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The Ambling Mind

The Convivial Society: Vol. 5, No. 6

I’m sure, though, that most people who I might think of as highly accomplished walkers would resist my characterization, and, I should add, I certainly don’t mean to encourage a hierarchical framing of what is a thoroughly egalitarian activity. This was one iteration of Illich’s core criticism of late modern industrial tools, by which he meant both technologies and institutions: they had the tendency to render us hapless consumers of goods and service who no longer recalled what we were capable of doing for ourselves and for our communities. This principle of proportionality or fittingness is one that we do well to remember and insist upon to whatever degree we are able because almost everything about the human-built world, in its economic and technological dimensions, is bent on pushing us past a human scale and speed, which then denies us the opportunity to cultivate our competence and enjoy its rewards.

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