Dear Freddy, Ken, Don and others who enjoy the limelight and play the game of being "delightfully guilty"

Well, I’m out of here - into to the shadowy, exciting, sensual world of real life …..

See you

:-)

Fiona x

On 16 Oct 2014, at 19:50, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear Fiona,
> 
> After a few days of debating with Don Norman here in Shanghai, I can’t quite see the problem — except to say that you’ve got to plan on each side getting a few touches when you fence with Don. If you don’t understand your material, plan to get skewered. In an academic world characterised by false manners, a serious debate argued from sound principles and reasonable evidence is not a case of unpleasantness. It’s the very stuff of academic freedom. It far surpasses faculty tea room debates where senior staff win points on rank. And it beats the craft guild style of argument: “I’m the master. You’re an apprentice. I win."
> 
> That’s the world designers are condemned to occupy when we don’t learn to debate and to think. One purpose of graduate education and research training is learning to argue and learning to think. Logic and analysis, rhetoric and dialectics, all play a role.
> 
> It’s also the case that you did not read Don’t note as carefully as you mighty have done. Don is not simply reporting a private conversation. He is reporting a public debate following a public talk, and a conversation at dinner with others present. From Socrates and Plato to Martin Luther and Winston Churchill, the dinner table has always been a public forum when authors are present.
> 
> Tim Ingold is an author and a public figure. He has not been “pushed onto the stage of this list without his consent.” Public figures put their ideas on stage in lectures, in conversation, and — in Tim’s case — in a long series of books. Anyone with a bibliography as long as his can afford a few critical comments. The Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen could hardly care that Jeremy Hunsinger drew his work to our attention — or that Don Norman disagrees with him, especially on cognitive science, a field that Don helped to establish.
> 
> There is also another issue here, and that is the issue of serious debate for the sake of productive argument. Don, Patrick Whitney, and I did two public conversations here this week. Don’s first rule was that we were not to agree with each other, no matter what. (Of course, Don broke that rule, too.) Ever hopeful, I suggested that we might become a designerly version of the Three Tenors. Patrick said we were more likely to be the Three Stooges. Either way, we had several hours of lively arias and occasional head boinking got folks thinking.
> 
> Good debate is the pathway to good thought. Good debate argued well is an aid to good thinking. I just can’t see this as unpleasantness. And I’d say that Don has done Tim Ingold a service — I know the name, but I had not read the work in any depth. When Don takes the time to disagree with someone in a public forum, it gets my attention. That sells books, and Tim Ingold can thank Don for part of his 2014 royalties.
> 
> Publishing a book or giving a public lecture entails implied consent for review and critical inquiry of the ideas you express. These may be showered with praise or found wanting. Either way, the very notion of “fair use” in copyright law is built on the fundamental right of public conversation about the writings and ideas of a public figure.
> 
> My dog Freddy may not consider himself a public figure. Once he steps into the street and starts to bark, he is. So it goes with Tim Ingold, Don Norman, and with you or I.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Ken
> 
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015 
> 
> Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology
> 
> Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 
> 
> Telephone: International +46 480 51514 — In Sweden (0) 480 51514 — iPhone: International +46 727 003 218 — In Sweden (0) 727 003 218
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------