ABSTRACT
I dream of an intellectual who destroys proofs and universals, who discovers and reveals, within present day limitations and inertia, weaknesses, openings, lines of force; one that is always changing location. He [sic] doesn’t know precisely where he will be or what he will be thinking tomorrow because he is completely absorbed in the present. (Foucault, cited in Daniel, 1984, p. 29)
Ivan Illich was the fi rst public intellectual with the audacity, courage, and prescience to boldly whip off the moral mantel decently covering the coupling of Education and Development-the two sacred cows sacralized globally more than half a century ago. Principally an historian of the 12th century, Illich remained fully absorbed in the present. To see the present afresh and anew, with “non-modern” eyes, to discover how modern mentality was constructed, he oft en likened his analytical method to walking backward like a crab toward the 12th century, discovering the historical origins of 20th century certitudes.
