clients are the babes in the wood

Responding to msg by 00amrisch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx () on

>there are no communist babies
>there are no capitalist babies
>there are only babies

True. But babies aren't clients, and clients aren't babies.
Acculturation (cultural conditioning that shapes the instincts)
begins in the cradle, so one might be tempted to get into this
game with an 'alternative' idea of culture, but I believe that
would be as coercive and damaging as any.
What needs to be worked on is the culture itself, and only
there by reforming one's self. Only from that reformation is
there any chance for real change (if indeed, change is one's
goal, as in my case it is). I have and want power only over
myself, believing that others have the same desire regarding
themselves.

Out of that shared condition may begin a dialogue freed at
least to some extent from cultural conditioning, a dialogue
that might be the basis for a 'new culture.'

As for design education, the role of the teacher can only be
that of setting an example and encouraging others to attempt to
free themselves from all the unquestioned assumptions poured
into their minds since they were babes. No easy task, on either
count, because such attempts upset the status quo any culture
seeks to create for itself, so this kind of self- and
other-education is discouraged. Remember Socrates fate.
However, it is not as impossible as it might seem at first.
Every culture likes to proclaim it's inevitability, but none
actually are inevitable.

By the way, I don't have my '1984' at hand, but isn't the
artist you mention of the same name as Orwell's doomed
protagonist?

Lebbeus