Dear Gavin,
In your latest note on the term function, you wrote, “Eduardo, ‘in Brazil, função, designates also some bureaucratic procedures tedious and complicated’, I would also like to add that persons performing these duties are commonly known as ‘functionaries’, a more or less pejorative term with connotations of blind obedience to rules and rulers. … Not a great association for designers.”
May I advise a little caution on this analysis?
First, consider the context of the thread. Eduardo has not given a comprehensive analysis of the word function in Brazilian Portuguese. He described one among several meanings. This specific meaning came in an off-list note from a designer who reminded him of one meaning only.
Second, the term function works differently across languages. A functionary is a person who executes functions. A general principle of scholarly inquiry is attention to context and detail. Before assigning cultural values to a word, it is vital to locate that word in a language and a culture. Cultural context is central to the way we perceive and feel the meaning of a word. For those who live in kleptocracies where judges reach a verdict based on bribery, the word “law” is pejorative. For those who live in societies where courts and judges fulfill the roles we expect of them in democracies, “law” is an honored word even though we recognize failures in the system.
Third, and quite important, understanding a term such as functionary involves examining the word itself. The word is not pejorative. It can be value-neutral and purely descriptive. It can also be honorific as well as pejorative.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a functionary as “one invested with a function; one who has certain functions or duties to perform; an official.” The exemplars are value-neutral or positive:
—snip—
1797 E. Burke Three Mem. French Affairs<file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> 12 Their Republick is to have a first functionary (as they call him) under the name of King, or not, as they think fit.
1815 J. Scott Visit to Paris<file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> (ed. 2)Pref. p. lxi, Several houses have been burnt, and an unfortunate functionary cut to pieces.
1843 Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit<file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> (1844) xix. 234 A female functionary, a nurse.
1879 J. A. Froude Cæsar<file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> xviii. 303 Legitimate functionaries to carry on the government.
—snip—
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the word functionary as “one who serves in a certain function; one holding office in a government or political party.”
Where government and politics function badly, it is less than honorable to be a functionary.Where government and politics function well, many functionaries are honored and respected.
A similar sense applies to the term bureaucrat. Max Weber’s model of bureaucracy defined a specific kind of individual with professional commitment to rational procedures and obedience to clear and transparent rules. This focus on rules – the rule of law rather than the rule of individuals – became a safeguard for citizens in a political context and a safeguard for workers in industrial organizations. When Weber did his work in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, favoritism, personal whim, and corruption among managers were serious problems for governments and industrial organizations.
Managers could hire relatives. Mobs could determine who would work and who wouldn’t based on whether workers paid off bosses or required workers to take loans at extortionate rates. Government contracts and the value chains of companies or industrieswere determined through personal connection rather than fair bidding to specification.
It helps to this in the context of the time. You can review the era for yourself in the investigative journalism of the late 1800s and early 1900s – such writers as Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, or Frank Norris focused on the ways in which corruption, personal interest, and different forms of oligarchy worked against the public interest. Today, journalists such as Barbara Ehrenreich, the late Anna Politkovskaya, Greg Palast, or John Pilger exemplify this kind of investigative journalism. Their work reveals what happens when personal interests and illegitimate or hidden profit motives affect government policy. This is also the case where unconstrained opportunity elevates the private interests of managers and executives over the legitimate interests of the firm, its shareholders, employees, and stakeholders.
To address this problem, societies and organization use the notion of legitimate bureaucracy. This requires a class of individuals who fulfill legitimate processes by adhering to established rules. The individuals who undertake this work are functionaries. Functionaries are professionals who fulfill the functions of an office. Invested with a function, they perform their duties with respect torules that derive, ultimately, from the laws that nations establish to determine legitimate processes in the public and private sector.
Blind obedience to rules is never sensible, and certainly not blind obedience to rulers. This has less to do with the nature of what it is to be a functionary than the nature of individuals who may be elevated to roles for which they are not suited.
One manager I worked for a while back was an interesting fellow with respect to rules, and the way that one must understand rules to fulfill organizational goals. I’d occasionally bring him a problem I could not solve. I’d explain what I needed to do and why, stating how I’d like to do it. He’d nod wisely. Then he’d shake his head, saying regretfully, “It’s a great idea, but it’s against the rules. No, you can’t do that at all.” Then he’d scratch his jaw, look off into the distance, and start again, “Of course, you could designate this in a slightly different way…” From there, he’d describe nearly the same process with the same outcome, showing me how to fit them into a framework that allowed me to achieve what the organization needed done.
Everyone knows people like this – I’ve had the good fortune to know several in my life.
Literature and drama are filled with stories of the clash of functionaries who use rules for good purposes or evil. Much of the legal thriller genre fits that kind of model. John Grisham’s novels and movies turn on ways that lawyers use the rule of law to pervert justice or to restore it.
The classics have often turned on how we use rules or choose among sets of rules to do justice or pervert it. That’s the core problem in Antigone. It underlies the Oresteia. It is the central motivating theme of Chushingura as well: the drama is setinto motion when an honorable lord refuses to bribe a corrupt lord who refuses to fulfill his function without the bribe.
The world requires functionaries. Some functionaries are, and must be designers. The chief design officer of any great modern corporation is a functionary. So is a city architect. So are the people who inspect buildings, food, and products to ensure that they meet standards. There is a growing class of functionaries who work at public service design innovation centers, using design process for public service. MindLab in Copenhagen, the SITRA Strategic Design Unit in Helsinki, or the new Australian center for public service design in Canberra are examples.
The concept of legitimate function has always been linked with justice and the advance of civilization. The section in the Book of Proverbs in the Bible sometimes called the “Thirty Sayings of the Wise” is essentially a book of rules based on an ancient Egyptian document by Amenemopet, a functionary who lived millennia ago. This document was part of the curriculum at an ancient Egyptian school that served as the equivalent of a modern civil service academy or training center. Thecore concept is ethical behavior in public and private service. This requires transparent and equitable adherence to fair rules.
A few months back, I headed a research project for the Australian Department of Human Services. We were examining ways to generate public service innovation through design process. Our chief investigator was a business scholar, Di Bolton. Our counterpart in DHS was Michael Davies, Director of Concept Development in the Design Capability section of the Future Service Design division.
Some of our meetings were delightful and informative. It was a pleasure to listen to the ways in which civil service professionals address the functions of the civil service role. To witness this kind of conversation is to witness the ways in which public service emerges as a form of common good.
It’s easy to throw out a quick statement labeling a concept or a term without thinking it through. To label the word “functionary” as pejorative is thoughtless. In today’s world, designers need to know a great deal more about how the world works.
Anyone who works with design for public service innovation works with people whose dedication to effective function for human beings is a core value, just as it is for designers.
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Phone +61 3 9214 6102 | www.swinburne.edu.au/design
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