Hi All
A Question
Can I ask if Designers are Politicians?
Ken stated: 'In a more reasonable light, I’d say that there are many people who do not self-designate as designers, yet who nevertheless design. That’s the core of Herbert Simon’s definition of the activity of design: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”
If I change ‘designs' for ‘politics', does it still work? Designers may not self designate as politicians but may, nevertheless, be engaged in political acts in their professional practice
Politics, as any search will show, has as many definitions and definers as design. Lasswell defined politics as who gets what when and how. This was a classic definition offered at one time
Aristotle, after Plato, had this six fold schema of constitutions ( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/#Glo) see below. Given the social nature of design do these constitutions offer us anything to consider ( given recent discussions on this list)? Given Aristotle held that we are naturally political animals, then it follows that designers are political and given they engage in the allocation and organisation of material and immaterial resources they are politicians, in the general sense of Lasswell definition, before they are designers, both as actors in the general world and in the specificity of their everyday professional activity.
I am not sure where this takes us, However, it seems to me, imbedded in much discussion on this list there are implicit political issues and systems within design that may well be better examined explicitly. A politics of design?
Correct Deviant
One Ruler Kingship Tyranny
Few Rulers Aristocracy Oligarchy
Many Rulers Polity Democracy
Lasswell, H. (1936) Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, London, Whittlesey House.
Best Wishes
Chris
Chris Smith
Associate Editor, Journal Visual Art Practice
Visiting Fellow
CCW Graduate School, University of the Arts, London
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