An Invitation to Ivan Illich

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Hugh?s story is a classic example of the way Illich often illustrates his complex thinking. In the past, he has often made use of the vivid stories and characters of Greek myth as handrails for unfamiliar, even disorienting, philosophical territory. In this same way, a contemporary story involving Illich and his friend and collaborator Lee Hoinacki helps explain the essential impulses behind Illich?s life work.

In 1993, Hoinacki, also a former priest, decided to take Illich?s advice and make a thousand-kilometer pilgrimage to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela ? a destination of European pilgrims since the ninth century. In honor of the decision, Illich retrieved a pair of sturdy walking shoes from his closet and presented them to his friend.

Illich remembers when he bought those shoes, in 1973, the day Chilean president Salvador Allende was killed: ?When I heard the news of Allende?s death, I remembered that the last time I had seen him we had had an argument. I told him he should be riding his bike to work and he had said that the president of a country doesn?t do that sort of thing, and besides, it was too dangerous to ride out in the open like that. I had replied, ?Wouldn?t it be better to be killed on your bike than in your office???

The day Illich bought his shoes, Allende?s term as a democratically elected socialist president ended with a gunshot to the head, in the president?s office.

The walking shoes, which had been used only rarely in the 20 years, fit Hoinacki perfectly. But pilgrimages are a test of the soul as well as the body, and on the very first day Hoinacki remembers looking up toward the steep mountain pass still blanketed in snow and thinking he would never be able to make it through ? much less all the way to Santiago de Compostela.

He leaned against a rock and concentrated on the thousands, perhaps millions, who had already passed by this spot. He concentrated on the great mystery of faith that led these pilgrims into northern Spain, and the great mystery of friendship that led him there.

Hoinacki says he must have lost consciousness; he does not remember making his way up to the pass. The next thing he knew, he was walking down the other side ? a great mystery to him to this day ? and realizing he could complete the pilgrimage.

At its simplest, this is a tale about the exceptional use of unexceptional tools: a pair of simple shoes. It also offers a window into Illich?s long-standing opposition to ?development.? When Illich challenged Allende to ride his bike to work, he was asking him to use alternative forms of transportation that were naturally adapted to his nation?s circumstances and resources. A tireless detractor of development policies that ?institutionalize the values? of technological society and impose on poor nations expectations that could never be met, Illich saw that Allende?s pedaling could have legitimized if not glamorized a ?No! Thank you? to the Alliance for Progress? Peace Corps as well as the International Monetary Fund ? two organizations he has often criticized as agents of development at its worst.

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