 From 1966 to 1975 social critic Ivan Illich ran the Centro Intercultural de Documentacion (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. At once a Spanish school, a radical think tank, and an experiment in creating a "convivial" institution, CIDOC attracted thousands of students and thinkers from the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Paolo Freire, Robert Lowell, Erich Fromm, and Gustavo Gutierrez, to name just a few, made it a center of the non-Marxist left. Few understood, however, exactly what Illich was up to. Both the writings that Illich produced during this period and the institution itself were critiques of the foundations of the West itself.
Dr. Todd Hartch |