Gaze at the reflection, but don’t fall in the pond
Reflection on a Reading — What is Critical Design? by Brad Haylock
To make as clear as possible the links and discrete points made by Brad Haylock, we need to understand, if not completely comprehend, the literature that precedes, influences and informs design theory now. I can’t help but find it a bit amusing that Western philosophy is caught with its knickers in perpetual twists, but that seems to be the very meat of academic relevance, so let’s put the jokes aside and see what Haylock is guiding us gently through.
First important point he makes, hierarchically if not chronologically, is that Human History comes from a place where someone has made decisions about whose viewpoint to express, whose victory to celebrate, whose counsel to dismiss and whose priorities to hold sacred. Nothing exists in a vacuum. The presupposition of an order, or a truth born of nature has often been through several script doctors and editors before it ever saw the light of a layman’s eye.
It’s funny, because I am also re-reading Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism lecture, and there are too many parallels here! In the reading, we are generously given precious context to the debate that then pivots on a seemingly pinhead point, which is that of reflection, the ability to be reflective, the ability to step back and view what one has just said or thought or done out of the maelstrom of the moment, which can be so intoxicating.
Take for granted that I am aware that intoxication impairs judgement, and you will have a good footing from which to reach to the next salient point. The ability to judge is an essential precursor to any formulation of a critique, and “reading” a moment, a design or a piece of art will take on different formations depending on context. I do give the postmodernists that one point. But, the abandonment of all rational systems of value, while acknowledged to be built within a system of meaning and value, is no reason to dispense with relative weighting, and I would rather argue that context is so vital for interpretation’s success.
There exists in human societies, from feudalism to the industrial revolution to neoliberalism, strata of class, whether the political world one inhabits desires to acknowledge it or not. It exists. Class is the invisible power at play in art theory, language, translations and transactions, political activism as opposed to apathy and acceptance, and blind obedience as opposed to active resistance. So, why all the big words? Well, it does come down to nuances of meaning. Communication design has to accept that there are already multiple meaning-making systems in place before the work of a designer can be undertaken. Implications of meaning attached to gender, race, colour, placement, focus, and even fontfaces. This is where the average person simply gives up. That is fine. This is not a conversation every human is capable of having. But what does that mean for the humans who are capable of discussion? In my mind, it implies a great responsibility. When power is trying to move from the bottom up, it must be assisted by those higher up. When power is activated from the top, it only has to be released, and gravity will do the dirty work.
Power is so interesting. Power is so very unfair. It should seem obvious that a powerful entity will use the power at its disposal to create situations and systems which amplify, preserve and expand its power. Benevolence is not the great motivator. Roland Barthes has given us thinkers excellent tools to use in dismantling mythologies and parsing out explanations which would fail every test a Greek rhetorician could present. Persuasion is the root of power. Rhetoric is its arsenal. Logic is its structure and anecdote and charisma are its devastating flank.
Haylock looks at the moment when Western philosophy emerged blinking into fresh sunlight - the Enlightenment. The embarrassing truth that escapes the Western Canon is that many of these things had previously been mastered and shared and revered. Casting off the shackles of divine revelation, Enlightenment Era thinkers could posit a truth which was mutable, plastic and regenerative. Prior to this, the truth was carved in stone and delivered in a sermon.
The disoriented Western Man, shell shocked that their God was not unbiased, wandered around asking other blinking thinkers what this new truth was. Marx aimed his intellect at the means of production. The terrific thing about this Marxist thought, is that it is truly applicable to every human venture. Who produces value? Who produces truth? Who writes the rules and who is obliged to follow them? These are answered by the evasive “it depends”. In our society, it depends who your father is, where you went to school, which country and faith you were born into, the colour of your skin and the orientation of your sexual desires. But these things are still all equal before any true God.
Atheism and existentialism have removed the protective coating of divine power. No power is without context. No power is preserved through ‘natural order’. We are able to know this because of the thoughts that Haylock guides us through.
But they are shocking. They are terrifying. They are liberating. Brace yourself. This is the beginning of a very big thought.
