The Designer as Responsible Citizen: An/Aesth/Ethics

The Designer as Responsible

Citizen: An/Aesth/Ethics

ABSTRACT Design is often thought of as an activity seeking to change existing situations into preferred ones, which might suggest that it is ideally situated as a tool for responsible and active socially engaged citizenship. However designers often inhabit a conflicted ethical space, expressing a desire for responsible citizenship while often behaving in ways they themselves acknowledge do not live up to this standard. Understanding of the nature of these phenomena is of vital importance to attempts to support the socially responsible citizenship of designers. This paper briefly touches on some coping-strategies used by those caught in ethical conflict, before proposing a further suggestion of specific relevance to design, a concept of an/aesth/ethics: by which we anaesthetise ourselves to ethical pain by aestheticising ethics. This paper presents the case that there is hope for genuinely ethical design in an increasingly aestheticised world by drawing on Wolfgang Welsch’s suggestion that the root of ethics emerges from within the aesthetic itself. Design, which for so long has been a principal contributor to an/aestheticisation, contains within itself - precisely due its aesthetic nature - the potential to return feeling to a society which finds itself constantly numbed to true ethical being. KEYWORDS Ethics. Aesthetics. Anaesthetic. Bauman. Sloterdijk. Wolfgang Welsch.

Peter Buwert

Doctoral researcher

Gray's School of Art, Robert Gordon

University

UK

[email protected]

what's on: cultural diversity, social engagement and shifting education ~ 2014 Spring Cumulus Conference 8 -10 May · University of Aveiro

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THE DESIGNER AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN: AN/AESTH/ETHICS

Design writers often quote Herbert Simon's (1996) definition of

design as an activity which “seeks to change existing situations

into preferred ones” (p.111). To conceive of design thus, in terms

of change towards preference, would seem to suggest a potential

capability of design as being an ideal tool for responsible and

active socially engaged citizenship: design capable of being a

stimulus provoking society to move itself from undesirable

existing states towards preferred potential ones. Design literature

and history are crammed full of instances testifying to belief in

the potential of this capability in what Matthew Soar (2002) has

referred to as “periodical widespread crises of conscience”(p.34)

within the field: uprisings of social concern which have spurred

designers to action, exposing a wide-spread belief that design

can be a foundationally socially responsible activity.

In a small scale interview study recently carried out among a

range of practising visual communication designers in Scotland,

the author observed this theme being regularly expressed among

participants at all levels, albeit in a variety of forms. Statements

emerging in discussions responding to the stimulus of what

“good” design might be, range from the cautious, for example:

“Now, you know, design isn't a saviour really of anything so it's

not going to sort out social issues or anything like that, but it can

help.” To more fundamental expressions tying design's very

identity to an expectation of social impact:

That's for me where design lives. Yes form and function, but [...]

for me that's the bare minimum it should do. It really should be

helping the people it's supposed to help. […] Not: does it look

great? Not: has it won awards? Is it actually improving the lives

of the people it's serving. [...] And yeah if it's not doing that then I

dunno what it is.

What is particularly interesting in these designers' narratives

however, is the constant presence of conflict, paradox and

ambiguity in relation to this expressed underlying belief in the

social role of design. This same participant who passionately

expressed his belief that design must “help” people in order to be

Peter Buwert ~ The Designer as Responsible Citizen: An/Aesth/Ethics

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considered design at all, later made this statement:

And when I say helping people I also mean just providing stuff

that people want to buy, cause that's I suppose nowadays people

buy stuff to aspire to a lifestyle ideal that they have in their head I

suppose that's helping them as well in that.

For this individual the ethical imperative to “help” people is

fulfilled by “providing stuff that people want to buy”. However

another interviewee “Frank”, when asked the question “What do

you think the role of design is in society?” gave this response:

In society? There’s probably two parts to that, one of which is

good and one is bad. The good one is obviously it should in

theory make life easier for people. Not just graphic design,

product design, everything. [...] The downside to our role in

society is that we’re obviously ultimately trying to sell shit to

people that they don’t actually need.

What one designer sees as the “bad” side of design, another

identifies as an ethical responsibility. Even when “good” and

“bad” are recognised, it is often not a simple choice between the

two. While Frank recognises the “bad”, he goes on to describe

cases in which he has violated his personal morals, such as

packaging children's food which he knew was “absolutely

shocking” in such a way as to appear healthy, and talking of the

most enjoyable “wildly creative” work being for cigarette

companies even though he detests smoking and “the damage it

does”.

These examples serve here only to illustrate something of the

conflict present in our understandings of what socially

responsible citizenship means for the practising visual

communication designer. How are socially responsible designers

to know what social responsibility actually is, and how do we find

ways of justifying, coping with, and finding resolution in

conflicting and compromised ethical situations? Sociologist

Zygmunt Bauman (1993) articulates the nature of the conundrum

well:

The once unitary and indivisible 'right way' begins to split into

'economically sensible', 'aesthetically pleasing', 'morally proper'.

Actions may be right in one sense, wrong in another. Which


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action ought to be measured by what criteria? And if a number of

criteria apply, which is to be given priority?” (Bauman, 1993. p.5)

Of course this is not a quandary specific to design, but one

present in the ethical consideration of all human activity. Serious

attempts to support the socially responsible citizenship of

designers must wrestle with these issues at the levels of both

general activity and that which is more specific to the nature of

design.

Beginning with the general, Bauman (1993) in his work on

postmodern ethics brings to our attention some concepts which

are relevant to the issue at hand. The first of these is the

“floating” of responsibility in a society which has invested a lot of

effort throughout recent history in the radical division of labour.

As all tasks in society become reliant on the involvement of a

multitude of others for their undertaking and completion, it

becomes virtually impossible for any individual to claim or be

accused of sole ownership, authorship or responsibility for any

action. In this environment, the actions of the individual are no

longer accorded a difference-making significance, for either good

or bad. Bauman describes how:

the guilt is spread so thinly that even a most zealous and sincere

self-scrutiny or repentance of any of the 'partial actors' will

change little, if at all, in the final state of affairs. For many of us,

quite naturally, this futility breeds belief in the 'vanity of human

efforts' and thus seems to be good enough reason not to engage

in self-scrutiny and account-settling at all. (1993. p.19)

In order to survive the meaninglessness felt in relation to the

apparent insignificance of of our own individual actions, one

coping strategy is simply not to think about it. Not-thinking frees

us to act. As Anne-Marie Willis (2013) has noted, it would appear

that socially minded designers have in recent history, tended

(with the best of intentions) to focus on how to achieve

“preferred” (Simon, 1996) states, often without stopping to

critically consider who is doing the preferring, and to what ends.

Expanding on this idea of outsourcing thinking, Bauman

introduces a further coping strategy, that of the “role-

performer”(Bauman, 1993. p.19). It is suggested that in each of

the collection of fragmentary social situations which our lives are


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divided into, we assume a “role”, none of which we identify as

being our truly unique and irreplaceable 'self'. This is a defence

mechanism which allows us to avoid the meaninglessness of “the

vanity of human efforts” while still being able to sidestep the

responsibility in our own actions by disavowing those taken while

playing a “role”:

As individuals we are irreplaceable. We are not, however

irreplaceable as players of any of our many roles. [...] Nothing

much would change, therefore, if I, this particular role-performer,

opted out: another person would promptly fill the gap I left.

'Somebody will do it anyway' we console ourselves, and not

without reason, when we find the task we have been asked to

perform morally suspect or unpalatable (Bauman, 1993. p.19)

This account resonates closely with German philosopher Peter

Sloterdijk's (2001) description of our current cynicism. He

describes how the essential feature of our modern cynicism is to

allow us to continue working no matter what the conditions might

be. What is worthwhile noting in Sloterdijk's account is his

assertion that we are fully complicit in this, it does not happen to

us, but we embrace it as a necessary foundation for our

continued existence in this world:

For cynics are not dumb, and every now and then they certainly

see the nothingness to which everything leads. Their psychic

(seelisch) apparatus has become elastic enough to incorporate

as a survival factor a permanent doubt about their own activities.

They know what they are doing, but they do it because, in the

short run, the force of circumstances and the instinct for self-

preservation are speaking the same language, and they are

telling them that it has to be so. Others would do it anyway,

perhaps worse. (2001, p.5)

Sloterdijk (2001) defines the new cynicism as “enlightened false

consciousness” which he admits, seems at first to be a

paradoxical concept, yet this is what we encounter in day-to-day

life:

To act against better knowledge is today the global situation in

the superstructure; it knows itself to be without illusions and yet

to have been dragged down by the “power of things.” Thus what

is regarded in logic as a paradox and in literature as a joke


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appears in reality as the actual state of affairs. (Sloterdijk, 2001,

p.6)

These general phenomena: cynical enlightened false

consciousness, the floating of responsibility, and the separation

of our-roles from our-selves, allow us to regularly, without

unbearable pain, and as part of our habitual everyday lives, exist

within a state of ethical conflict.

The author would now suggest a further concept in addition to

these, a concept which has particular relevance specifically to

the area of design: an/aesth/ethics. It is suggested that through

experiencing the appearance and sensation of ethicality without

the requirement of genuine ethical being, an aestheticised ethics

effectively gives us permission to fail to act ethically. Put another

way, we can provide ourselves with the aesthetic sensation of

ethical being without the inconvenience of actually having to be

ethical.

We give ourselves permission to act against our better

judgement, by simulating either the sensation of the emotional

rewards connected with upholding ethical standards, or the lack

of negative emotional experience associated with ethical

shortcomings. Effectively, we anaesthetise ourselves to ethical

pain through the process of aestheticising ethics:

an/aestheticisation. An an/aestheticised ethics, in the words of

Slavoj Žižek “degrades and demoralises” (2010) the whole

ethical concept it appears to support. The price paid for the

sensation of ethics, is ethical being itself.

What has this issue of the an/aestheticisation of ethics got to do

with design? The simple answer is that design is inescapably

implicated in aestheticisation, being necessarily an explicitly

aesthetic activity.

Evidently - most obviously here in the urban West, but

increasingly globally – our experiences of life are becoming more

and more aesthetically mantled and mediated. Clive Dilnot

(2009) talks of the expansion of “the artificial” as the context of

our lives leading to the unprecedented historical state in which

artifice has finally eclipsed nature as the foundation of our lives

and become “the horizon and medium of our existence” (p.184).

In this progression design plays no mere supporting role, but that


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of lead actor. Dilnot defines design in this dynamic as “being

precisely that which […] mediates being in relationship to artifice”

(Dilnot 2005, p.46).

Design so conceived and observed - due to its central role in

creating, shaping and sustaining our perceptions of the world

surrounding us - is heavily implicated in the development of the

situation of ethical an/aestheticisation. At the very least the sheer

ubiquity and pervasiveness of design in constituting our sensory

and perceptual experience of our social environment denies it the

luxury of claiming non-involvement. Design's active and

purposeful agency in aesthetically mediating our experience of

environments, positively implicates it as playing an active role in

the constructing and sustaining of this phenomenon.

Is design necessarily fated to create and sustain conditions of

an/aestheticisation? This brings to mind accounts of total

aestheticisation such as those of Guy Debord (1994) in The

Society of the Spectacle and Jean Baudrillard (1994) in positing

the Hyperreal Simulacra. Such accounts would give the

impression of a largely pessimistic outlook for ethical aesthetics

by inferring that, as it is the aesthetic which creates and sustains

the an/aestheticised condition, aesthetics cannot now behave in

any other way than to dig us deeper into this state. Are

aesthetics, including those aesthetic elements inherent within

design, therefore a lost ethical cause? German philosopher of

aesthetics Wolfgang Welsch (1997) offers a more hopeful

perspective in his search for an “aesthet/hics”(p.60): that is, the

possibility that there are ethics inherent within and emerging from

aesthetics.

Welsch makes the assertion that all understanding is in fact

aesthetically based, drawing our attention to the philosophical

trajectory from Kant's assertion of the fundamentally aesthetic

foundation of knowledge in a priori intuition of space and time

(Welsch 1997, p.20), to Nietzsche’s description of our conception

of reality as a complex construction of delicate spiders' webs built

on an unstable foundation of running water(p.21). The path is

then traced on through a trail of major thinkers, some known for

their questioning of the foundations of knowledge (Feyerabend,

Rorty), and others whose names are perhaps less expected

(Neurath, Quine, Popper etc.) but who each in their own way


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acknowledge the ultimately aesthetic foundation of truth,

knowledge and reality leading to the consensus which Welsch

summarises, that: “Reality is not a fixed given quantity,

independent of cognition, but the object of a construction” (p.23)

and that this “epistemological aestheticization” (p.20) – which is

to say the recognition that ultimately the foundations of all

thought are in some way aesthetic – is in fact the legacy of

modernity developed over the last two hundred years.

In the context of this acknowledgement of epistemological

aestheticization, the discovery of the very foundations of ethics

within aesthetics is less surprising. Welsch identifies two

fundamentally aesthetic ethical imperatives. The first is the vital

imperative in which aesthetic sensibility serves the primary

ethical goal of the preservation of life. This first foundational

ethical imperative emerges with and through aesthetics as raw

aesthetic perception and sensation (aisthesis) initially serve us to

identify distinctions between those objects and situations

beneficial or detrimental to our survival. Therefore Welsch

classifies it the first aesthet/hic imperative.

The second aesthet/hic imperative which Welsch advances is the

elevatory aesthetic imperative: that which requires us to rise

above raw sensory aisthesis to a higher level of perception in

which aesthetic sensibility serves not only the vital functions of

survival but of judgement, reflection, communication and

pleasure perceived autonomously from vital concerns and often

prioritised and privileged over them. This is elevatory in two

senses, firstly that such perceiving must take place in a state of

reflection “raised above” the immediate pleasure/pain concerns

of survival, but secondly and most importantly, because it is this

ability to rise above vital concerns in which, Welsch suggests, is

found the “anthropological difference” (1997, p.64): that which

sets us apart from other living creatures giving us our

foundational identity as humans. Drawing the argument right

back to Aristotle's suggestion that what makes humans distinct

from animals is their ability to recognise not just useful and

harmful, but also the “higher predicates”(1997, p.64) - like better

and worse, just and unjust, beautiful and ugly, harmonic and

discordant: distinctions whose recognition requires abilities of

reflection and communication - we can define ethical being as


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something inherently, essentially and radically human, thus

rediscovering a primary root of ethics in a foundationally human

aesthetic imperative.

What impact does this insight have on the question of

an/aestheticisation? Building on this aesthetic foundation for

ethics, Welsch argues that aesthetics actually contains within

itself the capabilities to combat an/aestheticisation. If the

aesthetic, which has been implicated in the anaesthetising of

ethics is, at its very root, fundamentally ethical, then surely it also

contains within itself potentials to equally promote sensation,

perception and reflection on issues of ethics leading to a more

rather than less ethically sensitive society.

Welsch calls for the development of a “genuinely aestheticized

culture”(1997, p.25) built not on empty structural morality but on

radically ethical being. How could this be achieved? Welsch

draws on the basic aesthetic law that in all sensitivity, there is

exclusion. To pay attention to some-thing necessarily means

shutting out certain others. Welsch suggests that aesthetic

strategies are perfectly placed to encourage awareness of these

exclusions. A shift in the gear of aesthetic production from

embellishment, enhancement and experience, to a “blind-spot

culture”(Welsch, 1997, p.25), a more reflective mode, which

draws attention to that which we do not notice, would foreground

the objects of our inattentions therefore creating an atmosphere

of much greater sensitivity to differences, exclusions,

oppressions and intolerances.

The pluralistic nature of the aesthetic in which difference is

accepted and celebrated as the fundamental requirement for

perception, makes the aesthetic perfectly suited to this task

(Welsch, 1997, p.26). In illustration of this, Welsch gives the

example of tolerance.

A person who has perfectly internalised the principles of

tolerance would still be able to practice the most extreme

injustices, and with the clearest of consciences, were he to lack

the aesthetic sensibility to recognise the differences between

himself and his fellow man, which are to be tolerated. The moral

code of tolerance - the an/aestheticised surface - is subscribed

to, but the truly ethical act of being tolerant of difference slips by


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unnoticed as the difference itself is not attended to. The ethical

challenge in this case is to create an aesthetic intervention which

draws attention to this blind-spot thus disrupting the

an/aestheticisation.

This possibility offers hope that design is not fated to

an/aestheticise but does in fact hold within itself the potential to

realise its desires to be truly responsible, if only it would

renegotiate the terms of its aesthet/hic nature.

How can such a blind-spot culture be encouraged? What could

practical ethical aesthetic strategies to subvert

an/aestheticisation and encourage genuine aestheticisation be

for design, which for so long has been a principal contributor to

an/aestheticisation? These questions pose difficult yet not

insurmountable challenges in the pursuit of an ethical design

practice leading to social responsibility. Thinking deeply about

design: what it is and what its capabilities are; how it constitutes

our reality while also holding the keys to potentiality in constantly

re-constituting this same, is the first and vital step. As Dilnot

(2009) has written:

design is the discovery of what the artificial can be for us. Since

the artificial is also today the frame of our possibilities as human

beings, to discover what the artificial can be for us is to discover

what our possibility can be and hence (here its third dimension) it

is also a discovery of what possibility can be. (p.84)

We must find hope in the possibility that design, precisely due its

aesthetic nature, has the potential to be used to return feeling to

a society which finds itself constantly numbed to true ethical

being.

REFERENCES

Baudrillard, J., & Glaser, S. F. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press.

Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Debord, G. (1994). The society of the spectacle. New York: Zone Books.


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Dilnot, C. (2005) “Ethics? Design?” in Tigerman, S. (ed.) The Archeworks Papers, 1(2) Chicago: Archeworks.

Dilnot, C. (2009). Ethics in Design: 10 Questions. In H.Clark & D. Brody (Eds.), Design Studies: A Reader. Oxford: Berg.

Dilnot, C. (2010). Being Prescient Concerning Obama, or Notes on the politics of configuration (part one). The Poster. 1(1), 7-29. doi: 10.1386/post.1.1.7_1

Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Soar, M. (2002). Graphic Design / Graphic Dissent: Towards a Cultural Economy of an Insular Profession. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://www.mattsoar.org/dissertation/GraphicDesignGraphicDissent.pdf

Sloterdijk, P. (2001). Critique of cynical reason. (5th printing). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Welsch, W. (1997). Undoing aesthetics. London: SAGE.

Willis, A. (2013). Design change and politics. Design Philosophy Papers, (1), Retrieved from http://www.desphilosophy.com/dpp/dpp_journal/journal.html

Žižek, S. (2010, March 10). First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.thersa.org/events/video/archive/slavoj-zizek-first-as-tragedy,-then-as-farce

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