> Le 9 janv. 2018 à 20:19, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> a écrit :
>
> How important is the history of a topic to the work being done today?
>
> This is a controversial topic. In the sciences, much of the history is
> interesting, fascinating, and mostly irrelevant to the ongoing work.
> Workers are expected to know the literature of past work from the very
> recent past (say, the past 5 years, plus a few critical significant works).
>>> history —if it was taught in the standard curriculum which I think seldom happens in engineering and sciences— avoids the « terra nullus » syndrome : it all starts with me, and nothing serious and valuable existed before me.
Not teaching history is the best way to avoid any questions about the purposefulness of what you are doing, of how your field has been constructed as a discipline, what kind of (heated) debates or political decisions oriented choices and closed alternative routes, and of any kind of responsibility towards the society.
Not teaching history allows the candid kind of answer of many many engineers, doctors and scientists : « I never thought it would be used for that, that was not our idea ».
Let’s think of AI + big data or cognitive psychology as means to achieve individual social control (even though this was not a deliberate purpose) ;
Of genomics as ways to create patents leading to massive profits for a limited amount of world class trusts (even though this was not a deliberate purpose);
Of bioengineering as means to avoid any change in a cosy way of life (even though this was not a deliberate purpose)…
And, in the 21st century, claiming that something called « pure science » sits with the gods on Mount Olympus is a lovely myth. Probably only those working on dead langages, fossils and prehistory could be nearby…
> Design is a mixed bag: are we more along the science model, or the
> humanities and arts model?
>>> It depends on the school’s approach : that’s the difference between fixing things (design as problem solving) and having a vision.
If design is a kind of social-technical plumbing, than indeed you can teach Bauhaus and design history as a compendium of pictures, names and dates so that students score an MCQ…
If it is a matter of vision, you’ll have to put people to think of why the Bauhaus, why Gropius, why Meyer, why Mies v.d. Rohe ;
Whether the question of « what kind of society do we wish to shape » remains relevant and why ;
Why the legacy remains embedded in most of the design schools curricula, like a deep deep soil, yet fertile ;
What answers should be left aside and what questions are still asked to designers (and not : by designers) by the world as it goes…
That is
> how I feel about the Bauhaus movement: I am grateful for what it
> accomplished, but I do not find it relevant to the complex issues we face
> today.
>>> History shows that the level of complexity was exactly the same : massive social transformation (rebuild a world after a major world war), massive economical change (also the first « Industrial war »), massive political change (rebuild a world after the Russian revolution, the Berlin commune, new nations etc.), massive urban change (with all it meant in terms of organization of space, resources etc.).
>
>
> Am I right? That's not the correct question: it is simply my opinion. Some
> of you will be horrified, some amused, some supportive. All those opinions
> are correct.
>>> seriously Don, if this is a matter of « opinion », not all opinions are equal.
Yours is authoritative and published, and moreover you are head of a school. And I believe you are fully aware of what it implies.
I’ll put myself in between amused (you could, after all be joking and provocative… I haven’t read the piece), and horrified : how do you shape your school then, if you despise history like you seem to say. I don’t think that the Bauhaus should be worshipped, but it is a milestone like Newton in physics or Darwin in biology : it goes a bit beyond a name…
Best regards,
Jean
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