Each chapter in this volume records an effort of mine to question the nature of some certainty. Each therefore deals with deception—the deception embodied in one of our institutions. Institutions create certainties, and taken seriously, certainties deaden the heart and shackle the imagination. It is always my hope that my statements, angry or passionate, artful or innocent, will also provoke a smile, and thus a new freedom—even though the freedom come at a cost.
Shortly after original publication most of these papers became notorious. This was not accident. Each essay was written in a different language, addressed to a different group of believers, meant to hit home at a particular crisis of confidence. Each rubbed some well-established bureaucrats the wrong way, at the moment the latter were finding it difficult to rationalize a “business as usual” position.
These pieces were, therefore, literally written for the moment. The passage of time since some of them appeared has qualified an occasional detail: statistics, or the situation discussed—even my own attitude—may have altered since, in some manner or degree. But I have purposely not, in the journalistic phrase, “updated” the articles for presentation in this book form. They constitute a point of view on a phenomenon of a time, and should stand thus. Their compilation has also inevitably resulted in some repetitive statements of fact and some duplications of expressions. These too I leave as stated, for emphasis and for the record—though I would have avoided them had I thought originally that one day I would gather my occasional writings under one cover.
Ivan D. Illich
Cuernavaca, Morelos
Mexico
1970