Illich’s core critique of modernity is that modern tools, broadly defined, have great benefits, but they have been over applied. As a result, many areas touched by modernity pass through two watersheds:

1. In the first watershed, a modern approach improves a domain significantly.
2. In the second watershed, the same modern approach is over-applied, causing “negative returns”, “marginal disutility”, general dehumanization, loss of autonomy, etc.

This rhymes a bit with Aristotle's Doctrine of the Golden Mean.

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