Hi Kari,

The talk about Freire, oppression and empowerment is ideological. I
perceive it and treat it in this way. The nature of ideological discourse
is very different from that of scholarly discourse. My sense is that you
treat the talk about empowerment and oppression as a scholarly discourse.
However, ideological issues can not be discussed in a scholarly model. The
reason is in the very nature of ideology and its difference with science.
Ideology is about defending your socioeconomic position. It has nothing to
do with the unbiased pursuit of knowledge about the world. It is biased and
it is proud with its bias because that is its nature -- to justify one's
biases.

When we start a discussion on the nature of the concept of oppression, it
will be a scholarly discussion, not a ideological one -- but at the same
time, only as long as we bracket out our ideological biases. The discussion
regarding ideological categories is ideological, but the discussion on the
nature of a particular category can be scholarly.

At this time, I don't have much inclination to get involved in ideological
dispute on the Internet. I also started understanding that my ideological
preferences are very different from the rest of the list. I am not going to
convince you anything. I don't think I should impose my ideology on the
whole discussion list. Further more, I don't think Freire and Lenin deserve
more time than I have lost on them during my life. Lenin destroyed East
Europe. Freire will destroy education (he is the password for advancement
in the education majors). With Marx the situation is different -- as an
ideologist, he is a formidable enemy. As a scholar, he is a superb thinker.
One of the greatest philosophers of the 19 century.

I don't see a reason that you should get offended from my ideological
position. It is not about trading offences. It is about explicating views.
 From time to time I express my surprise with particular views. After I see
that these views are believes, common to the whole list, I simply stay a
way. As I mentioned many times before, this don't bother me because I feel
too much different from the rest of the list. I got used to it. However,
the picture becomes more complex. Now it appears that the list is
oppressing me. How about this twist? Of course, I would never put it that
way. I think in different categories and I construe the word in a different
way. I pay a price for this. But everything has a price. As you see,
oppression is something very complex and convoluted.

I got in this ideological debate only because I didn't realize that my
remarks will be met in that way. My intention was to make a couple of short
comments and go away. However, you become very persistent and I got
embroiled and bogged down in something that is not my first love.

I mention for several years that the social problems of design can not be
cured with political means. Do not blame designers that their designs are
not politically sensitive. Blame the manufacturers/owners/buyers/users and
only in this regard you can shift some blame to the agents responsible for
the design program. But designers should be left last in this trading of
blame. (In reality this is much more complex).

If you want, organize the user to fight for their rights. What are their
rights -- to buy or not to buy. The market is the fair ground. One
exception -- the monopoly. The monopoly needs a an organized social
counteraction. The big question is should we regulate the production by
grass root politics, government control, or by market pressure. We see the
anomalies -- the monopolists. But what about the other side -- when a small
organized group destroys an industry and the society becomes aware about
this only after the services are gone. We usually tend to see the
destructive power of the monopolies, the big sharks. However, the game is
more complex.  You also saw that the government control over manufacturing
and government sponsored user "empowerment" lead to the stagnation and
destruction of one half of Europe.

  The most productive way to deal with social problems in design and the
social effects of design is through design programming. Then the political
debate will be transferred in programming. This is the best arena for
design politics or for the politics of use. It is legitimate to do politics
at the  programming stage, because this is the area where the negotiation
of resources should take place. When we discuss resources, we get into
politics. And we can use ideologies to support our positions. I will
reiterate -- the politics take place or should take place predominantly at
the predesign/programming stage. The political element in design should be
as large as the programming element in design is scheduled to be. Different
design processes presuppose different level of programming activity within
the design process. I already started the discussion on the artifact
development process, but would not continue simply because I think we all
need some rest and some distance in time and space. May be some time later
I might resume this thread.

I apologize to everyone who has different views from mine. I intend not to
engage in controversial comments anymore, and want to assure you that I had
never had the intention to deliberately offend anybody. Often when I play
on the verge, I can cross the line. I understand this. It is that easy,
particularly when I am different. Sometimes I don't estimate correctly the
amount of opposition; in other times I underestimate the effect of my
words. Right now several joking phrases occur to me, but I will keep them
for myself because I am sure the whole list will be mad at me again.

Regards and best wishes,

Lubomir

At 01:10 AM 5/2/2004 +0300, Kari-Hans Kommonen wrote:
>Dear Lubomir,
>
>I would appreciate if you would substantiate your claims about Freire
>and why it is not worth our effort to discuss his thoughts on this
>list. I have found your own posts so far quite populist in tone, and
>(based on what you have written so far) your opposition seems to be
>based on a sweeping ideological stance that does not seem to connect
>to Freire as much as to his context. More beef would raise the
>quality of our discussion, I think.
>
>I do not consider myself a "believer" or a "disciple". I am
>interested in understanding the issues better, and if you know
>something I do not, I'd like to learn about that to be able to revise
>my beliefs. So far you have not given me any material that I could
>use for that.
>
>(I apologize to those who are tired of Freire, but I try to use
>descriptive subject headers so that it is easy to press delete!)
>
>best, kh
>
>...
>
>At 10:47 -0400 1.5.2004, Lubomir S. Popov wrote:
>>Hi Victor,
>>
>>I appreciate both your post and your contributions to the field. You should
>>have intervened earlier and more often.
>>
>>I deliberately raised the flag, not because the discourse was about the
>>social nature of design, but because the discourse was going too much
>>populist. Just for information, my research is in the area of the
>>sociocultural aspects of design and I will be the last person on the list
>>to curtail a good discussion on the social basis of design. I will actually
>>welcome such discussions as long as they are not populist and do not dwell
>>on street-wise thinking, emotions and ideological bias.
>
>