of capitalism, I
was going to make sure that the people at the
bottom class brought into the system. Who will see and yeah,
propaganding education is a part of it, but also you
want to make sure they're not vulnerable to being radicalized.
The best way to do that is to ensure that
the basic needs are met. Yeah, but you know, even
(14:37):
arguing that will have some people, uh, misinformed, I would say,
but well intentioned labeling you a socialist, like I think
people should have good things. Oh you're dirty red comedy you.
But you know it's it's just well, it's just literally
wealthier capitalism. But apparently that too much for a lot
(15:01):
of capitalists. Apparently, I mean literally the reason we have
welfare capitalism is because socialists forward for it in early
twentieth century and early to mid twentieth century. So you know,
we have socialist to thank for everything basically. But I'm
getting off track, right, So, like I was saying, this monopoly,
(15:22):
this radical monopoly over fundamental human activities, that's a detrimental
war and subsistence that are deprived peasant societies of the
essential skills and know how, instead of promoting human flourishing,
all this economic development ended up feeding into what Yvan
has termed modernized poverty. And it's something I think about often, Right,
(15:45):
this idea of the poor back then versus the poor now. Right,
And of course it depends on which society you're talking about,
which time period you're talking about, But let's just pick
some random like historic poor person. Right, let's just say,
(16:06):
I don't know generic civilization. A. This person is poor, right,
they after work, they have to work the land backbreaking toil.
Sometimes raiders would roll it and be like, oh, we're
going to take your stuff now, and then they would
like ride their horses away and probably I don't know,
dab on you or whatever, or the raiders will roll in,
(16:29):
they'll take your stuff and then they'll be like, oh,
I want to stay. And then now you have to
pay taxes to me every year. And you know, that's
how a lot of states were created. But whether it's
you know, nomadic warlords or settled warlords, at least you
had a house, at least you had a community. At
(16:49):
least you had the ability to grow your own food,
even though a lot of that food was being taxed.
And you know, at least you had certain skills that
you could use to sustain yourself. Right. Compare that to
modern poverty, where you have this large swath of people
(17:10):
who are dependent, who are mechanical parts in a system
that they cannot fully understand, comprehend and control for themselves.
With this, you know, whole industrial revolution where you take
this process of making a chair, for example, and you
break it up into a bunch of different steps, and
(17:30):
each person that step you knows how to do one thing,
but they don't have to do the entire thing. Right
Like the poor today versus the poor of yesteryear, the
latter still had these skills for subsistence, and many of
today is poor, particularly the urban poor. Because I know
the rural poor, a lot of them still sustain themselves,
still practice you know, sustem, subsistence farm and that kind
(17:54):
of thing, but particularly the urban poor, they don't even
have like a lot of those skills to rely on
even sustain themselves in that level. For the urbanists in
the audience, you might appreciate the Devan also talks about
the dominance of cars and how they've created this radical
monopoly over land sitting out urban environments into the domain
(18:15):
of cars, which not only compromises the environment for pedestrians
and cyclists, but also disrupts our innate mobility as human beings.
(18:36):
Steven takes it a step further right. And this particular
opinion opinion of his is a bit shaky for me,
so something I've been lettin stewing my brain a little
bit more. But let me just read the quote the
radical monopoly cars established is destructive in a special way.
Cars create distance, speedy vehicles of all kinds, frendous scarce.
(19:01):
They drive wedges of highways into populated areas and the
next door tolls on the bridge over the remoteness between
people that was manufactured for their sake. This monopoly overland
turn space into car fodder. It destroys the environment for
feet and bicycles. Even if polices and buses could run
(19:22):
as non pollutant, Even if planes and buses could run
as non pollutant, non deplete and public services they're inhuman velocities,
would degrademans in need mobility and force him to spend
more time for the sake of travel. I'm sure he
could pick up on why that particular opinion is a
bit shaky, right, Yeah, it's not just anti car. He's
(19:43):
also a bit anti plane and bus.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
To be fair, I'm also anti bus. But like planes,
I don't know, like, are they great for the environment? No?
Do you sometimes need to go to another continent?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So he is a He probably
reads like r slash f cars and he's like, uh, y'all,
don't take it far. You know you guys are liberals.
But yeah, so I highly recommend reading the actual book
(20:19):
and full for further insight and context. And I do
want to dig into his thoughts on a food in
the future, but you know, food for thought. Let me
know what you think of those inhuman velocities. But anyway,
memes aside, I think the benefit of Evan's critique of
(20:40):
the radical monopoly is that it provides a different perspective, right.
It sheds light on the negative consequences of excessive specialization,
technocratic control, and the prioritization of speed and efficiency over
human well being. Zoeb on YouTube actually has a really
great video and the idea of efficiency as this ultimate
(21:01):
moral good, So I recommend checking that out, especially since
the standard narrative that we are utterly bombarded by is
that all these things are uncontroversially good. Right. What I
appreciate about Yvan and his ideas is that they challenge
us to reconsider our relationship with systems, tools, and institutions,
(21:22):
and he encourages us to strive for more balanced and
confivial society. And what does that convivial society look like
to him? Well, let's continue Ivan's solution argues for the
developments of new, accessible and user friendly instruments that would
allow average citizens to regain practical knowledge and reclaim control
(21:45):
over their lives, as well as resist the domination of
specialized elites. That's why Ivan Ilich's book Tools for Conviviality
is sponsored by Skills. All right, I know that was
a bad joke. Yvan believed that society should be organized
to serve the needs and aspirations of individuals, rather than
(22:08):
creating systems that limit their potential and autronomy. And so
for Yvan conviviality. Here we are back to the original topic.
Conviviality represented a society in which individuals had the power
to shape their own lives, free from excessor dependence on
institutionalized systems. He envisioned a world people had access to
(22:32):
convivial tools, simple, user friendly technologies that empowered them to
take control of their own destinies. For example, the dominant
education system separates learners from the real world and disempowers them.
Ivan advocates for more self directed and community based education,
where people could pursue knowledge and skills according to their
(22:55):
own interests and needs. Yvan also critiques the overreliance on
medical professionals and call for a shift towards a more
participatory model of healthcare that gives individuals access to information
and resources that allow them to actively participate in their
own health decisions rather than be in these passive recipients
of medical interventions. In transportation systems, he also advocates for
(23:19):
more human skill and community oriented transportation alternatives. He envisions
neighborhoods designed for walking and biking, which would foster social
interactions and reduce the environmental impact of excessive motorized transport.
In essence, Evan viewed Forviality as a transformative concept that
aimed to restore individual agency and personal connections and a
(23:42):
sense of empowerment in society. He challenged the prevalance structures
and systems that limited human potential and proposed more participatory,
community driven alternatives, and to this day, his ideas continue
to inspire discussions on how we can create a convivial
society that values human relationships, self determination, and a shared
(24:04):
responsibility for shaping our own lives. What I found particularly
interesting in researching this was learning that the book's vision
of tools that would be developed maintained by a community
of users that actually had significant influence on the first
developers the personal computer mind blowing. I know, most notably
(24:25):
one of the create first developers of the PC, Lee
Felt Felsenstein. Lee Felsenstein, He and several others were just
were inspired by this idea within the book, because we
remember Ivana's righting this before the internet, and they go
(24:46):
and they take this idea, and then they make the
internet or they make the personal computer, because computers existed
prior to the personal computer, but they weren't as accessible,
they weren't a tool of conviviality, whereas the personal computer
of today is. And I just think that's beautiful and amazing.
But Ivan's ideas did more than just you know, shape
(25:07):
the course of human history. He also would shaped the
creation of confiviulist movement. In twenty ten, eight years after
Ivan died, and thirty seven years after Ivan published Tools
for Conviviality, Raymond de Boiver published Convivialism, a philosophical Manifesto,
and in it, Barvert begins by discussing the key theme
(25:31):
in Michael Polland's books The Botany of Desire, which is
a great read, by the way, and the Omnivars Dilemma,
which I haven't read yet, but the key theme is
co evolution, right. The first book humorously suggests that plants
manipulate humans to coevolve, with them taking care of their
needs and exchange for nutrition or beauty, and the second book,
(25:53):
the Omnivoice Dilemma, the importance of interconnected components for vibrant
pharm is emphasized, corn serving as an example of a
plant that relies on humans for survival. WaveRT proposes that
focusing on the prefix co in co evolution could have
philosophical implications similar to William James's emphasis on the preposition
(26:16):
with by you know. Examining the significance of these prepositions co,
com con or coal as well as sin, the author
argues for a philosophy that recognizes omnipresent interconnection. Michael Polland's
books do this well in the context of food, but
(26:36):
Waver wants to take this The implications of this uh
taken preposition seriously into a rearrange ing the philosophy itself,
and now we're getting, you know, kind of heavy, right.
As Quavert argues, philosophers have often neglected the significance of
(26:58):
interconnected relationships, while farmers recognize the importance of interconnectedness, you know,
how things like land and water and stuff all work together.
Modern philosophy, on the other hand, according to Bovair, since
the Renaissance, has been focused on these self standing and
independent entities, not interconnected entities. And I don't know how
(27:19):
true this is because I'm not I didn't study philosophy.
I'm just communicating Barveao's arguments here, right. And so the
idea of autonomy in modern philosophy, according to barve seem
(27:39):
to exclude the with factor and existence, relegating relations and
interconnections to a secondary rule. So Whatver is saying is
that philosophy is sort on this foundation that we are
autonomous and self sufficient first, right, and then everything else
comes after. You know. Rousseau, for example, portrayed an idyllic
(28:05):
existence where connections, independencies of views as these impositions. You know,
we went from being autonomous to being stuck in this
web of interdependencies, and then as a result coming down
to that the philosophical idea of liberation, uh for some
(28:28):
ended up returning for some meant to return into this
original state of authenticity and disengagement from connections. The concept
of freedom itself became something that was anti interdependency, and
(28:49):
so the focus shifted away from this idea of humans
being inherently interdependent. But then this alternative point of view
came about, right, and this shift coincided with the introduction
(29:12):
of the terms symbiosis and biology, which combined the Greek
word for life with the preposition with and the concept
of symbiosis found its way eventually into everyday language and discourse.
So that's the Greek term symbiosis. Then we go to
the Latin term conviviality, meaning with living, and that long
(29:34):
predated you know, science and philosophy used to describe just
ordinary experiences. And so to avoid getting lost into the
philosopher's favorite past time of you know, navigating various words
and all their package to boil a downed simplicity, Boivert
(29:57):
is seeking to ask what a conviviulous turn in philosophy
might look like and what changes in philosophy might be
taken place. For one, he's concerned with how embracing trivialism
might change our understanding of metaphysics right by embracing this
(30:20):
metaphors of existence as about the relation and conjunction between
components or the interplane interconnectedness of various elements, rather than
about a collection of separate units. You end up going
from this position of isolation to this position of profound interrelation,
(30:47):
and then you begin to focus on the interactions between
people rather than just the uh experiences within people. In
the sphere of philosophical anthropology, while Fare argues that a
convivial ton would mean redefined in humanity, you know, taking
(31:09):
this concept that you know, we're not just these purely
logical and calculating beings. We are homo sapiens. And the
term sapiens is derived from the Latin word for tasting,
which highlights the human capacity to constantly try and test,
to constantly experiments, to actually participate in interactions with our surroundings.
(31:33):
So in this convivial turn, we return to the original
definition of for me, and we gave ourselves right as
taste does, as flexible, educable, subject to investigation and improvement,
(31:54):
constantly testing and experiment and then seeing what is best
in specific contexts. Seeing that taste as sapiens, as homo sapiens,
taste is inherently pluralistic, because there is no universe your
cell taste, There is no single taste that is like, oh,
(32:17):
this is the taste. Everybody must have care to this taste.
Everybody has a different taste. We talk about that when
we talk about taste, and I think the implications are
particularly profound when we bring it into the preferative this
sphy of prefrigative politics. Right whereas tasters as experimenters, we
(32:38):
are looking for ways to prefigure new social relations and
institutions and relationships and structures and systems for the future
in the here now, and that requires tastes, and that
requires experimentation. That requires an acceptance of pluralism because everyone
has a different taste and everyone's going to bring something
different to the table. That's beautiful. And then, also in
(33:02):
the field of epistemology, the conribulists perspective challenges the opposition
between subject and object and understand reality. Rejects the idea
of the mind as a mere mirror reflects in reality
or project to impotant conceptual schemes onto reality. Because confivialism
is about how the intermediaries, the facility to interactions, how
(33:25):
they affect the way that we perceive and reflect on
reality itself. It also requires us to let go of
this subject object dichotomy in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding,
which itself has implications on even the field of science,
because you know, the idea of the scientists and the
(33:49):
popular imagination is you know the subject who is whatever
that scientist is studying, that is the But convivialism causes
suppose and reflect on how that subject, that object, and
(34:10):
how intermediary is between them affect their perception of each other,
affect the subject, the scientist's ability to pursue knowledge and
understanding affects the objects if the object is a person
to do the same. And finally, Baver digs into the
rigid division between nature and culture and how the convivialist
(34:32):
perspective challenges that the continuous interactions and transformations that occur
in existence makes it problematic to consider the divisions between
human societies, between human societies and the ecosystems that surround
(34:56):
them as fundamental aspects of existence. Right, the boundary between
nature and culture is one that constantly blues. It is
difficult to place, particularly when there's an embrace by certain
cultures of that interconnectedness and interdependence between their culture and
(35:19):
the nature that surrounds them. And then when you see
that blurring of lines between culture and nature, you might
also recognize a blurring of lines between human and non human.
In the context of community, the idea of community being
an exclusively human domain becomes less apt, I suppose, as
(35:45):
it recognize the way that non humans influence and effect
and engage and interact with humans in this you know, collectivity.
We use terms like commun unity and city and society
and stuff to refer to the human aspects of interaction,
(36:08):
and we use things like ecosystem and biome to emphasize
non human aspects of interaction. But the interactions between humans, animals, plants,
and inanimate entity is to not always thought so neatly
into that metaphysical description of reality. Of course, we use
(36:29):
these divisions for certain specific research purposes. We say, oh,
I'm a sociologist, dom an anthropologists, I'm a biologist, and ecologists, etc.
But we can't forget that convivialism. Conviviality asks us not
to forget that those are human impositions that we should
(36:51):
not let obscure our ability to make sense of reality
as a whole. I know, things got really heavy there.
I hope that everything I said made sense and if
you need a breather or some time to pause and
(37:11):
reflect further on the implications on this simple, cute fun
to say a little Latin word, conviviality. We're going to
take a pause here, but next time you can join
us as we discuss how people have gone from this
term to urge his ideas two Jave's philosophical indications to
(37:39):
more recent manifestos of the convivial movement and how they
can relate to the growth and beyond. You can find
me on YouTube dot com slash andeurism, and you can
support you on peaton dot com slash Saint True once
again Montrue joined by Mio and this is It could
(38:04):
Happen Here, Peace. It could Happen Here as a production
of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com Slash sources.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Thanks for listening,
Hello, and welcome to another episode of It Could Happen
Here with your guest host Andrew of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Today,
I'm joined by Mia, and I'm looking to discuss a
topic that I brought up in passing in a previous episode,
that being the idea of conviviality, and the episode in
(00:27):
question being in my podcast on the Growth. So, when
I first stumbled upon this concept of conviviality, I thought
it was just, you know, one of those exciting, fluffy
aged prop buzzwords, right, something you you throw into you know,
(00:50):
your your propaganda, your conversations, your descriptions of a better world.
You like, Oh, I would love to live in a
world it's more convivial on these different things, convivial being
defined in the Dictionary as the quality of being friendly
and lively. Right. Synonyms include amiability, affability, continuality, et cetera,
(01:11):
et cetera. I didn't come here to be a thesaurus.
I came here to talk about the deeper meanings behind
these things. Right. So, in such in this world, in
this term up in more depth, I ended up going
down this rabbit hole and I discovered there's a whole
history to the term that spans I mean, I mean,
(01:32):
I'm not going as far back as its Latin origins, right.
I mean, we could talk about the French and their
loan words making their way into the English language. We
could talk about the Spanish concept of contivencia being interpreted
literally as living in the company of others, or in
(01:54):
one particular context, such as in Spain between the eighteenth
and fifteenth centuries, describing deep, peaceful co existence between different
religious groups. But I'm not going that far back. I'm
sticking to the history of the term, from ivan Ilich
to the de growth movement to the conviviality manifestos that
(02:18):
have come out of online and offline discussions, academic and
non academic discussions of this idea of conviviality. Now, I
gave a sort of a basic dictionary definition before, but
I want to go a bit deeper, Right, So what
is conviviality exactly? Conviviality is about creating a fun and
(02:41):
friendly atmosphere where people can come together and have a
great time. That's it in this essence, right, It's I
feel and you get when you're surrounded by lively conversations
and laughter and a sense of celebration. You know, those
moments where everyone's enjoying each other's company and it's a
real sense of camaraderie. I think using conviviality as a
(03:05):
barometer is really helpful in organizing situations. Right. If you're
in an environment where you are organized and where you're
doing practice and you're not picking up those convivial vibes,
it may be a sign that there's some toxicity in
(03:26):
the mix there. I'm not saying that the work of
activism has to be a trip to amusement park, right,
It doesn't have to be a carnival, but I think
there does need to be facilidarity to exist. I think
there should have some level of camaraderie and conviviality in
(03:47):
the atmosphere. So you can think of conviviality as the
spirit of hospitality and warmth. Right, It's like when you
gather with your friends or when you have those family
occasions and bring it around together. Even in work, police
you know, when you and your workers get along really
well and you're organizing to create this union and you're
(04:08):
going to take down your boss. It's a fun time, right,
And so how do we get from this? You know,
sort of seemingly simple, sociable idea of living and enjoying
life in the company of others, making people feel welcome
and included. How do we move from that idea this
(04:30):
conviviality is a vital part of human interaction, to conviviality
in a more political context. How do we go from
just talking about social connections and adding meaning to our
lives and enjoying festivities and shift to conversations about the
social and political state of the world. Right now, Right
(04:55):
There's this one particular guy who's kind of responsible for this,
A guy I personally like to call the illest, that
being the one and only Australian philosopher, social critic and
Catholic priest Ivan elch Over. The course, it was nearly
eighty years of life since nineteen twenty six. This multi hyphenate,
(05:24):
I think that's the term where you use people who
have a lot of different titles. Right, This multi hyphenate
from Vienna, Italy had a significant impact on a bunch
of fields, you know, from education to medicines, technology to
social justice. I know his name because he came up
(05:45):
a lot when I was doing research on unschooling, te
school and and just the education system as a whole.
But apparently he's done a lot more than just that.
He's challenged. He's challenged conventional thinking in all sorts of fields,
and he's questioned the inherent assumptions and structures of modern society. Evans,
(06:07):
And I hope he doesn't mind that I call me
I Van, because I don't know if I'm pronouncing his
German name correctly, right, his German lasting correctly, So just
call him Ivan. He probably wouldn't mind, because he's dead.
But Evan's intellectual journey took him through a bunch of
different paths, right. He studied theology and philosophy and eventually
(06:29):
became a priest, and he lived and worked in different
parts of the world, including Latin America, where he witnessed
first hand the effects of development projects and the powerdynamics
between developed and developing nations, and those experiences deeply influenced
his critical perspective on the modern industrialized world. He also
became a very prolific author, known for his thought provoking
(06:52):
and often controversial writings, such as The School and Society,
which he published in nineteen seventy one. Tools for Contoviality,
published nineteen seventy three and Medical Nemesis, published in nineteen
seventy six, and in these books he challenged established institutions
and systems offered alternative visions that emphasized individual autonomy, community engagement,
(07:14):
and wait for it, convivial relationships, ilicious or evans critique
of education systems contributed to the development of altunative educational
approaches such as homeschooling, on schooling, and learner centered education.
His examination of the medical establishment sparked discussions on patient
(07:35):
empowerment and the need for a more participatory model of healthcare,
something I would like to discuss in a future episode,
though I would like to find someone in the disability
justice space to have that discussion with, because that is
an area of experiential ignorance for me. Yeah, So if
(07:58):
anybody has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. But Evan's legacy, right,
it extends far beyond his lifetime, as it's clear he
has elasting impact on critical theory, on social philosophy, and
the quest for a more just and humane world. And
I'm gassed up the guy a lot, and I'm sure
(08:18):
he has some flaws that someone will no doubt inform
me about and I have not read all of it. Yeah,
he does go. He did go sign the Catholic jage
barbing a priest. I s right, So I'm sure he
has his flaws. And I have not read all of
his literature. I haven't even read Medical Nemesis yet. But
in Tools of Conviviality in particular, I want to discuss
(08:41):
his perspective on conviviality and its role in society. Right
in the book, he expresses these deep concerns about the
negative effects of modern institutions and systems, and he argued
that they often hindered personal freedom, autonomy, and human flourishing.
He believed that many of our socialstructures had become oppressive,
(09:02):
as they dictated not only how we should live, learn,
and interact, but also how we saw ourselves as people.
He argued that our systems had become highly centralized, reliant
on professional expertise, and complex technologies that limited individual agency
(09:22):
and self determination. Now, one could be bad faith, I
suppose and say that, oh, is he saying that, you know,
Ivan was anti complex technology? Is some sort of popular
culture vastardization of Luodites or something. But his concern was
(09:43):
not necessarily on the technology itself and the complexity of technology,
but more so how that technology slotted into the structure
of society as a whole. Right, His concern was about
how these elite professional groups had established what he called
a rat monopoly over fundamental human activities, including health, agriculture,
(10:05):
home building, and learning. And this monopoly, it's monopoly is
criticized and all the technology, but the monopoly, according to Ivan,
had led to a detrimental war and subsistence that deprived
formerly pasant societies of the essential skills and know how.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, And I mean, like, I feel like that's a
pretty I think I think it's pretty hard to.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Like tour that line. Well, I don't know if I think.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think like I think specifically that line of agriculture
is pretty hard to like not fought, like, not agree
with if you look at the effects that the Green
Revolution had on other people who do agriculture. Oh yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I think this goes to it, like
this falls in with the sort of like you know,
like the sort of social technological aspect of it. Of
(10:55):
like the fact that this was combined with this massive
sort of social technological push to you know, drive farmers
into debt you know, so they could afford the inputs
for this stuff, and what it did to sort of
what it did to the actual farming communities, and what
it did to people's livelihoods, and you know the way
that like a lot of this was just the sort
of smoke screen for like consolidation of major landowners, et cetera,
(11:16):
et cetera. Like I think I think he's pretty on
the right point.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, For those who don't know, by the way,
the Green Revolution refers to a period of technological advance
moments and agricultural strategies that took place during the mid
twentieth century, primarily in developing countries. It aimed to increase
agricultural productivity and food production to the adoption of high
yielding crop varieties, increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, and modern
(11:42):
farming techniques. And the Green Revolution is basically responsible for
a lot of the most damaging practices that we see
in agriculture today, right from the heavy reliance on chemical
inputs like futilizers and pesticides, which leads to you know,
soil degradation, pollution, lost by diversity, you know, the emphasis
(12:03):
on monocultures and replacements of traditional crop varieties of high
yielding ones. The reduced agrobi diversity and led to diseases
proliferate in between certain species, intensive farming practices that could
not be kept up with by small scale farmers, like
Mio was saying, the consolidation of land and the ability
(12:26):
to manage that land into these acribusiness corporations and major landowners.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah. And I think it's worth emphasizing that this was
very explicitly seen as NATI communist thing. I mean, the
state departments, like actual explicit line was a great revolution
to stop a bred revolution. So like a big part
of what this was about was like stopping land reform
from happening, which right, yeah, is incredibly bleak.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, and now it's the dominant practice globally and it's
having detrimental impacts globally. And yeah, and and I mean
some of those blood some of them are going to
be dead very soon. Yeah, the rest of us have
to suffer the consequences story of my life, yeap, which
existence on this is right?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, you think that's sort of wild about it too,
is that like the countries that did land reform like
developed better capitalist economies and the ones who didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
But yeah, you know, like, yeah, yay, the better doing copless.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, well, I mean and like yeah, it's like they're
they're better. It turns out doing land reform actually does
help both like non capitalist and capitalist economies. But unfortunately
the green revolutionary people, the revolution people like already even
like people who care about the efficiency of capitalism, they
care about like the power of the land owning class.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well yeah, and I mean that I don't know if
this is a saying, but I might make it a
say in I think socialists are bets are doing copitless
and then copless.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So yeah, I mean that's the entire is this is
the entire story of China, right, It's like, yeah, like
Brush's Leninism is a really really efficient way to turn
a feudal economy into a capitalist economy.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, Like, if I was in charge of capitalism, I
was going to make sure that the people at the
bottom class brought into the system. Who will see and yeah,
propaganding education is a part of it, but also you
want to make sure they're not vulnerable to being radicalized.
The best way to do that is to ensure that
the basic needs are met. Yeah, but you know, even
(14:37):
arguing that will have some people, uh, misinformed, I would say,
but well intentioned labeling you a socialist, like I think
people should have good things. Oh you're dirty red comedy you.
But you know it's it's just well, it's just literally
wealthier capitalism. But apparently that too much for a lot
(15:01):
of capitalists. Apparently, I mean literally the reason we have
welfare capitalism is because socialists forward for it in early
twentieth century and early to mid twentieth century. So you know,
we have socialist to thank for everything basically. But I'm
getting off track, right, So, like I was saying, this monopoly,
(15:22):
this radical monopoly over fundamental human activities, that's a detrimental
war and subsistence that are deprived peasant societies of the
essential skills and know how, instead of promoting human flourishing,
all this economic development ended up feeding into what Yvan
has termed modernized poverty. And it's something I think about often, Right,
(15:45):
this idea of the poor back then versus the poor now. Right,
And of course it depends on which society you're talking about,
which time period you're talking about, But let's just pick
some random like historic poor person. Right, let's just say,
(16:06):
I don't know generic civilization. A. This person is poor, right,
they after work, they have to work the land backbreaking toil.
Sometimes raiders would roll it and be like, oh, we're
going to take your stuff now, and then they would
like ride their horses away and probably I don't know,
dab on you or whatever, or the raiders will roll in,
(16:29):
they'll take your stuff and then they'll be like, oh,
I want to stay. And then now you have to
pay taxes to me every year. And you know, that's
how a lot of states were created. But whether it's
you know, nomadic warlords or settled warlords, at least you
had a house, at least you had a community. At
(16:49):
least you had the ability to grow your own food,
even though a lot of that food was being taxed.
And you know, at least you had certain skills that
you could use to sustain yourself. Right. Compare that to
modern poverty, where you have this large swath of people
(17:10):
who are dependent, who are mechanical parts in a system
that they cannot fully understand, comprehend and control for themselves.
With this, you know, whole industrial revolution where you take
this process of making a chair, for example, and you
break it up into a bunch of different steps, and
(17:30):
each person that step you knows how to do one thing,
but they don't have to do the entire thing. Right
Like the poor today versus the poor of yesteryear, the
latter still had these skills for subsistence, and many of
today is poor, particularly the urban poor. Because I know
the rural poor, a lot of them still sustain themselves,
still practice you know, sustem, subsistence farm and that kind
(17:54):
of thing, but particularly the urban poor, they don't even
have like a lot of those skills to rely on
even sustain themselves in that level. For the urbanists in
the audience, you might appreciate the Devan also talks about
the dominance of cars and how they've created this radical
monopoly over land sitting out urban environments into the domain
(18:15):
of cars, which not only compromises the environment for pedestrians
and cyclists, but also disrupts our innate mobility as human beings.
(18:36):
Steven takes it a step further right. And this particular
opinion opinion of his is a bit shaky for me,
so something I've been lettin stewing my brain a little
bit more. But let me just read the quote the
radical monopoly cars established is destructive in a special way.
Cars create distance, speedy vehicles of all kinds, frendous scarce.
(19:01):
They drive wedges of highways into populated areas and the
next door tolls on the bridge over the remoteness between
people that was manufactured for their sake. This monopoly overland
turn space into car fodder. It destroys the environment for
feet and bicycles. Even if polices and buses could run
(19:22):
as non pollutant, Even if planes and buses could run
as non pollutant, non deplete and public services they're inhuman velocities,
would degrademans in need mobility and force him to spend
more time for the sake of travel. I'm sure he
could pick up on why that particular opinion is a
bit shaky, right, Yeah, it's not just anti car. He's
(19:43):
also a bit anti plane and bus.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
To be fair, I'm also anti bus. But like planes,
I don't know, like, are they great for the environment? No?
Do you sometimes need to go to another continent?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So he is a He probably
reads like r slash f cars and he's like, uh, y'all,
don't take it far. You know you guys are liberals.
But yeah, so I highly recommend reading the actual book
(20:19):
and full for further insight and context. And I do
want to dig into his thoughts on a food in
the future, but you know, food for thought. Let me
know what you think of those inhuman velocities. But anyway,
memes aside, I think the benefit of Evan's critique of
(20:40):
the radical monopoly is that it provides a different perspective, right.
It sheds light on the negative consequences of excessive specialization,
technocratic control, and the prioritization of speed and efficiency over
human well being. Zoeb on YouTube actually has a really
great video and the idea of efficiency as this ultimate
(21:01):
moral good, So I recommend checking that out, especially since
the standard narrative that we are utterly bombarded by is
that all these things are uncontroversially good. Right. What I
appreciate about Yvan and his ideas is that they challenge
us to reconsider our relationship with systems, tools, and institutions,
(21:22):
and he encourages us to strive for more balanced and
confivial society. And what does that convivial society look like
to him? Well, let's continue Ivan's solution argues for the
developments of new, accessible and user friendly instruments that would
allow average citizens to regain practical knowledge and reclaim control
(21:45):
over their lives, as well as resist the domination of
specialized elites. That's why Ivan Ilich's book Tools for Conviviality
is sponsored by Skills. All right, I know that was
a bad joke. Yvan believed that society should be organized
to serve the needs and aspirations of individuals, rather than
(22:08):
creating systems that limit their potential and autronomy. And so
for Yvan conviviality. Here we are back to the original topic.
Conviviality represented a society in which individuals had the power
to shape their own lives, free from excessor dependence on
institutionalized systems. He envisioned a world people had access to
(22:32):
convivial tools, simple, user friendly technologies that empowered them to
take control of their own destinies. For example, the dominant
education system separates learners from the real world and disempowers them.
Ivan advocates for more self directed and community based education,
where people could pursue knowledge and skills according to their
(22:55):
own interests and needs. Yvan also critiques the overreliance on
medical professionals and call for a shift towards a more
participatory model of healthcare that gives individuals access to information
and resources that allow them to actively participate in their
own health decisions rather than be in these passive recipients
of medical interventions. In transportation systems, he also advocates for
(23:19):
more human skill and community oriented transportation alternatives. He envisions
neighborhoods designed for walking and biking, which would foster social
interactions and reduce the environmental impact of excessive motorized transport.
In essence, Evan viewed Forviality as a transformative concept that
aimed to restore individual agency and personal connections and a
(23:42):
sense of empowerment in society. He challenged the prevalance structures
and systems that limited human potential and proposed more participatory,
community driven alternatives, and to this day, his ideas continue
to inspire discussions on how we can create a convivial
society that values human relationships, self determination, and a shared
(24:04):
responsibility for shaping our own lives. What I found particularly
interesting in researching this was learning that the book's vision
of tools that would be developed maintained by a community
of users that actually had significant influence on the first
developers the personal computer mind blowing. I know, most notably
(24:25):
one of the create first developers of the PC, Lee
Felt Felsenstein. Lee Felsenstein, He and several others were just
were inspired by this idea within the book, because we
remember Ivana's righting this before the internet, and they go
(24:46):
and they take this idea, and then they make the
internet or they make the personal computer, because computers existed
prior to the personal computer, but they weren't as accessible,
they weren't a tool of conviviality, whereas the personal computer
of today is. And I just think that's beautiful and amazing.
But Ivan's ideas did more than just you know, shape
(25:07):
the course of human history. He also would shaped the
creation of confiviulist movement. In twenty ten, eight years after
Ivan died, and thirty seven years after Ivan published Tools
for Conviviality, Raymond de Boiver published Convivialism, a philosophical Manifesto,
and in it, Barvert begins by discussing the key theme
(25:31):
in Michael Polland's books The Botany of Desire, which is
a great read, by the way, and the Omnivars Dilemma,
which I haven't read yet, but the key theme is
co evolution, right. The first book humorously suggests that plants
manipulate humans to coevolve, with them taking care of their
needs and exchange for nutrition or beauty, and the second book,
(25:53):
the Omnivoice Dilemma, the importance of interconnected components for vibrant
pharm is emphasized, corn serving as an example of a
plant that relies on humans for survival. WaveRT proposes that
focusing on the prefix co in co evolution could have
philosophical implications similar to William James's emphasis on the preposition
(26:16):
with by you know. Examining the significance of these prepositions co,
com con or coal as well as sin, the author
argues for a philosophy that recognizes omnipresent interconnection. Michael Polland's
books do this well in the context of food, but
(26:36):
Waver wants to take this The implications of this uh
taken preposition seriously into a rearrange ing the philosophy itself,
and now we're getting, you know, kind of heavy, right.
As Quavert argues, philosophers have often neglected the significance of
(26:58):
interconnected relationships, while farmers recognize the importance of interconnectedness, you know,
how things like land and water and stuff all work together.
Modern philosophy, on the other hand, according to Bovair, since
the Renaissance, has been focused on these self standing and
independent entities, not interconnected entities. And I don't know how
(27:19):
true this is because I'm not I didn't study philosophy.
I'm just communicating Barveao's arguments here, right. And so the
idea of autonomy in modern philosophy, according to barve seem
(27:39):
to exclude the with factor and existence, relegating relations and
interconnections to a secondary rule. So Whatver is saying is
that philosophy is sort on this foundation that we are
autonomous and self sufficient first, right, and then everything else
comes after. You know. Rousseau, for example, portrayed an idyllic
(28:05):
existence where connections, independencies of views as these impositions. You know,
we went from being autonomous to being stuck in this
web of interdependencies, and then as a result coming down
to that the philosophical idea of liberation, uh for some
(28:28):
ended up returning for some meant to return into this
original state of authenticity and disengagement from connections. The concept
of freedom itself became something that was anti interdependency, and
(28:49):
so the focus shifted away from this idea of humans
being inherently interdependent. But then this alternative point of view
came about, right, and this shift coincided with the introduction
(29:12):
of the terms symbiosis and biology, which combined the Greek
word for life with the preposition with and the concept
of symbiosis found its way eventually into everyday language and discourse.
So that's the Greek term symbiosis. Then we go to
the Latin term conviviality, meaning with living, and that long
(29:34):
predated you know, science and philosophy used to describe just
ordinary experiences. And so to avoid getting lost into the
philosopher's favorite past time of you know, navigating various words
and all their package to boil a downed simplicity, Boivert
(29:57):
is seeking to ask what a conviviulous turn in philosophy
might look like and what changes in philosophy might be
taken place. For one, he's concerned with how embracing trivialism
might change our understanding of metaphysics right by embracing this
(30:20):
metaphors of existence as about the relation and conjunction between
components or the interplane interconnectedness of various elements, rather than
about a collection of separate units. You end up going
from this position of isolation to this position of profound interrelation,
(30:47):
and then you begin to focus on the interactions between
people rather than just the uh experiences within people. In
the sphere of philosophical anthropology, while Fare argues that a
convivial ton would mean redefined in humanity, you know, taking
(31:09):
this concept that you know, we're not just these purely
logical and calculating beings. We are homo sapiens. And the
term sapiens is derived from the Latin word for tasting,
which highlights the human capacity to constantly try and test,
to constantly experiments, to actually participate in interactions with our surroundings.
(31:33):
So in this convivial turn, we return to the original
definition of for me, and we gave ourselves right as
taste does, as flexible, educable, subject to investigation and improvement,
(31:54):
constantly testing and experiment and then seeing what is best
in specific contexts. Seeing that taste as sapiens, as homo sapiens,
taste is inherently pluralistic, because there is no universe your
cell taste, There is no single taste that is like, oh,
(32:17):
this is the taste. Everybody must have care to this taste.
Everybody has a different taste. We talk about that when
we talk about taste, and I think the implications are
particularly profound when we bring it into the preferative this
sphy of prefrigative politics. Right whereas tasters as experimenters, we
(32:38):
are looking for ways to prefigure new social relations and
institutions and relationships and structures and systems for the future
in the here now, and that requires tastes, and that
requires experimentation. That requires an acceptance of pluralism because everyone
has a different taste and everyone's going to bring something
different to the table. That's beautiful. And then, also in
(33:02):
the field of epistemology, the conribulists perspective challenges the opposition
between subject and object and understand reality. Rejects the idea
of the mind as a mere mirror reflects in reality
or project to impotant conceptual schemes onto reality. Because confivialism
is about how the intermediaries, the facility to interactions, how
(33:25):
they affect the way that we perceive and reflect on
reality itself. It also requires us to let go of
this subject object dichotomy in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding,
which itself has implications on even the field of science,
because you know, the idea of the scientists and the
(33:49):
popular imagination is you know the subject who is whatever
that scientist is studying, that is the But convivialism causes
suppose and reflect on how that subject, that object, and
(34:10):
how intermediary is between them affect their perception of each other,
affect the subject, the scientist's ability to pursue knowledge and
understanding affects the objects if the object is a person
to do the same. And finally, Baver digs into the
rigid division between nature and culture and how the convivialist
(34:32):
perspective challenges that the continuous interactions and transformations that occur
in existence makes it problematic to consider the divisions between
human societies, between human societies and the ecosystems that surround
(34:56):
them as fundamental aspects of existence. Right, the boundary between
nature and culture is one that constantly blues. It is
difficult to place, particularly when there's an embrace by certain
cultures of that interconnectedness and interdependence between their culture and
(35:19):
the nature that surrounds them. And then when you see
that blurring of lines between culture and nature, you might
also recognize a blurring of lines between human and non human.
In the context of community, the idea of community being
an exclusively human domain becomes less apt, I suppose, as
(35:45):
it recognize the way that non humans influence and effect
and engage and interact with humans in this you know, collectivity.
We use terms like commun unity and city and society
and stuff to refer to the human aspects of interaction,
(36:08):
and we use things like ecosystem and biome to emphasize
non human aspects of interaction. But the interactions between humans, animals, plants,
and inanimate entity is to not always thought so neatly
into that metaphysical description of reality. Of course, we use
(36:29):
these divisions for certain specific research purposes. We say, oh,
I'm a sociologist, dom an anthropologists, I'm a biologist, and ecologists, etc.
But we can't forget that convivialism. Conviviality asks us not
to forget that those are human impositions that we should
(36:51):
not let obscure our ability to make sense of reality
as a whole. I know, things got really heavy there.
I hope that everything I said made sense and if
you need a breather or some time to pause and
(37:11):
reflect further on the implications on this simple, cute fun
to say a little Latin word, conviviality. We're going to
take a pause here, but next time you can join
us as we discuss how people have gone from this
term to urge his ideas two Jave's philosophical indications to
(37:39):
more recent manifestos of the convivial movement and how they
can relate to the growth and beyond. You can find
me on YouTube dot com slash andeurism, and you can
support you on peaton dot com slash Saint True once
again Montrue joined by Mio and this is It could
(38:04):
Happen Here, Peace. It could Happen Here as a production
of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com Slash sources.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Thanks for listening,
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