Dear all,
I like to give one more response to this, but honestly, I think this bilateral discussion between Paul and myself has already taken up too much space in the PhD list and we could move on to more important things…
First a comment to Francesco Galofaro, who wrote:
> “Coming to the question, in my opinion the reported discussion is not a case of "mansplanning". As far as I read, Paul Russel argues his position. His arguments can be wrong, but if the answer is "I have a 40th years experience in the sector" and "Please read the book I wrote 20 years ago", these can not be considered arguments: frankly speaking, they are a plain form of the fallacy of "arguing from authority" (cf. Jeremy Bentham, The Book of Fallacies). ….
>
> Caveat: Obviously my position is biased because I read only on the mail by Paul Russel broadcasted by Ursula Tischner (I have not the whole conversation). Furthermore, I am a man, I am Italian, and - as I said - the level of conflict on language that politically correctness reached in the Anglo-Saxon environments always puzzles me. Please excuse me if I have been rude.”
>
Well, Francesco, thank you for your comment, but how much value can it have, if you did not even bother to read through the whole conversation but only refer to what Paul wrote about what I wrote?
Paul is wrong: I have not insulted him, nor have I accused him of anything, nor have I claimed anywhere in my posts that I have done something fantastic new.
Quick recap:
My first post was a very short and friendly response to Paul and Juergen’s discussion about “world design responsibility” and “humanity focused design”. I wrote that it is an interesting discussion and suggested that they should dive a bit more into the Sustainability Design discussion and literature that started in the early 1990ies because quite a few people have thought and written and worked on humanitarian and social and responsible design back then and even before that. I suggested to google the term and literature because meanwhile there is so much good literature about that out there and I did not have the time to come up with recommendations.
Then Paul felt insulted by my proposal “to google” the term and literature and wrote a pretty aggressive response (my perception).
So, I gave a couple of literature recommendations (Martin Charter’s and my book Sustainable Solutions from 2001 was only one of those, there is more) and explained a bit about how the sustainability design discussion emerged together with the new paradigm of Sustainable Development as defined by the UN. I wrote that with that new paradigm the social, ethical, humanitarian etc. discussion got included in design in addition to ecological and environmental issues, that had been discussed before under headers like Ecodesign and Green Design. So in a way you can say, that this was new to the design discussions back then, even though heroes like Papanek had talked, written and worked on these aspects before that time. And we were quite aware of these heroes and quoted them in our work frequently ;-)
I recommended that people who join this discussion later should do a good literature research to avoid that they reinvent the wheel.
In my post to Paul I mentioned experts, I mentioned organizations and tried to explain that the sustainability design discussion, that started with the formulation of the new paradigm Sustainable Development by the UN, indeed included all sorts of social, ethical, gender, equality, social justice and humanitarian aspects.
Then Paul wrote another pretty aggressive response telling me that I am wrong, that it is not true that the Sustainable Development Paradigm and the new Sustainability Design discussions included the focus on the social, ethical, humanity etc. aspects from the beginning on, trying to “correct” what I wrote. His opinion is still that it only started in 2007 with Tracy Bhamra’s and Vicky Lofthouse’ publication Design for Sustainability: A Practical Approach <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7691164-design-for-sustainability>
I am sure, if Tracy or Vicky were part of this list, they would tell us, that this perception is not true.
So again, I gave some more links to the proper definition of Sustainable Development and the Agenda 21, gave some more evidence that indeed the aspects, Paul wants to see covered, were actually part of the Sustainable Development paradigm and thus discussions around Design for Sustainability early on.
In addition to what I wrote before I can give you even more evidence, if you like, e.g.
Prof. Han Brezet started at TU Delft as Professor in sustainable product design in 1992 and established the Design for Sustainability program, where among other subjects they also focused on design for the base of the pyramid and emerging markets.
The Design Council London has started their RED projects in 1997. RED was a 'do tank' that developed innovative thinking and practice on social and economic problems through design innovation. They did projects focusing on preventing ill-health, managing chronic illnesses, reducing energy use at home, strengthening citizenship, reducing re-offending by prisoners, and improving learning at school etc.
Design Academy Eindhoven (where I was professor for Ecodesign from 2002 to 2009) established a master program called “Man & Humanity” in 2002 that I had the pleasure to be the head of together with Birgitta de Voss for a couple of years. And as the name says, we were very much focusing and working on the socio-cultural, ethical and humanitarian aspects of design alongside with the environmental and economic.
I could go on, but how much evidence do you need to convince somebody, who does not want to be convinced?
I can give all of this evidence because I had the great pleasure to be part of a wonderful group of designers (and other professionals) that had shared these discussions and activities from the early 1990ies on. So obviously I know this for sure, because it is my authentic experience. There is no element of authoritarian power play, I just liked to share this experience with the PhD group.
But still, Paul does not believe it and insists on telling me that he is right and I am / my experience is wrong, really?
The Merriam-Webster definition of Mansplaining is as follows: “Mansplaining is, at its core, a very specific thing. It's what occurs when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he's talking to does.”
And I think this is exactly what Paul did and obviously still does. In a private mail to me, Paul even admitted that he has a good overview about the literature in Design for Development and the related UN documentation and approach to Humanitarian Development, but not that much knowledge in the sustainable design literature. But still he likes to tell me that he knows better???
But it is ok. Let’s move on.
Sorry for the long post. And a big thank you to Britta, Veronica and Milena for their supporting messages.
All the best
Ursula Tischner
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