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The Humane Village Journal 1

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Society

The
Humane Village
Journal 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.

•

Marshal McLuhan






















































































































Our mechanical civilization, contrary to
the assumption of those who worship its external power the better to conceal their own feeling of impotence, is not an absolute. All its mechanisms are
dependent upon human aims and desires:
many of them flourish
in direct proportion
to our failure to achieve rational social
cooperation
and integrated personalities.

Hence we do not have
to renounce the
machine completely
and go back to
handicraft in order to abolish a good deal of useless machinery and burdensome routine:
we merely have to use imagination and intelligence and social discipline in our
traffic with
the machine itself.

 

Lewis Mumford

Dialogues On and About

Over several years, I have filed away the quotes that follow because they inspired me. Now I look at them as an ideal dialogue between a panel of participants widely separated in space, time and ideology; a dialogue which reflects my own growing concern about the direction in which humanity is going. And it is an opportune dialogue because at its base, it questions the degree of our commitment and the quality of our service as designers - precisely how we must look at ourselves and our contributions to making a Humane Village.

Design is potentially the most powerful tool for change, combining invention with social innovation to help humans discover environments more enlivening and behaviours more compassionate. But now, design seems stagnated in serving the transient satisfactions of immediate need gratification and dazzling display, dependent on ever-accelerated consumption of energy and objects.

Finding ways of reducing our dependence on material and energy by creating alternative models of living must be part of the New Design. In doing so, we could succeed in changing the motivation of human invention toward the reality of truly emotional and meaningful concepts.

The selection of the quotes that follows is of course arbitrary in that it reflects my personal likes and dislikes. I do feel, however, that the ideas expressed represent an enlightening and diverse range. A.M.

 

 

Society - Advance or Decline

Erskine Childers •

There is unprecedented restiveness among huge numbers of human beings all over the world. Translational communication is indeed wonderfully spreading the messages of the United Nations International Bill of Human Rights, but also the alluringly provocative myth of the affluent urban consumer life.

Traditional nation-state structures are weakening, everywhere, but with the special likelihood of collapse of governance in cultures where the entire construct of such a centralist nation state was imposed from outside.

 

Ivan Illich •

The symptoms of accelerated crisis are widely recognized. Multiple attempts have been made to explain them. I believe that this crisis is rooted in a major twofold experiment which has failed, and I claim that the resolution of the crisis begins with a recognition of the failure. For a hundred years we have tried to make machines work for men and to school men for life in their service. Now it turns out that machines do not "work" and that people cannot be schooled for a life at the service of machines.

The hypothesis on which the experiment was built must now be discarded. The hypothesis was that machines can replace slaves. The evidence shows that, used for this purpose, machines enslave men. Neither a dictatorial proletariat nor a leisure mass can escape the dominion of constantly expanding industrial tools. The crisis can be solved only if we learn to invert the present deep structure of tools; if we give people tools that guarantee their right to work with high, independent efficiency, thus simultaneously eliminating the need for either slaves or masters and enhancing each person's range of freedom.

point to anything like the same improvement in perception of the fragility of our human societies, of the damage we are doing to our sisters and brothers . War is not necessarily becoming regarded as more unacceptable by more people because it can now be brought live into their homes.

Ideologically driven reportage has been injecting a false perception about the world. It tries to suggest that all is well enough; that poverty is going to be defeated by "the magic of the Market", which it might be wise for us to perceive as a new fundamentalist religion whose icons are the keyboard and monitor screen and whose texts are the spreadsheets of hidden speculators who are allowed to trade away the very currency reserves of nations in seconds to the other side of the world, not for productive investment but for sheer personal profit.

E.F.Schumacher •

Wealth, education, research and many other things are needed for any civilisation but what is more needed today is a revision of the ends which these means are meant to serve. And this implies, above all else, the development of a life-style which accords to material things their proper, legitimate place, which is secondary and not primary.

 

Ezio Manzini •

A shift in perspective must take place today, one which should lead to a vision of the environmental issue as an integral part of a larger phenomenon: the across-the-board crisis of the development model which has been dominant until today.

Erich Fromm •

A growing number of people feel la malaise du siecle: they sense their depression; they are conscious of it, in spite of all kinds of efforts to repress it. They feel the unhappiness of their isolation and the emptiness of their "togetherness"; they feel their impotence, the meaninglessness of their lives. Many feel all this very clearly and consciously; others feel it less clearly, but are fully aware of it when someone else puts it into words.

N.J. Berrill •

The essence of man is his quality not his quantity, and this is no place to stop, half-way between ape and angel.

Erich Fromm •

The grandeur of the Great Promise, the marvellous material and intellectual achievements of the industrial age, must be visualised in order to understand the trauma that realisation of its failure is producing today. For the industrial age has indeed failed to fulfil its Great Promise, and ever growing numbers of people are becoming aware that:

  • Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure.
  • The dream of being independent masters of our lives ended when we began awakening to the fact that we have all become cogs in the bureaucratic machine, with our thoughts, feelings, and tastes manipulated by government and industry and the mass communications that they control.
  • Economic progress has remained restricted to the rich nations, and the gap between rich and poor nations has ever widened.
  • Technical progress itself has created ecological dangers and the dangers of nuclear war, either or both of which may put an end to all civilisation and possibly to all life.

 

P.J.Grillo •

The human race is in danger of losing its wonderful diversity as it is put tighter everyday into the straight jacket of conformity. We no longer can choose. Do our gains balance our losses?

 

Lewis Mumford •

In the passive barbarism that now boasts under the cover of technical progress, there is no promise whatever of victory or even bare survival. Without a deep regeneration and renewal, the external triumph of machinery will but hasten the downfall of the Western world. Only those who are ready for that renewal, with all its rigours, its hard adventures, are entitled to celebrate even our temporary victories.

 

Erskine Childers •

We have seen phenomenal, marvellous improvement in human perception of the fragility of our natural environment, not least thanks to the special sense of responsibility which the design profession assumed in this, and the marvellous world song of our children. But it has to be significant, and troubling, that we cannot point to anything like the same improvement in perception of the fragility of our human societies, of the damage we are doing to our sisters and brothers . War is not necessarily becoming regarded as more unacceptable by more people because it can now be brought live into their homes.

Ideologically driven reportage has been injecting a false perception about the world. It tries to suggest that all is well enough; that poverty is going to be defeated by "the magic of the Market", which it might be wise for us to perceive as a new fundamentalist religion whose icons are the keyboard and monitor screen and whose texts are the spreadsheets of hidden speculators who are allowed to trade away the very currency reserves of nations in seconds to the other side of the world, not for productive investment but for sheer personal profit.

E.F.Schumacher •

Wealth, education, research and many other things are needed for any civilisation but what is more needed today is a revision of the ends which these means are meant to serve. And this implies, above all else, the development of a life-style which accords to material things their proper, legitimate place, which is secondary and not primary.

 

Ezio Manzini •

A shift in perspective must take place today, one which should lead to a vision of the environmental issue as an integral part of a larger phenomenon: the across-the-board crisis of the development model which has been dominant until today.

 

Erich Fromm •

A growing number of people feel la malaise du siecle: they sense their depression; they are conscious of it, in spite of all kinds of efforts to repress it. They feel the unhappiness of their isolation and the emptiness of their "togetherness"; they feel their impotence, the meaninglessness of their lives. Many feel all this very clearly and consciously; others feel it less clearly, but are fully aware of it when someone else puts it into words.

 

N.J. Berrill •

The essence of man is his quality not his quantity, and this is no place to stop, half-way between ape and angel.


Lewis Mumford •

Has the destruction yet gone far enough to promote a genuine renewal &endash; or has it gone so far that it will prevent it? No one can yet answer this question. But only the ability to put the question to ourselves will provide an effectual answer in life and action.

Erich Fromm •

Judging present-day society's chances for salvation from the standpoint of betting on business rather than from the standpoint of life is characteristic of the spirit of a business society. There is little wisdom in the currently fashionable technocratic view that there is nothing seriously wrong in keeping ourselves busy with work or fun, in not feeling, and that even if there is, perhaps technocratic fascism may not be so bad, after all. But this is wishful thinking. Technocratic fascism must necessarily lead to catastrophe. Dehumanised Man will become so mad that he will not be able to sustain a viable society in the long run, and in the short run will not be able to refrain from the suicidal use of nuclear or biological weapons.

 

John Moore •

The deadline is for real.

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© 199 4 The Humane Village Centre for Compassionate Design and the Authors

The Humane Village Centre for Compassionate Design is a not for profit organization.
Its objectives are:
• to promote the philosophy of design known as the "Humane Village" among designers, manufacturers and consumers through the publication of
material and the holding of seminars and conferences.
• to develop methods and advise corporations and consumers on issues related to socially responsible design;
• to promote and establish a network of interested parties and organizations.
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