Dear all (but especially the more needlessly incendiary of you),
I have been following this thread closely and have hesitated to weigh in, despite being named directly in one of the posts. Thanks, Christopher. :-) I've refrained partially because I am content to read and absorb on this listserve as opposed to engaging in any sort of verbal warfare, but mostly because the majority of the things that rubbed me the wrong way were simply not worth it enough to bicker over.
I could have responded when co-creation (or co-design or participatory design or collaborative design, it's all theoretically coming from the same place) was snidely referred to as a "marketing thing" instead of being academically treated as a codified method of design and design research that I personally believe is critical to the evolution of design as a discipline.
I could have responded when a well-respected (if not always well liked) practitioner of progressive design thought has been equated with charlatans and cults. While GK may be flattered by the description of "charismatic leader," the fact that you would even connect the idea of "economic, sexual or other exploitation of group members" to the non-profit and academically reformative work that both Humantific and NextD have done is insulting at best.
I could have responded when being provocative for the sake of genuinely debating the intellectual fine points of an argument somehow grossly degenerated into being provocative simply for provocative's sake with no consideration for how condescending and insulting the provocations come across to anyone not sitting on a throne.
I could have responded when a resource sharing post that used persuasive writing techniques taught as appropriate and useful in writing papers as simple as 7th grade debate essays somehow got convoluted into a "cultic-language-infested post."
At any of these points throughout this conversation, I could have spouted off at how ridiculously overblown this "debate" has gotten. I believed, however, that like most threads on this discussion board, the debate would eventually settle into some semblance of academic inquiry where people were sharing respected resources and asking pertinent academic conversations--so I stayed out of it and kept my pen ready to jot down said resources so I could expand my own knowledge base. When all is said and done, none of those things (as equally amusing and horrific as they were to read) were enough for me to speak up.
I finally felt the need to use my voice when Ms. Chow espoused the assumption that "commercial consultants...do not seem to hold academic values." How dare you imply that being a commercial consultant somehow inherently equals having a lack of academic values? I am a design practitioner who works at a consultancy that prides itself on academic rigor and diligence. I am a member of the academic community who comes from a program that teaches design theory through the use of experiential, practice-based learning. I'm so exhausted with this self-imposed divide between design academia and design practice. The two ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.
To all of you who are "university professors whom our society entrust to cultivate the good, the beautiful and the true among our young," I would like you to tell me what you are cultivating our young for if not design practice? To all of you who are design practitioners who frequently sneer at the glacial pace of thought that design academics move at, who do you think is teaching the next generation of your new-hires what skills they need to "succeed in the real world"? Maybe academics need to be a little more practical and practitioners need to be a little more academic.
For the most part, I don't know any of you. I refuse to judge you on anything other than your ideas--as you present them. This may be naive and idealistic, but is it really so difficult to just give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that we all want what's best for our educational institutions AND practicing designers? How much would it really cost you to entertain the possibility of engaging ALL available resources--both academic and practical--to collaboratively move our discipline forward?
Do you honestly believe you are worthy of being someone "our society entrust to cultivate the good, the beautiful and the true among our young"? If so, how about practicing a little bit of humility, empathy and compassion when engaging in academic conversations?
Respectfully yours,Susana La Luz-Houchin
> Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 16:09:18 +0100
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: PHD-DESIGN Digest - 6 Dec 2011 to 7 Dec 2011 (#2011-303)
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Gunnar,
> thanks for the question. Cult had not been on my mind until I read Andrew
> King’s post. I quickly read about it online, and found an article by Robert
> J. Lifton, M.D. http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studycult/study_lifton2.htm
> His discussion on ‘cult’ is certainly more serious than other
> usages/meanings of the word cult, as in cult of MAC. He identified three
> characteristics of a cult by which we might judge whether some practices
> are cultic or not:
>
> 1. a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as
> the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose
> their power;
> 2. a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;
> 3. economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the
> leader and the ruling coterie.
>
> I guess, if you would take this list as a guide, as I did, it would trouble
> you too to think that Humantific MIGHT be a cult and having contact,
> support and interests from university professors whom our society entrust
> to cultivate the good, the beautiful and the true among our young. I don’t
> know Humantific except the cultic-language-infested post which one might
> see as a form of coercive persuasion and this troubled me. My last post was
> to ask the list to discuss this in way similar to the discussions on
> problematic publishers.
>
> More specifically and perhaps less dramatically, I would like to invite the
> list to discuss:
> 1. The values and issues of commercial seminars in relation to
> university teaching.
> 2. The values and issues of enrolling commercial consultants who do not
> seem to hold academic values into the university lecture hall.
> 3. The criteria and issues of choosing commercial/industry partners for
> teaching and research.
>
> Rosan
>
> Gunnar:
> >
> > "What constitutes "actual cultic practice"? The term "cult" is usually
> > used to mean "Any group that believes or acts differently than mine" and is
> > often defined as a religious or quasi-religious group that venerates an
> > object or person.
> >
> > How does having support, contact, or interest become somehow sinister?"
> >
> >
> >
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