{ chrislip.com/matthew : blog }
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11 January 2007
{ Progress ; complete abridged, draft 01 }
The idea of human progress informs the decisions and actions of civilizations, societies, and cultures. Faith in progress legitimizes moral codes, strengthens belief systems, and justifies nearly every human pursuit. Especially in the context of Western civilization, whose history is marked by a deep-rooted fixation on the prospect of both individual and collection progress, it may even seem intrinsic to human nature.From a theoretical standpoint, the idea of progress is anything but innately human.
The media and communication theory of Vilém Flusser, whose influence is more strongly felt in Europe than in a traditional American design education, suggests that the conception of progress accompanied the birth of the historical perspective (or in other words, the birth of the idea of linear time). This, of course, implies a period of existence “predating” historical consciousness. Flusser describes prehistory as a “whirling time.” Circular in structure, this period was marked by the supremacy of repeating patterns:
“In the whirling time of prehistory, everything kept repeating, like day and night and day, or like sowing and reaping and sowing…. Whenever something or someone left its or his appropriate place in the universal order, he was returned to the right place in the course of time and by means of time.”
Prehistorical societies learned to visually orient themselves in the world through images, and although these images were originally created as representations of things, their significance in man’s experience of the world eventually began to overshadow the significance of the things themselves. (To borrow from Saussure’s terminology, it was as if the line distinguishing signifiers from signifieds became blurred.) Flusser refers to this period as proto-history.
As a remedy to this image crisis, which had precipitated what Flusser calls an “existential detachment from the world,” societies began creating new codes—namely, alphabets and linear writing—that they could use to orient themselves within their images (and thereby within the world that they represented). As the new linear codes solidified, the messy proto-historical period gave way to historical consciousness:
“Script projected its own linear structure, its lines, upon the world, just as images had once projected their own scenic structure, their surface upon it,” explains Flusser. “Time stopped whirling, and it began to stream in an unambiguously linear direction.”
The birth of historical consciousness replaced circularity with linearity, putting into practice theories of cause and effect, origin and destination, past and present. The accumulation of time, experience, and growth could be recorded and stored in the public memory. With a linear model in place, the story of human progress could begin.
In the thousands of years following the birth of history, linear models were employed extensively and proved incredibly efficient and productive, giving rise to new agricultural and industrial models and shaping government systems and religions. They were, in a word, progressive. Very gradually, however, the imperfections of linear models began to surface, causing, among other things, the subtle deterioration of agricultural resources and leading to the dramatic overthrow of various governments.
Flusser’s theories of communication provide a point of departure for explaining the failure of linear models, as well as for proposing new models:
Flusser distinguishes codes of communication according to two structures (or “dynamics”): “In one, messages flow from a sender toward a receiver, and this is called ‘discourse.’ In the other, messages oscillate between various participants in the process, and this is called ‘dialogue.’” As with historical and prehistorical consciousness, the duality of these two structures is established on their characteristics as linear and circular models, respectively.
Discursive communication, based on a linear flow of information, involves a single emitter (or source of emission), and either one or many receivers. Implied in this dynamic is a hierarchy of participants: the emitter holds an authoritative position to which the receiver is subordinate.
Dialogic communication, on the other hand, is based on a circular flow of information and can involve any number of participants. Whereas discourse is characterized by a pronounced hierarchy, dialogue implies an equality among all participants.
Though he emphasizes the inherent differences between discourse and dialogue, Flusser acknowledges that the two structures can be explained as complimentary—albeit polar—manifestations of a single model:
“Discourse is in a sense authoritarian, and dialogue is in a sense democratic. But one may also analyse dialogue as a series of discourses arranged in a circle, and one may therefore understand any discourse as part of a wider dialogue. It depends on the distance from which one looks at the process.”
The most basic conception of progress embraces principles of linearity and is concerned with little else than movement away from an origin and toward a destination, much as discourse favors the one-way transmission of information from an emitter to a receiver.
Early historical cultures, looking forward to what appeared to be a utopian-like (though as of yet unarticulated) future, were eager to adopt a narrow-focused notion of progress, and the advantages of such an approach were immediately evident. Carefully controlled and discursively (or linearly) transmitted messages fostered a certain degree of unity and facilitated movement by the mass in a single direction. This movement took shape through the development of new governmental, social, economic, and technological models, revealing a set of time-based and highly quantifiable goals, such as efficiency and productivity. Totalitarian regimes and Industrial Era practices epitomized these “modern” societies.
The breakdown of these linear systems was inevitable, though neither universal nor universally recognized (many remain intact today, though their continued efficacy and socio-cultural relevance is debatable). For those systems whose breakdown was more apparent—whether as a slow deterioration or the result of a revolutionary overthrow—the causes were almost invariably linked to the failure of discursive models of communication.
Most problematic was the inherent hierarchy of discourse: the authoritarian group (the elite, or those holding the power) transmitted messages that perpetuated its ideals and prevented feedback from all other participants (the mass, in many cases) in the communicative process. This, of course, subordinated the interests of the mass and caused tension between the two groups. The mass, whether a unified group or a collective of oppressed subcultures, eventually grew tired of the authoritarian group’s messages and sought ways to either force dialogue or secure the authoritarian position for itself. (The American Revolution, taken generally, provides excellent context for understanding this type of breakdown.)
The second major cause of decline for these linear systems was their failure to understand their relationship to larger, overarching dialogues. Lack of retrospection meant that a system would be unable to consider its place in history and detect the emergence of patterns, and the relationship of a system’s origin to its destination was either forgotten or dissolved. This sort of short-sightedness created situations where the perpetuation of an authoritarian group’s interests had detrimental effects not only on other direct participants, but on those who participated indirectly in other geographical areas, cultural circles, or periods of time (past and future). For example, the production-happy practices of the Industrial Revolution, focused almost solely on immediate economic growth, were major contributors to the degradation of public and environmental health globally and spanning far into the future.
The failure of a linear system is generally followed by an increased interest in circular models, but their very nature challenges the widely cherished and inherently linear understanding of progress. In other words, adopting a circular model would seem to require that a society resign its desire for meaningful development socially, culturally, and intellectually. Similarly, with regard to his theory of communication, Flusser defines dialogue (whose structure is decidedly circular) as “static”; the straight line characteristic of discourse is what sets it apart as a “dynamic and progressive” flow of information. Quite simply, circular models appear to be the very antithesis of change.
Flusser’s own dissatisfaction with this simplistic notion of progress, however, eventually leads to the following conclusion:
“To progress may not mean to advance, not to go from one thing to another, but it may mean to instead return over and over again to a very few points, in an effort to get involved with them and thus go into them even deeper. Of course: this meaning of progress has always been the sign which distinguishes greatness. Mozart comes back over and over again to the same problem of harmony, Van Gogh to the same problem of color, Newton to the same problem of force over distances, Platon to the same problem of form, and as they come back to it over and over again they progress.”
In essence, Flusser is proposing a conception of progress that relies on circular models and provides invaluable depth and stability.
Practical examples of pure circular progression are, not surprisingly, impossible to find. Linear systems are so deeply embedded in the human experience (thanks largely to historical consciousness) that to abandon them completely poses many societal and cultural problems. For this reason, any approximation of a circular model tends to retain traces of linearity. This is certainly the case with the American government system, where a hybrid of democratic and authoritarian models allows for moderate legislative dialogue while maintaining a commitment to traditional linear progression.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart have provided us with an example of a purer (and more ideological) implementation of the principles of circular progression. Their “cradle to cradle” model for design is proposed as an alternative to the “cradle to grave” model characteristic of the Industrial Era. Mirroring the principles of design and production that regulate natural systems, the “cradle to cradle” approach rejects wasteful industrial practices and emphasizes the necessity of “upcycling” energy and resources. That is, the waste generated by any product or process should be designed as fuel for a new and equally vital product or process. McDonough and Braungart’s model also maintains that an industry should engage in dialogue with all participants, direct and indirect, that share its environment.
Operating on a more spiritual-psychological level, labyrinths also embody the principles of circular progression. Historically, the labyrinth’s circuitous pathway provides its follower with an opportunity to participate in dialogue with—and thus solicit feedback from—his subconscious, providing emotional and physical healing.
The integration of circular models into professional design practice, long since begun, continues to gain momentum. The recent rise in awareness of ecological concerns has popularized the use of environmentally friendly materials and processes, and though such efforts are well-intentioned, McDonough and Braungart’s model is a call to completely rethink the traditional methods of design practice.
Circular models of progression, in their purest forms, require more from contemporary designers than retro-styled historicism or trend forecasting, more than inane blogging or lowest-common-denominator (read “democratic” or “accessible”) design. Design must give life to ideas and movements that consider not only their immediate audience, but also contribute to the birth and growth of newer, more innovative designs. Truly egalitarian dialogue should be fostered between generations past and future, between societies and cultures from all geographic and economic sectors, between man and his environment.
Modernism was marked by the now-outdated, linear-based ideologies and practices of the Industrial Era; those of our own era have yet to be fully realized.
[ posted by Matthew Chrislip at 20:08 :
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