Download to read offline
![t h e o r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 3
underlying structure. Color theory, probability theory, the theory of relativity and Big Bang
are all examples of theories.
Theories for Design and for Things
“The notion of design theory may seem wooly-headed and irrelevant but it has a place: theory
can provide a structure for understanding problems and help generate methods for solving
them” (Doblin 1988: 6). If we accept that understanding the culture of objects presents
itself as a problem to be solved, and that methods to do so are in need, developing means
by which to theorize things is critical. Ken Friedman develops a framework for a general
theory of design in order to shift the discipline “from a rough, ambiguous territory to an
arena of reasoned inquiry” (Friedman 2003: 507). Drawing upon ideas from such disparate
disciplines and sources as cybernetics, systems theory, management science, philosophy
as well as dictionaries of languages and ideas, Friedman recommends the development of
a grounded theory based on practice.6
In other words, design theory should emerge from
empirical information gathered by observing design practice.
For an examination of the cultural import of things, theories developed within the social
sciences and humanities hold more promise than those utilized in the natural sciences. The
nature of the problems identified in design, the character of evidence gathered by designers
and critics and the types of theoretical propositions made in design research specifically
regarding the social and cultural meanings of objects are well suited for examination
through the lenses of critical and cultural theory. Critical theory could be described as
“a rigorous critical engagement with social and philosophical issues which [is] aimed at
the cross-fertilization of research methods derived from the social sciences with a Marxist
theoretical framework for conceptualizing social relations” (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008: 72–
73). Since the 1980s, critical theory has been most actively used in analyzing literature but
of late, it has found more application in the social examination of such diverse phenomena
and entities as music, television, the city, Disneyland, technology and products. Critical
theory serves as an overarching domain for several other theories (such as structuralism,
post-structuralism and post-modernism), a large number of which have been developed by
Marxist thinkers.
Max Horkheimer, regarded as the pioneer of critical theory, also offers several suggestions
about the fundamentals of theory construction.
n Theory is “the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so
linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these.”
n “The smaller the number of primary principles in comparison with the derivations, the
more perfect the theory.”
n “The real validity of the theory depends on the derived propositions being consonant
with the actual facts. If experience and theory contradict each other, one of the two
must be reexamined” (Horkheimer 1972: 188).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-27-2048.jpg)
![3 0 d e s i g n i n g t h i n g s
about the ideas of cause, unity, reciprocal relations, necessity, contingency, etc.; these and
other “categories” are the structure into which perceptions are received, and by which they
are classified and moulded into the ordered concepts of thought. These are the very essence
and character of the mind; mind is the coordination of experience” (Durant 1961: 270–1).
These categories organize our experiences into what we understand as objects. Kant also
made a distinction between the noumenal world (that which exists beyond our experience,
the thing-in-itself) and the phenomenal world (the one that we are able to experience) and
in doing so clearly established the limits of our knowledge.
The object as it appears to us is a phenomenon, an appearance, perhaps very different
from the external object before it came into the ken of our senses; what that original
object was we can never know; the “thing-in-itself” may be an object of thought or
inference (a “noumenon”), but it cannot be experienced-for in being experienced it
would be changed by its passage through sense and thought. (Durant 1961: 272).
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) faulted Kant for set
ting up a dichotomy between what we see and what exists behind it, between appearance
and essence, between the phenomenon and noumenon, between the subject and the
object. For him, the notion of a dialectical logic created a unity between the two artificial
entities. He suggested that there was nothing beyond appearances that needs to be revealed.
“[Hegel] maintains, rather, that if it is claimed that reality is unknown to us, that there are
unknowable things-in-themselves, then this can only be because there is no more to things-
in-themselves than is contained in the statement that they exist, that there is, as it were, no
more to the iceberg than its tip” (Inwood 1983: 120). To Hegel, the knowledge that we
possess of things is in fact knowledge of their properties such as their color, taste, or weight.
Our knowledge is of a thing with properties; we never know the bearer of those properties.
“He points out that the thing-in-itself in this sense is unknowable simply because there is
nothing to be known. Whatever knowledge we have about a lump of sugar [for example]
counts as knowledge of its properties and not of it, the bearer of those properties” (Inwood
1983: 121). These properties are determined by the relationships a thing has with other
things. To Hegel, our process of knowing could not be separate from absolute reality, but
needed to be a part of it. The separation of knowing from the absolute was unjustifiable
and incoherent. Hegel’s dialectic is often explained as a triadic relationship among thesis,
antithesis and synthesis. Though he did not expressly use these terms himself, he believed
that things and ideas have their opposites inherent in them. “The living die, simply because
as living they bear in themselves the germ of death” (Hegel 2009). In a sense, the notion
of planned obsolescence refers to that very idea, when the total life and ultimate death of
products are designed into their form, technology and use. These two states of things and
their inner contradictions can be compared to thesis and antithesis. To Hegel, the dialectical
moment represents a form of unification of the opposites, a condition that may be referred
to as synthesis.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-34-2048.jpg)
![t h e o r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 1
ViennesephilosopherLudwigWittgenstein(1889–1951)inTractatusLogico-Philosophicus
presented the world as “the totality of facts not of things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 29). He
further explained facts as states of affairs, which, in turn were combinations of objects. “Just
as we cannot think of spatial objects apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time,
so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connection with other
things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 30). To Wittgenstein, objects linked together as if on a chain,
creating a state of affairs, and reality was essentially all possible states of affairs. It was the
properties of objects that determined the relation among them; in other words, objects were
inseparable from context. Wittgenstein suggested that objects had internal and external
properties; the internal properties determined how they combined with other objects and
the external properties situated them within specific states of affairs.
It is in the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) that we find
the most extensive discussion of things. In his essay The Thing (1971), Heidegger uses the
example of a jug as the means to explain what a thing is and how it differentiates itself from
an object. While the thing is an independent, self-supporting entity, an object exists as
something against us, something that “stands forth” opposite to the subject. He describes
the jug through its principal attributes—it is a vessel for “holding” wine, it appears out of
the potter’s “making,” it facilities “outpouring” wine as gift, etc. Heidegger uses the term
“presencing” to denote these properties of the jug. In the poured gift, the jug “presences”
as jug (Heidegger 1971: 173). Heidegger traces the etymology of the word “thing” and its
German form Ding to one of its more ancient meanings—assembly or gathering. “A jug
‘things’ insofar as it holds the ‘gift’ of wine, and thereby gathers the sky’s water, the earth’s
grape, humanity’s production of wine, and the presence of gods when wine is used in religious
ceremonies (libation)” (Economides 2007). Heidegger referred to these four—earth, sky,
divinity and mortals—as the fourfold within which the thing stays united; it is here that
“the thing things” or presences (Heidegger 1971: 181). Heidegger also explains a category of
things he calls useful things. These are things that allow us to perform tasks such as writing,
reading, driving, etc.; they are tools. His famous analysis of tools suggests that these things
are invisible to us as long as they function in a manner that we expect them to; however, it is
when they are unusable that they spring into our consciousness. Using these objects reveals
their particular “handiness,” a quality that is dormant until the thing is picked up and put
to task. “What is peculiar to what is initially at hand is that it withdraws, so to speak, in its
character of handiness in order to be really handy” (Heidegger 1996: 65). Tools exist in two
states: ready-to-hand when they are in this withdrawn state but ready to be used, and present-
at-hand when they are conspicuous. These withdrawn things can be compared to Braun
designer Dieter Rams’ conceptions of products as “silent butlers” available to serve when
needed and quick to fade into the background when not in use. While Heidegger’s things
withdraw in a phenomenological sense, Rams’ things do so in a direct physical way “[as]
silent butlers: invisible and subservient, and there simply to make living easier and more
comfortable. They were to be as self-effacing as possible...” (Sparke 1998: 184). However,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-35-2048.jpg)
![t h e o r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 3
underlying structure. Color theory, probability theory, the theory of relativity and Big Bang
are all examples of theories.
Theories for Design and for Things
“The notion of design theory may seem wooly-headed and irrelevant but it has a place: theory
can provide a structure for understanding problems and help generate methods for solving
them” (Doblin 1988: 6). If we accept that understanding the culture of objects presents
itself as a problem to be solved, and that methods to do so are in need, developing means
by which to theorize things is critical. Ken Friedman develops a framework for a general
theory of design in order to shift the discipline “from a rough, ambiguous territory to an
arena of reasoned inquiry” (Friedman 2003: 507). Drawing upon ideas from such disparate
disciplines and sources as cybernetics, systems theory, management science, philosophy
as well as dictionaries of languages and ideas, Friedman recommends the development of
a grounded theory based on practice.6
In other words, design theory should emerge from
empirical information gathered by observing design practice.
For an examination of the cultural import of things, theories developed within the social
sciences and humanities hold more promise than those utilized in the natural sciences. The
nature of the problems identified in design, the character of evidence gathered by designers
and critics and the types of theoretical propositions made in design research specifically
regarding the social and cultural meanings of objects are well suited for examination
through the lenses of critical and cultural theory. Critical theory could be described as
“a rigorous critical engagement with social and philosophical issues which [is] aimed at
the cross-fertilization of research methods derived from the social sciences with a Marxist
theoretical framework for conceptualizing social relations” (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008: 72–
73). Since the 1980s, critical theory has been most actively used in analyzing literature but
of late, it has found more application in the social examination of such diverse phenomena
and entities as music, television, the city, Disneyland, technology and products. Critical
theory serves as an overarching domain for several other theories (such as structuralism,
post-structuralism and post-modernism), a large number of which have been developed by
Marxist thinkers.
Max Horkheimer, regarded as the pioneer of critical theory, also offers several suggestions
about the fundamentals of theory construction.
n Theory is “the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so
linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these.”
n “The smaller the number of primary principles in comparison with the derivations, the
more perfect the theory.”
n “The real validity of the theory depends on the derived propositions being consonant
with the actual facts. If experience and theory contradict each other, one of the two
must be reexamined” (Horkheimer 1972: 188).](https://crownmelresort.com/image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-27-2048.jpg)
![3 0 d e s i g n i n g t h i n g s
about the ideas of cause, unity, reciprocal relations, necessity, contingency, etc.; these and
other “categories” are the structure into which perceptions are received, and by which they
are classified and moulded into the ordered concepts of thought. These are the very essence
and character of the mind; mind is the coordination of experience” (Durant 1961: 270–1).
These categories organize our experiences into what we understand as objects. Kant also
made a distinction between the noumenal world (that which exists beyond our experience,
the thing-in-itself) and the phenomenal world (the one that we are able to experience) and
in doing so clearly established the limits of our knowledge.
The object as it appears to us is a phenomenon, an appearance, perhaps very different
from the external object before it came into the ken of our senses; what that original
object was we can never know; the “thing-in-itself” may be an object of thought or
inference (a “noumenon”), but it cannot be experienced-for in being experienced it
would be changed by its passage through sense and thought. (Durant 1961: 272).
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) faulted Kant for set
ting up a dichotomy between what we see and what exists behind it, between appearance
and essence, between the phenomenon and noumenon, between the subject and the
object. For him, the notion of a dialectical logic created a unity between the two artificial
entities. He suggested that there was nothing beyond appearances that needs to be revealed.
“[Hegel] maintains, rather, that if it is claimed that reality is unknown to us, that there are
unknowable things-in-themselves, then this can only be because there is no more to things-
in-themselves than is contained in the statement that they exist, that there is, as it were, no
more to the iceberg than its tip” (Inwood 1983: 120). To Hegel, the knowledge that we
possess of things is in fact knowledge of their properties such as their color, taste, or weight.
Our knowledge is of a thing with properties; we never know the bearer of those properties.
“He points out that the thing-in-itself in this sense is unknowable simply because there is
nothing to be known. Whatever knowledge we have about a lump of sugar [for example]
counts as knowledge of its properties and not of it, the bearer of those properties” (Inwood
1983: 121). These properties are determined by the relationships a thing has with other
things. To Hegel, our process of knowing could not be separate from absolute reality, but
needed to be a part of it. The separation of knowing from the absolute was unjustifiable
and incoherent. Hegel’s dialectic is often explained as a triadic relationship among thesis,
antithesis and synthesis. Though he did not expressly use these terms himself, he believed
that things and ideas have their opposites inherent in them. “The living die, simply because
as living they bear in themselves the germ of death” (Hegel 2009). In a sense, the notion
of planned obsolescence refers to that very idea, when the total life and ultimate death of
products are designed into their form, technology and use. These two states of things and
their inner contradictions can be compared to thesis and antithesis. To Hegel, the dialectical
moment represents a form of unification of the opposites, a condition that may be referred
to as synthesis.](https://crownmelresort.com/image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-34-2048.jpg)
![t h e o r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 1
ViennesephilosopherLudwigWittgenstein(1889–1951)inTractatusLogico-Philosophicus
presented the world as “the totality of facts not of things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 29). He
further explained facts as states of affairs, which, in turn were combinations of objects. “Just
as we cannot think of spatial objects apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time,
so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connection with other
things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 30). To Wittgenstein, objects linked together as if on a chain,
creating a state of affairs, and reality was essentially all possible states of affairs. It was the
properties of objects that determined the relation among them; in other words, objects were
inseparable from context. Wittgenstein suggested that objects had internal and external
properties; the internal properties determined how they combined with other objects and
the external properties situated them within specific states of affairs.
It is in the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) that we find
the most extensive discussion of things. In his essay The Thing (1971), Heidegger uses the
example of a jug as the means to explain what a thing is and how it differentiates itself from
an object. While the thing is an independent, self-supporting entity, an object exists as
something against us, something that “stands forth” opposite to the subject. He describes
the jug through its principal attributes—it is a vessel for “holding” wine, it appears out of
the potter’s “making,” it facilities “outpouring” wine as gift, etc. Heidegger uses the term
“presencing” to denote these properties of the jug. In the poured gift, the jug “presences”
as jug (Heidegger 1971: 173). Heidegger traces the etymology of the word “thing” and its
German form Ding to one of its more ancient meanings—assembly or gathering. “A jug
‘things’ insofar as it holds the ‘gift’ of wine, and thereby gathers the sky’s water, the earth’s
grape, humanity’s production of wine, and the presence of gods when wine is used in religious
ceremonies (libation)” (Economides 2007). Heidegger referred to these four—earth, sky,
divinity and mortals—as the fourfold within which the thing stays united; it is here that
“the thing things” or presences (Heidegger 1971: 181). Heidegger also explains a category of
things he calls useful things. These are things that allow us to perform tasks such as writing,
reading, driving, etc.; they are tools. His famous analysis of tools suggests that these things
are invisible to us as long as they function in a manner that we expect them to; however, it is
when they are unusable that they spring into our consciousness. Using these objects reveals
their particular “handiness,” a quality that is dormant until the thing is picked up and put
to task. “What is peculiar to what is initially at hand is that it withdraws, so to speak, in its
character of handiness in order to be really handy” (Heidegger 1996: 65). Tools exist in two
states: ready-to-hand when they are in this withdrawn state but ready to be used, and present-
at-hand when they are conspicuous. These withdrawn things can be compared to Braun
designer Dieter Rams’ conceptions of products as “silent butlers” available to serve when
needed and quick to fade into the background when not in use. While Heidegger’s things
withdraw in a phenomenological sense, Rams’ things do so in a direct physical way “[as]
silent butlers: invisible and subservient, and there simply to make living easier and more
comfortable. They were to be as self-effacing as possible...” (Sparke 1998: 184). However,](https://crownmelresort.com/image.slidesharecdn.com/25334719-250511132438-c223716e/75/Designing-Things-A-Critical-Introduction-To-The-Culture-Of-Objects-Prasad-Boradkar-Editor-35-2048.jpg)
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- 5. Introduction The wealth ofthose societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” its unit being a single commodity. Karl Marx, Capital What is a thing? The question is quite old. What remains ever new about it is merely that it must be asked again and again. Martin Heidegger, What is a Thing? There is an extraordinary lack of academic discussion pertaining to artefacts as objects, despite their pervasive presence as the context for modern life. Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption The study of things is also the study of culture. All things—big and small, mundane and extraordinary, simple and complex, expensive and cheap—are essential components of the culture of everyday life. The cities we live in, the buildings we occupy, the spaces we move through, the things we use and the images we gaze upon mediate our experience of the world. It is in the constant company of these things that we go about our daily rituals of work and play. These things shape our world. And a good number of them are products of our own making; they are of human design. Design’s core mission is to fashion things so that we may have meaningful interactions with the world. Meanings are neither inherent properties of the things themselves, nor are they total fabrications of the human mind; they are suspended in the spaces between us and all that is around us. Meanings emerge and change continuously as people and things travel through their lives, constantly bumping into each other. People and things together create networks or “webs of significance,” as Clifford Geertz calls them. It is in these networks that the cultural meanings of things arise. Scholars in several disciplines including design, anthropology, philosophy, material culture studies, science and technology studies and cultural studies have developed critical theoretical positions in seeking to explain the significance of things in society. Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects offers insights into the ideological positions and methodologies adopted by these disciplines, and in this process, it attempts to make theoretical interpretations of objects more accessible to readers of design. The relationship between people and things has endured through 2.5 million years, since the appearance of the first stone arrowheads made by members of the genus Homo habilis. This long-lasting bond has been symbiotic, and in order to recognize its significance, let
- 6. 2 d es i g n i n g t h i n g s us, for a moment, visualize two entirely different, improbable but potentially enlightening scenarios: a world without people and a world without things. In the first scenario, imagine that people have suddenly disappeared, leaving all things behind absolutely intact. Assume, for the second scenario, that all human-made artifacts have vanished leaving us in a world that can only be described as “natural.” Such an exercise is, of course, riddled with the fundamental problem that making clear distinctions among these three entities—humans, natural things and artificial things—is not easy or even possible. However, for a moment, turn a blind eye to such boundary-defying hybrid entities as “frozen embryos, expert systems, digital machines, sensor-equipped robots, hybrid corn, data banks, psychotropic drugs, whales outfitted with radar sounding devices, gene synthesizers, audience analyzers, and so on” (Latour 1993: 49–50). In fact, doing so might actually serve to highlight how closely connected these concepts are. Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us (2007) is an example of the first scenario, a book in which he explains how nature, when left to its own devices, starts taking over all things artificial. Bit by bit, and with a determined force, unchecked natural forces start to demolish our products, buildings and entire cities, dismantling them with a slow and bewildering force. “On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house—or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the Earth. They all go... After we’re gone, nature’s revenge for our smug, mechanized superiority arrives waterborne” (Weisman 2007: 16). Water rusts metal, rots wood, dissolves chemicals, widens cracks and becomes the conduit for the destruction that unleashes itself on all human creation. Without people to clean, maintain and upgrade our air-conditioners, homes, roads, skyscrapers, bridges, subway systems and nuclear power plants, weeds would start sprouting from every available gap and fissure, and “gradually, the asphalt jungle will give way to a real one” (Weisman 2007: 28). People and their things serve as a collective barricade, constantly pushing back the forces contained in plant growth, animal communities, weather systems and the ever- present gravitational tug. As shrubs, trees and eventually forests start to repossess all urban, suburban and exurban land, they bring with them wild animals. In the absence of humans, unprotected domesticated animals would quickly disappear, potentially leading to a surge in the populations of a variety of large mammals like elephants. All wilderness areas awkwardly trapped in between urban tracts would creep outwards into land left behind by humans. However, not everything human-made falls apart. Noble metals like gold and silver used in our jewelry do not corrode and our electronics do not easily crumble; they will endure. So will bronze, an alloy of seemingly interminable durability. Ceramics and glass too possess the resilience to thwart nature’s insistent proclivity for dismantling all it encounters. It is difficult to tell how long all our plastic products—bottles, packaging, bags, etc.—will survive, with or without our presence. We know how long it takes processes of biodegradation and photodegradation to decompose vegetable matter; what is not known is how long it will take to completely demolish plastics. Weisman discovers in his conversations with scientists
- 7. i n tr o d u c t i o n 3 that polymers have not been in existence long enough for microbes to develop enzymes with which to break them down. They could last for several thousand years before starting to degrade, but eventually they probably will. Weisman’s detailed account of how nature eventually swallows up all human inventions makes it evident that things cannot survive without the continuous guardianship that people provide them. This first scenario proves that the durability of our products is very limited while nature’s tenacity is boundless. Imagine for a moment, the other extreme and our second scenario: a world entirely devoid of human-made things. People would be immediately stripped of their clothes, robbed of their means of transport and left homeless. Life as we know it would cease to exist; all habits of work and leisure that depend on our devices of communication, forms of shelter and systems of transportation would come to a grinding halt. We have designed cocoons (our homes and cars), personal devices (clothing and cell phones) and barriers (walls and fences) to help us manage the physical, social and cultural distance between us and other humans, and between us and nature. When the objects disappear, when the machine is taken out of the garden, will it signal an opportunity for us to fully experience an unrestrained natural world? Will it allow us enjoy what E. O. Wilson calls our biophilia: “the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes” (Wilson 1984: 1)? Wilson suggests that “people react more quickly and fully to organisms than to machines. They will walk into nature, to explore, hunt, and garden, if given the chance” (Wilson 1984: 116). Does a world without things inspire a pastoral, idyllic image where humans (without any tools) would be seamlessly integrated into the natural ecosystem? Or will we be thrust into a harsh environment where survival would involve fierce struggle and staying on the top of the food chain would be neither guaranteed nor effortless. A reduction in the social, physical and cultural distance between us and the world around us would sharply redefine notions of privacy, ownership and status. This imagined state of a world without things would not last for too long. Like our ancestors the Homo habilis who handcrafted their stone artifacts, tool-less modern humans would quickly begin populating the planet with new things. But in the meanwhile, an objectless world would be eerily quiet without the constant buzzing, whirring and creaking sounds of material friction. Nature’s noisy machines rain and thunder, wind and tides will of course persist, but the incessant and often ignored clatter and hum of the engines of modern living would no longer be around. Our senses would have to adjust to sounds, sights, smells and textures that are not of our own making and have existed prior to us. In Things That Talk, Lorraine Daston too wonders what a world without things would be like. “It would be not so much an empty world as a blurry, frictionless one: no sharp outlines would separate one part of the uniform plenum from one another; there would be no resistance against which to stub a toe or test the theory or struggle stalwartly. Nor would there be anything to describe, or to explain, remark on, interpret, or complain about—just a kind of porridgy oneness. Without things, we would stop talking. We would become as mute as things are alleged to be” (Daston 2004: 9).
- 8. 4 d es i g n i n g t h i n g s Both scenarios are improbable. And the goal of imagining them is not to suggest a contrast between the natural and the artificial, or reignite the conversation about the clash between nature and culture, or even suggest that these entities are distinctly different from one another. The purpose of these visualizations is to foreground the interdependence and dialog between people and things. Not only have we been creating, using, modifying and discarding things, but we have also been thinking and writing about them for a long time. Things, in turn, form the very material infrastructure on which our societies are built; they are inseparable from the activities of everyday life. In fact, “a key argument in science and technology studies has been that the nonhuman and the human are co-constitutive— together, constitute the world and each other” (Clarke 2005: 63). Human beings and things together possess agency, and they act in conjunction with each other in making the world. This idea is fundamental to the actor-network theory (ANT) developed by Michael Callon, Bruno Latour and John Law in the late 1980s as a social study of technology. According to Law (2003), one of the basic tenets of ANT is that “society, organisations, agents and machines are all effects generated in patterned networks of diverse (not simply human) materials.” All actors in the network (people, things, institutions) possess agency and they are what they are because of the network within which they exist. For Latour, agency refers to the capacity of “making some difference to a state of affairs” (Latour 2005: 53). That nonhumans possess agency is possibly one of the more intriguing and unique propositions of ANT. Latour very simply explains how obvious this is. It is human agency that leads us to drive nails into walls, boil water or fetch provisions: actions generally performed with hammers, kettles and baskets. Accomplishing these tasks without these things is just not the same, and therefore he describes things as “participants in the course of action waiting to be given a figuration” (Latour 2005: 71). Figuration refers to the form or shape with which actors are endowed. As participants, things do not cause or impose the action; instead, they engage in a range of actions, some merely supportive or passive and others more vigorously active. In other words, the agency of things could take several forms; they might “authorize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid and so on” (Latour 2005: 72). The title of this book, Designing Things, has two interpretations. In its more evident sense, designing things refers to the primary activity of making, i.e. the process of the design of products, buildings, graphics, interiors, services, systems, etc. Designers (and people in general for that matter) are constantly designing things. However, designing things can be read one other way. As things themselves have agency, they afford specific kinds of action, they encourage certain types of behavior and they can elicit particular forms of emotions. Therefore, in addition to being designed by us, things in turn design us. We are surrounded, not by an assemblage of passive things, but by a network of designing things. Winston Churchill famously said once, “we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” This astute observation can easily be extended beyond buildings to all things. Designing Things, therefore, refers to a reciprocity of agency and an ambiguity of design’s locus of action. People
- 9. i n tr o d u c t i o n 5 and things configure each other. The word “configure,” derived from Latin con (“together”) and figurare (“to shape”), succinctly encapsulates the reciprocal form of the engagement between people and things. Indeed, this relationship directly influences how we produce our social structures and cultural forms. And it is this relationship that design seeks to “civilize” in all that it does. Designing Things inhabits that space of inquiry where multiple academic disciplines overlap. And it does so as much out of joyous choice as out of sheer necessity. The scholarly conversation about things is as vast as it is deep, as diverse in theoretical inspiration as it is singular in purpose and as widely distributed across disciplines as focused in function. This book, in its attempt to nudge design discourse yet closer to the world of theoretical thinking about things, needs to inhabit this common ground of interdisciplinarity. In ecological studies, an “ecotone is the boundary between two natural communities where elements of both as well as transitional species intermingle in heightened richness” (Krall 1994: 4). Ecotones are rich habitats that demonstrate three key properties—a unique interaction between species, stunning biodiversity and organisms adapted to survive in these edge conditions. “To an ecologist, the ‘edge effect’ carries the connotation of complex play of life forces where plant communities, and the creatures they support, intermingle in mosaics or change abruptly” (Krall 1994: 4). This book is situated in a disciplinary ecotone, and hopes to enrich our understanding of things by taking advantage of the “edge effect.” It seeks to build new insights upon the knowledge being developed in a broad range of disciplines, question and expand established points of views and present the seemingly mundane object as a complex network. Indeed, this is a position that material culture studies has adopted as well. The interstitial positions occupied by material culture studies provide a platform for a critical engagement with materiality for understanding issues facing us such as the fluidity of gender and body/object interfaces, recyclia, biotech, genetic engineering and the Internet—in short, those key materializing and transformative processes that shape new inclusions and exclusions as the critical focus of material culture studies such as new kinds of bodies, forms of ‘nature’ and political subjects. (Buchli 2002: 15) Material culture studies serves as a vehicle by which to study a variety of systems of cultural production and consumption. This book also occupies the interstitial spaces among disciplines, drawing from several of them to create a mosaic understanding of things and develop new avenues for scholarly inquiry. It assumes that the boundaries circumscribing these disciplines are porous rather than impervious and elastic rather than rigid—conditions essential for a more informed understanding of things. Behind interdisciplinarity, however, lurks danger. “The term discipline signifies the tools, methods, procedures, exempla, concepts, and theories that account coherently for a set of objects or subjects” (Klein 1990: 104). These elements, which define each discipline, become mixed, reappropriated and hybridized in interdisciplinary work. As Klein (1990) notes, in interdisciplinary research, the author carries the “burden of comprehension”,1 and needs
- 10. 6 d es i g n i n g t h i n g s to demonstrate an understanding of the primary context of the borrowed material. This burden multiplies as more disciplines are engaged, and creates a risk of a discourse scattered in content and style. This book will attempt to describe the primary context where possible, while recognizing that providing concentrated topical detail is neither the objective nor a possibility. Instead, through nine chapters, the book offers analytical perspectives on some of the most ordinary things inspired by the extraordinary vision some of the greatest critical thinkers of our time. Often, the scholarship produced by anthropologists, philosophers and theorists is inaccessible to readers of design. At times, the complexity of their thinking translates into specialized vocabularies and impenetrable writing. For a reader genuinely interested in theoretical examinations of material culture and design but unfamiliar with languages of the multiple disciplines engaged in this conversation, this poses a tremendous hurdle. Designing Things attempts to circumvent this obstacle in an effort to bring the worlds of object creation and object critique closer. The surge in scholarship in material culture also raises the questions of whether things can and should be theorized. Such questions are certainly relevant, and one of the primary tasks of material culture studies (or any discipline, for that matter) is to establish its raison d’être, scope of study, objectives, methodologies and theoretical underpinnings. In his essay, Thing Theory, Bill Brown asks: “Do we really need anything like thing theory the way we need narrative theory or cultural theory, queer theory or discourse theory? Why not let things alone?” (Brown 2001: 1) The phrase “thing theory” does incite some skepticism. Is this cute alliteration an attempt to convert the corporeal into the ephemeral, the commonplace into the cerebral, the silly into the sublime? Is this a wasted/wasteful effort to try and theorize the trivial? There is a certain peculiarity to the juxtaposition of the word thing and the word theory; placed together, they exude an uneasy incongruity. They are like strangers who do not seem to have much to say to each other at a swanky party. Brown himself says that thing theory could sound like an oxymoron. But it is clear that critical, theoretical examination of things is a worthwhile study. The ubiquity of things in everyday life, their role in shaping identity, their critical presence in economic systems, their existence in art, their function as markers of history, all are qualities that make them socially and culturally significant. Theorizing things can help us determine the nature of how these processes unfold, and what things mean to people. However, it is also important to recognize that “there is not, and can never be, one ‘correct’ or ‘right’ theoretical position which we may choose to study material forms or to exhaust their potential for informing us about the constitution of culture and society” (Tilley et al. 2006: 10). It is therefore critical to draw upon multiple theoretical positions in order to develop a holistic understanding of things and their relationship to people. Of late, the swelling interest in writing about material culture has led to a series of books that have taken on the analysis of paper clips, chairs, iPods, cars and a host of other everyday products. “Commodities have made a striking resurgence within the academy over the last decade after being relegated for a generation or more to a lower drawer in the
- 11. i n tr o d u c t i o n 7 dusty backrooms of economic geography” (Bridge and Smith 2003: 257). This scholarship is distributed across a variety of journals and books in a multitude of disciplines, pushing it beyond easy reach. With some exceptions, this increased academic interest has not necessarily resulted in a better understanding of the cultural meanings of things or the process of their manufacture and disposal. Designing Things strives to be an approachable text that provides access to some of this literature not only to design aficionados, but also to curious minds that possess an anthropological interest in all things material. Design and the Culture of Objects As the title suggests, this book deals with design and the culture of objects. Subsequent chapters will explore the relationship among the three—design, culture and objects— through a series of thematic concepts. These ideas, when unpacked, reveal that they signify extraordinarily knotty concepts, and their meanings are rooted in networks of relationships. In addition to being under the scrutiny of a range of disciplines, each of these ideas also has entire areas of study devoted to their examination—design has design studies, culture has cultural studies, and objects have material culture studies. These three areas of study are themselves highly interdisciplinary; not only do they tap each other’s scholarship but their purviews exhibit significant overlap as well. In order to develop a better understanding of design and the culture of objects, it is important to locate questions about the topic in the space shared by these three areas of study. Of the three terms—design, culture and objects—it is culture that has been labeled by multiple accounts as one of the most complex words in the English language (Williams 1976; Eagleton 2000). In The Idea of Culture, Eagleton traces the history and evolution of the meaning of culture, and concludes that it is a concept that is at once too broad and too narrow, too imprecise and too specific. “Its anthropological meaning covers everything from hairstyles and drinking habits to how to address your husband’s second cousin, while the aesthetic sense of the word includes Igor Stravinsky but not science fiction” (Eagleton 2000: 32). He explains that science fiction belongs to the arena of popular culture, which “floats ambiguously” somewhere between the aesthetic and the anthropological. All that design produces too flourishes in this space, at times hovering close to the aesthetic (with such artistic examples as original sketches drawn by Charles Eames or Frank Lloyd Wright) and at times close to the anthropological (with such everyday objects as the Oxo GoodGrips potato peeler). Clifford Geertz’s (1973: 5) definition of culture as “webs of significance” within which human beings are suspended aligns itself closely to the anthropological sense, albeit with a semiotic twist to it. He explains these webs as “interworked systems of construable signs” and emphasizes that culture is a context rather than a power (Geertz 1973: 14). And it is within this context that “behaviors, institutions, or processes” can be described. Eagleton (2000: 34) defines culture “loosely” as “the complex of values, customs, beliefs and practices which constitute the way of life of a specific group.” He adds, “culture is just everything which is not genetically transmissible” (Eagleton 2000: 34), i.e. all that is socially produced
- 12. 8 d es i g n i n g t h i n g s rather than hereditarily acquired. Eagleton also summarizes Raymond Williams’ several definitions of culture “to mean a standard of perfection, a habit of mind, the arts, general intellectual development, a whole way of life, a signifying system, a structure of feeling, the interrelation of elements in a way of life, and everything from economic production and the family to political institutions” (Eagleton 2000: 36). To Williams a culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. (Williams 2001: 11) In other words, everything from detective novels, Zunes, comic books, hip-hop, Hollywood blockbusters, and soap operas to literature, classical music, theater and the opera can be assumed to be “cultural.” Design (in its role as the creative process of production, the results of which are concrete expressions of material culture) affects both aspects of culture—its known as well as new meanings. Everyday mundane things represent Williams’ “ordinary common meanings” and the creative act of new design represents his “finest individual meanings” (Williams 2001: 11). Design and designers (along with use and users) are therefore active participants in the creation and consumption of culture. “Designers are immersed in this material culture, and draw upon it as the primary source of their thinking. Designers have the ability both to ‘read’ and ‘write’ in this culture: they understand what messages objects communicate, and they can create new objects which embody new messages” (Cross 2006: 9). The culture of objects can best be described as a network of negotiated meanings. These meanings emerge and evolve as agentic things, humans and other participants interact with each other within a network that is distributed over time and space. These interactions among the actors are forms of social, political, economic, physical and environmental negotiations. And as Nigel Cross explains above, design’s role, as one of the actors in the network, is to observe and direct these negotiations for common good. The Scope and Some Thematic Approaches Designing Things has undertaken the task of introducing readers to the culture of objects. As the scholarship in design, anthropology, philosophy, material culture studies, science and technology studies and cultural studies indicates, the long history of our relationship to things has inspired significant thinking and writing on the topic. Therefore, the subject matter (or subject of matter, if you will) is as horizontally wide as it is vertically deep, and neither its sprawl nor its depth can be mapped in full or included in its entirety. However, it is possible to assemble the central themes from key scholastic traditions to start building a composite image of the critical thinking about objects. The task that this book undertakes
- 13. i n tr o d u c t i o n 9 is not unlike that of creating a large portrait in the technique of pointillism—an almost infinite number of dots have to be placed just so for a recognizable figure to emerge. It involves sketching out the entire image, adopting a specific approach/point of view, and finally moving in close to fill in the details. In a similar vein, Designing Things adopts three visual stances—the synoptic view, the point of view and the near view. An overview of the diversity visible in the disciplinary thinking of things will serve as the synoptic view. This synopsis will assist the reader in recognizing the diversity and difference of opinion in disciplinary positions. The book then adopts the position/point of view outlined in actor- network theory, which while embracing the complexity of the heterogeneous network in which things exist, bestows them with agency. All entities (people, things, institutions and so on) are agentic actors in this network, and it is the reciprocity of their respective agencies that shapes the interactions among them. As suggested earlier, people and things configure each other. The agency of actors is possible only because they are integral parts of the network; agency cannot be conceived as a property of either things or people. ANT’s pioneer John Law suggests, “in particular cases, social relations may shape machines, or machine relations shape their social counterparts” (2003: 3). That is, the relations among the various actors themselves exhibit agency and configure each other. Tony Fry traces the roots of this reciprocity to the earliest instances of design when tool-making began. While we have always been prefigured (that is designed) as soon as “we” started to modify our environment and make a world for ourselves via the use of tools, we began to form practices that were to structure what we were to become. Effectively, the designing of design and of our human being emerged out of the use of the most basic of tools. Not only did the use of tools facilitate prefigurative acts of world making and transformation that have brought us to the fabricated and damaged world we now occupy—they also acted back (in the sense of feedback within a cybernetic system) on the tool users— hence these proto-designer/makers themselves became designed. This process, while now infinitely more complex, remains the key to grasping the relation of humans to technology, science and the fabricated world. We are never just users; we are always equally the used. (Fry 2009: 24) The tools we have been shaping over millennia have in turn been shaping our social structure, our design praxis, our material world and us. This thinking constitutes the point of view. And finally, the near view that helps define the scope of this book is constructed around eight themes that highlight specific characteristics of the network of things. These themes, focal points in the network (or dots in our pointillist portrait), are organized as eight chapters in the book, and they address: (1) the value of things; (2) the human labor expended in their making; (3) the social process of their manufacture; (4) their aesthetic character; (5) obsolescence and the process of their aging; (6) the need we experience for them; (7) their presence as signs in society and, finally, (8) their fetish character. These focal
- 14. 1 0 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s themes, presented as individual chapters, together form a network of ideas that can help us understand some aspects of the culture of objects. While the brightest spotlight in this book is clearly focused on things, it is impossible to talk about them without a serious discussion of other actors in this network. These thematic selections hover between production and consumption simultaneously, explicitly favoring neither. While some chapters may address processes of production more directly (labor, for example) and some focus more on consumption (fetishism, for example), the meanings of things depend on both, and therefore they cannot be truly cleaved from each other. Needs are truly felt and they are also manufactured; planning obsolescence into productsisanactofproduction,whilethegenerationofwasteisabyproductofconsumption; objects exist as signs because designers pick their physical attributes (form, color, shape, texture...) that make them readable and meaning is generated as consumers interact with this manifest physicality. These attributes of things—their value, their life cycles, their role as signifiers, and so on—emerge in processes of production and consumption. Instead of the dialectical positions often assigned to these processes, in this book they will be treated as contiguous courses of action responsible for the creation of the meanings of things. In summary, the approach adopted for this book includes a synoptic view that maps out the disciplinary diversity in thinking about things, a specific point of view inspired by actor- network theory and the reciprocity of agency, and the near view in the form of focal themes that help fill in details about the culture of objects. Delimiting the Study In order to maintain some sense of focus and ward off the temptation to make too many topical diversions, it was necessary to draw boundaries around three things—product, practice, and place. In most cases, the objects and things referred to in this book are not buildings, interior spaces, graphic systems, websites, or machines, but products of traditional industrial design (or product design) activity. And while it is true that industrial design practice today is by no means limited only to consumer electronics, tools, furniture, medical devices or transportation, this study will limit itself to these very things. Designing Things inhabits the world of mp3 players, water bottles, turntables, hammers, cars, etc. And while many of the concepts discussed here may be extended to spaces and buildings, the explicit focus is on products, and by extension, on the practice of industrial design. Yet another boundary marks the scholarly territory upon which the ideas in the book are built. The concepts and case studies are, for the most part, drawn from literature that has emerged in the West. The spotlight on design/products in/of Europe and North America is not, by any means, an act of ethnocentrism; it is merely an attempt to limit an unbounded topic. Chapter Overviews The following descriptions of the focal themes will offer an introduction to what follows in the subsequent pages of Designing Things.
- 15. i n tr o d u c t i o n 1 1 Figure 0.1. The Thematic Approach to DesigningThings. Illustration by Amethyst Saludo.
- 16. 1 2 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s Chapter 1: Theorizing Things: Disciplinary Diversity in Thinking about Objects With some exceptions, design research has traditionally under-theorized the cultural mean ings of objects, and Chapter 1 outlines some of the benefits of amending this situation. While there is significant research and publication in design history and methodology, and there is a growing body of work in sustainability, the cultural study of things could benefit from more attention. A greater academic interest in the cultural meanings of objects is witnessed in the social sciences and the humanities, and each of these examinations is structured around a specific set of concerns, theoretical positions and research methods. Chapter 1 outlines how, using these tools, these disciplines construct a social, cultural, political, environmental and economic conception of objects. This chapter offers an overview of theory and justifies the need for critical, theoretical portrayals of things. However, the sheer volume, diversity and ubiquity of things present considerable difficulty in generating overarching theories of things. These difficulties as well as the benefits of such research will be discussed in this chapter. Brief overviews of the disciplines of anthropology, cultural studies, material culture studies and science and technology studies will shape the synoptic view discussed earlier. Chapter 2:Valued Possessions: The Worth of Things Value may be understood in sociological, aesthetic, economic and symbolic terms, and Chapter 2 will critique the value of objects from these points of view. Objects mean different things to different people, and hence they are valued differently as well. Although the most common understanding of value typically refers to financial worth, it is clear that other forms of valuation need to be carefully examined too. Business literature often focuses its attention on consumer value, market value and shareholder value, but in anthropology and political economy, value is conceived primarily in terms of exchange, and generally determined socially and financially. In addition to the tangible value forms derived from commercial exchange, objects also possess tremendous value as signs in society. As objects go through their lifecycles, they accrue and shed several types of value (financial, functional, emotional, etc.). Therefore value will be explained as a fluid aggregate network, because the total value of a thing is a constantly changing relation that is influenced by the social network in which it exists. Chapter 2 offers a critical assessment of the types of value that things gain and discard in their journeys from raw materials to finished goods. Chapter 3: Making Things: Labor in Production Manufacturing is a global activity and today it is not unusual for even simple products to be made up of components manufactured in one part of the world, assembled in another and sold in a third. Most of us have no idea exactly where or precisely how complex devices like laptop computers and mobile phones are made. Certainly labor is involved, but it is expended elsewhere, it is invisible. “In the finished product the labor by means of which it has acquired its useful qualities is not palpable, has apparently vanished” (Marx 1967: 183). This concealment can be seen as negation of human activity and likened to degradation
- 17. i n tr o d u c t i o n 1 3 of labor often found in sweatshops around the world. With robotic arms, stringent safety laws and more equitable trade agreements in place, manufacturing does not look like it did to Charles Dickens 150 years ago. But, exploitation continues in several forms. Labor is a global, social, political, moral and ethical issue. Chapter 3 will draw attention to some of the labor issues of alienation and gender inequity visible in the global manufacturing industry. Chapter 4: Producing Things: A History of Systems of Manufacture The human labor expended in the manufacture of goods occurs within well-defined pro duction systems. While production in itself is rather messy, there have been many attempts in transforming it into a science. In this industry, people and machines have to make things cheaply, in large quantities and at breakneck speed. Mass production has been accompanied by several innovations such as the assembly line, Fordism,Taylorism, flexible manufacturing, etc., and the automotive industry has found extensive application for them ever since the first Ford Model T rumbled into the streets of early twentieth-century Detroit. Chapter 4 provides an overview of issues surrounding manufacturing labor in such industries as automotive, apparel and electronic products. Chapter 5: Beautiful Things: The Aesthetics of Surfaces This chapter begins with a brief overview of the philosophy of aesthetics. One of design’s fundamental tasks is to impart beauty to technology but aesthetic development is often seen as a mysterious, creative process. The external surfaces of objects serve as expressions of style and high design, stimulators of desire, blank canvases for designers and monetary gain for corporations. The creation of style, however, cannot be attributed to designers alone; style is as much a creative act of consumers as it is a result of the process of design. In consumption, style and form can serve as expressions of taste, identity and status for individuals and social groups. In production, style and form operate as mechanisms by which to satisfy the needs of a larger number of market segments, valorize capital and diversify a company’s offerings. Just as the human skin protects the body while being its aesthetic front, the object surface operates as an interface between technology and the world, as a skin that shields components and becomes the location of beauty and seduction. This chapter offers an overview of the role of aesthetics in the lives of corporations and consumers. Chapter 6: The Greed Imperative: User Needs in Product Design As design methodology has evolved, the role of ethnographic research and observation of users has taken center stage. Designers routinely watch and study people to identify needs and find opportunities where a new product can be introduced. According to cultural theorists, as new products enter the market, they satisfy not only the needs of the consumers but also those of the system of production. Chapter 6 will present typologies of needs developed in philosophy, marketing, engineering and design, along with the problems in
- 18. 1 4 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s such classifications. Needs are dynamic in nature and they often grow over time as patterns of consumption change. This growth, however, is infinite, and the satisfaction that is expected never arrives. Often, needs are not satisfied; they are merely replaced with other needs. This chapter suggests that needs be conceived as forces in a network that have a ripple effect throughout the system. In other words, needs have to be imagined in more holistic rather than individual terms. Chapter 7: Planned Obsolescence: Unsustainable Consumption Chapter 7 will introduce readers to the process by which obsolescence is built into designed products. The origins of “dynamic obsolescence” will be traced back to General Motors and the automotive industry, where this practice was promoted in the 1920s and 1930s as a means of maintaining a steady consumer interest in new cars and therefore a steady income for the company. The limited life spans of products have led to social, cultural and environmental problems and have been widely decried for being unsustainable. Arguments for and against obsolescence make it evident that it is not easy to find solutions that are economically viable, environmentally responsible and consumer friendly. The rapid acquisition and disposal of goods (whether caused by changes in technology, drop in quality or démodé appearance) are unique forms of consumption that lead to new forms of conspicuous waste. Discussions in this chapter will include commentary on the types of obsolescence, the culture of disposability, the economics of durability and the impact of these issues on individuals, corporations and design consultancies. Chapter 8: Objects as Signs:What do Things Mean? “Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else” (Eco 1979: 7). Chapter 8 starts with a history of the discipline of semiotics and explains how this “doctrine of signs” has evolved over time into such forms as socio-semiotics. Semiotics is also concerned with meanings, which exist in a non-physical, non-psychical space between people and the material world. They are not fixed entities, but emergent structures that are heavily context- dependant. This chapter also includes a discussion of product semantics, a field of study dedicated to understanding the processes by which people make sense of things, and using that knowledge in doing design. Things are never what they seem and they have multiple hidden meanings. In its analysis, semiotics can help us discover some of these meanings. Chapter 9: The Obsession of Possession: Fetish Objects Chapter 9 examines the obsessive attachment and devotion we often exhibit towards certain possessions. Collecting and fetishism are two unique forms of possessing because, in these practices, it is sometimes not entirely clear who is the possessor and who the possessed. Both people and things have agency, and in these situations, where people invest significant resources into the acquisition and conservation of collectibles and fetish items, the agency of
- 19. i n tr o d u c t i o n 1 5 things gains tremendous power. Like fetish objects, collectibles possess symbolic meanings that replace or mask utilitarian meanings. In material culture studies, the concept of fetishism has been assigned positive as well as negative meanings, both of which are central to its discussion. Four key forms of fetishism—religious fetishism, commodity fetishism, sexual fetishism and semiotic fetishism—will be discussed in this chapter. The World of Goods Photographs of people with their favorite things like cars, trophies, stuffed animals and other collectibles are common. However, it is surprising to see an average family with all of its possessions in one photograph. This is one of many images of “average families” that photographer Peter Menzel has captured all over the world. The U.N. and the World Bank helped Menzel “determine what an average family actually is in a country according to location (urban, rural, suburban, small town, village), type of dwelling, family size, annual income, occupation and religion” (Menzel 1994: 11). The Cavin family seen here is Figure 0.2. An Average Family with all its Material Possessions. Image courtesy of and © Peter Menzel, http://www.menzelphoto.com/.
- 20. completely dwarfed bythe volume of what surrounds them. An invisible network connects all of these things to one another, to the Cavins, and to many other things Menzel’s wide- angle lens could not capture. Understanding this network of things requires recognizing and acknowledging its social, political, material, economic and environmental significance. Each and every thing in this world of goods is an active participant in a continually evolving material culture. Design praxis, knowingly or unwittingly, is itself an active participant in the creation of cultural materials. This book has undertaken the task of observing some of these cultural materials and unpacking them to reveal their stories. And it has relied on a rich and diverse assemblage of theories developed by scholars in an equally rich and diverse range of disciplines. The following stories of value, labor, beauty, need, obsolescence, semiotics and fetishism are meant to encourage broader thinking about how things mean what they do, and why it is important for us to think about them. An undertaking of this kind can by no means be considered to be comprehensive or complete. Things exist as actors in a network with far too many connections and far too many complexities to be easily and completely decipherable. This book is a small addition to the ongoing and infinite discourse about things and our relationship to them.
- 21. 1 Theorizing Things:Disciplinary Diversity in Thinking About Objects Studies of the house do not have to be reduced to housing studies, nor studies of design to design studies. Daniel Miller, Material Cultures Despite our desperate, eternal attempt to separate, contain and mend, categories always leak. Trinh Minh-Ha, Women, Native, Other Things occupy central positions in our daily lives, but their presence in scholarly discourse is scattered across several academic departments. Disciplines and areas of study such as industrial design, art history, anthropology, material culture studies, marketing, architecture, engineering, science, technology and society (STS), philosophy, archaeology and cultural studies routinely examine and debate the significance of material objects but the symbolic meanings and values ascribed to them vary widely among these branches of learning. Each one of these disciplines, by examining the material world within which we live, creates a discourse about and around objects. And among these, material culture studies is quite possibly the only discipline that has expressly charged itself with the primary task of examining the social and cultural meanings of things.1 This chapter makes the case that things are under-theorized in design and their critical cultural examination could be a fruitful area of inquiry for design research. In order to clarify terminology, the differences in meanings of the several words used to describe things (products, objects, gadgets, devices, commodities, etc.) will be examined. This will be followed by a brief history of the philosophy of materiality, starting with the ideas of the Greek thinker Anaximander and leading up to contemporary philosophers Harman and Latour. After a brief introduction to what theory is, the discussion will shift to overviews of how several disciplines have theorized things. Finally, the chapter will end with a list of some of the problems and benefits of undertaking such critical examinations of things. Each disciplinary lens sets its focus on things from a perspective that is shaped by the unique purpose of its inquiry. The questions asked, methodologies chosen and results sought are determined by disciplinary know-how, and therefore the critical knowledge generated is determined by the situation within which the analysis is conducted. However, it is important to note that while the disciplines bring to the study of objects their own unique theoretical
- 22. 1 8 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s underpinnings and specific methods of inquiry, they also share some ideological biases. In fact, interdisciplinary research is founded on the notion that there are productive areas of convergence (the ecotonal zones) among disciplines where new scholarship can emerge. While disciplinary analyses may foreground specific qualities of things, in interdisciplinary analyses they can inform each other while expanding the discourse of the cultural meanings of objects. Interdisciplinarity takes several forms, but the two most commonly discussed types are multidisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. “Multidisciplinarity signifies the juxtaposition of disciplines. It is essentially additive, not integrative... The participating disciplines are neither changed nor enriched, and the lack of ‘a well-defined matrix’ of interactions means disciplinary relationships are likely to be limited and transitory” (Klein 1990: 56). Generally speaking, in multidisciplinary approaches experts from several disciplines are involved on a research project but their work may not always intersect. In such situations the problem may be segmented into smaller issues that can then be appropriately handled by single disciplines. On the other hand, transdisciplinarity refers to situations where the knowledge and tools of one discipline influence and redirect the results of another. Much more disruptive and difficult to manage, engagement of this nature typically signals a destruction of disciplinary boundaries with the hope of generating new knowledge that would be impossible to produce by a single discipline. “Transdisciplinary approaches are far more comprehensive in the scope and vision...Whereas ‘interdisciplinary’ signifies the synthesis of two or more disciplines, establishing a new method of discourse, ‘transdisciplinarity’ signifies the interconnectedness of all aspects of reality, transcending the dynamic of a dialectical synthesis to grasp the total dynamics of reality as a whole” (Klein 1990: 66). While multidisciplinarity may appear to be less desirable than transdisciplinarity, it offers unique benefits. On the other hand, transdisciplinarity is often expected to deliver much more than it easily can. In the case of such unbounded topics as the examination of the relationship between people and things (the subject at hand), being able to “grasp the total dynamics of reality as a whole” is practically impossible. This subject is large, unwieldy and fragmented (but also of great consequence, oft-ignored and thrilling), and creating boundaries within such unbounded topical geography demands a frame of reference and a position. In other words, it requires the adoption of a specific methodological approach that might be limiting and the construction of boundaries where they might be difficult to draw. As explained earlier in the Introduction, the methodological approach includes a synoptic overview, an ANT-inspired point of view and a theme-based near view. This chapter, in its multidisciplinary approach, offers a synoptic view of the diversity in thinking of things as manifest in a variety of disciplines. Design, which has traditionally regarded objects in formal rather than social terms, can benefit by including within its systems of analysis a more socially and culturally rooted understanding of objects, which is germane to cultural studies. While philosophy, more specifically metaphysics, questions the nature of the very existence of things, scholars in STS perceive them as socially constructed technological events. Design discourse
- 23. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 1 9 expends more of its energies in analyzing processes, systems and methodologies of design construction, whereas cultural theory and media studies typically deconstruct materiality, drawing upon political, economic, and sociological approaches in their analysis. Anthropo logy views objects as artifacts and studies them as representatives of specific cultures, while engineering treats them as scientific entities subject to laws of physics and mathematics. An understanding of the politics of power, which is pivotal in cultural studies can inform designers of imperceptible social forces, just as comprehension of the design process can more fully educate cultural and social theorists about the role of design in fashioning objects. The multiplicity of disciplines across which the critical thinking of objects is scattered makes it a daunting task to document but it holds benefits for research as well as teaching across these fields. Design may become less instrumentally pragmatic and shift its emphasis from predominantly formal and aesthetic to more social, political and economic readings of things central to the humanities and social sciences. Similarly, media and cultural studies might supplement its analysis of media, communications, institutions, audiences, and technologies with a deeper consideration of designed things and the processes of their evolution. A thorough comprehension of the processes of design might also inform Figure 1.1. Disciplinary Diversity in Examining Things. Illustration by Amethyst Saludo.
- 24. 2 0 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s anthropology’s assessment of the role of designers in the creative, cultural production of artifacts. Locating things within theory locates the practices of design and production within a larger, social critique. An examination of the approaches central to disciplines engaged in object studies can trigger interdisciplinary learning, comparative studies and more holistic analyses. This discourse will arm design studies with a more inclusive and robust conception of things, thereby strengthening its presence, relevance and authority in object studies. Understanding Things through Design Research/Theory The burgeoning interest in design research can play an important role in helping design to develop a critical knowledge of the meanings of objects. Through articles in journals, conference proceedings and books, design’s history, theory and methodology are being mapped out at an international level. Over the last few decades, several articles have traced design’s epistemological evolution (Roth 1999, Margolin 2002, Laurel 2003, Bayazit 2004, Cross 2006). It is clear from the surveys by these authors that though design research includes scholarship in several areas, a significant amount of intellectual energy has been focused on history and methodology. The classical definition of design research is traced to Bruce Archer, who presented it at a conference of the Design Research Society in 1980. According to Archer, “design research is systematic inquiry whose goal is knowledge of, or in, the embodiment of configuration, composition, structure, purpose, value, and meaning in man-made things and systems” (Bayazit 2004: 16). This definition is wonderfully expansive in its rendition and sweeps up a broad range of investigations surrounding design’s process and product. Bayazit (2004: 16) lists five major concerns of design research as they apply to design methodology and design science: A. Design research is concerned with the physical embodiment of man-made things, how these things perform their jobs, and how they work. B. Design research is concerned with construction as a human activity, how designers work, how they think, and how they carry out design activity. C. Design research is concerned with what is achieved at the end of a purposeful design activity, how an artificial thing appears, and what it means. D. Design research is concerned with the embodiment of configurations. E. Design research is a systematic search and acquisition of knowledge related to design and design activity. The first task of design research listed above emphasizes the examination of physical artifacts, but the focus is on physicality, utility and functionality. The third topic in the list above could include a concern for the social and cultural meanings of things but this is not explicit in design’s conception as a science. The remainder of the concerns orbit around outlining design’s praxis. Margolin (2002) advocates the use of the term design studies to serve as an envelope accommodating a wide range of research efforts within design. In
- 25. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 1 addition to design methods research (understanding design’s process) and project-oriented research (knowledge from practice), Margolin urges the examination of “design as a cultural practice,” which requires “modes of thought that recognize design as a practice within culture and that bring to bear on its study the methods that have been used to understand other cultural practices and their resultant artifacts” (2002: 251). He lists four major areas of study that this research topic “design as cultural practice” may address: design practice, design products, design discourse, and metadiscourse. Research related to the theorization of things may be located under the category of design products, which Margolin explains as a “study ... that emphasizes the identity and interpretation of products” (2002: 253). Design practice relates to examinations of all aspects of product planning and execution, design discourse relates to the study of what design is and might be, and metadiscourse refers to the reflexive study of design itself. Though the theorization of things relates directly to the area Margolin refers to as design products, it borrows heavily from the other three as well. Objects are results of social practices of a large number of stakeholders (designers, engineers, marketers, reporters, consumers, etc.), and theories that attempt to explain their cultural meanings cannot do so without a lens wide enough to include several perspectives. Under-theorization of Objects in Design Research The relatively limited attention paid to the application of theory and criticism toward the analysis and interpretation of objects opens up a significant arena of opportunity for design research. Within this steadily growing body of knowledge, scholars have begun to devote attention to theorizing the products of design. Increasingly prevalent in their work is the notion that the meanings of objects should be situated not only within the context of design and manufacturing activity but also within the circumstance of individual and social activity. This understanding is particularly evident in the work of several design historians who have addressed the narratives of objects from perspectives that transcend the aesthetic and technological.2 In these publications, the examination of designed objects often reveals the influence of the social sciences—specifically the discourse from anthropology and cultural studies. For several reasons, a large volume of the discourse around objects exists in disciplines outside design. First, as a formal discipline, design is relatively young and the comprehensive theoretical foundations that organically evolve to serve as pillars of the profession are yet to acquire the sturdy proportions of more established disciplines. By contrast, some allied disciplines such as architecture have a reasonably long history, as do others like engineering and archaeology. Second, design’s traditional role has been the production rather than the critical interpretation of things. Industrial design programs in educational institutions have a commandingly larger number of skill-based studio courses than critical/analytical ones. This emphasis on the teaching of design ability and skill has created the situation where students at the undergraduate level are mostly unfamiliar with the theories that could be used in the analysis of objects.3 Third, being a “professional” discipline, a large percentage
- 26. 2 2 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s of design practitioners and educators tend to focus on praxis rather than theory, a condition that directly contributes to the relative scarcity of published research within the discipline. Though current research in design history and design studies reveals an increasing recognition of theories, methods, and perspectives from the social sciences (as evidenced in several books and such journals as Design Issues, Design and Culture, Journal of Design History, Design Philosophy Papers), disciplinary boundaries are far from permeable. In design, our present understanding of objects is only partial; it continues to be predominated more by aesthetic and technological concerns rather than social and cultural ones. However, the deficiency in our knowledge of things cannot be entirely attributed to the divisions among disciplines. The very multiplicity of the meanings of things that engenders such a diversity of reading also makes it difficult to create an inherently cohesive theoretical model for their interpretation and analysis. What is Theory? In generic, non-discipline specific terms, a theory may be described as a set of general principles employed to explain specific phenomena. These general principles may be laws or facts developed through research in order to describe and clarify natural events, human behavior or properties of things. In common language, the word theory may signify a hypothesis, a belief, a hunch or even a guess, but neither one of these terms truly conveys the meaning of the definition above. A theory is built around evidence and is supported through the scholarship of not a single individual but several scholars. In addition to the abundant generic definitions, there exist several specialized characterizations of theory developed by individual disciplines. In sociology, for example, theory is defined as “an integrated set of concepts formed into propositions that explains particular conditions or events in the world around us” (Schneider 2006: 2). Schneider explains concepts as abstract terms that refer to phenomena, events, things, etc. However, the concepts by themselves are not sufficient in the formulation of theories; relationships among them have to be formalized into propositions, which then take shape as theories. For example, germ theory proposes that invasions of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and algae cause human and animal diseases. Here, disease, the human body and bacteria represent the fundamental concepts while mechanisms of infection and viral invasions represent relationships. Repeated observations and lab testing then led to the formulation of the theory. The natural sciences expect mathematical proofs and formulae in their construction of theories. The National Academy of Sciences defines theory in science as “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection.”4 Within the natural sciences, biologists hold that “theory is critical to understanding what is observed in the natural world; it also enables biologists to make predictions, develop new approaches, and translate biological research into practical applications.”5 A theoretician, therefore, identifies phenomena in the world, studies them and makes assertions about their
- 27. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 3 underlying structure. Color theory, probability theory, the theory of relativity and Big Bang are all examples of theories. Theories for Design and for Things “The notion of design theory may seem wooly-headed and irrelevant but it has a place: theory can provide a structure for understanding problems and help generate methods for solving them” (Doblin 1988: 6). If we accept that understanding the culture of objects presents itself as a problem to be solved, and that methods to do so are in need, developing means by which to theorize things is critical. Ken Friedman develops a framework for a general theory of design in order to shift the discipline “from a rough, ambiguous territory to an arena of reasoned inquiry” (Friedman 2003: 507). Drawing upon ideas from such disparate disciplines and sources as cybernetics, systems theory, management science, philosophy as well as dictionaries of languages and ideas, Friedman recommends the development of a grounded theory based on practice.6 In other words, design theory should emerge from empirical information gathered by observing design practice. For an examination of the cultural import of things, theories developed within the social sciences and humanities hold more promise than those utilized in the natural sciences. The nature of the problems identified in design, the character of evidence gathered by designers and critics and the types of theoretical propositions made in design research specifically regarding the social and cultural meanings of objects are well suited for examination through the lenses of critical and cultural theory. Critical theory could be described as “a rigorous critical engagement with social and philosophical issues which [is] aimed at the cross-fertilization of research methods derived from the social sciences with a Marxist theoretical framework for conceptualizing social relations” (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008: 72– 73). Since the 1980s, critical theory has been most actively used in analyzing literature but of late, it has found more application in the social examination of such diverse phenomena and entities as music, television, the city, Disneyland, technology and products. Critical theory serves as an overarching domain for several other theories (such as structuralism, post-structuralism and post-modernism), a large number of which have been developed by Marxist thinkers. Max Horkheimer, regarded as the pioneer of critical theory, also offers several suggestions about the fundamentals of theory construction. n Theory is “the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these.” n “The smaller the number of primary principles in comparison with the derivations, the more perfect the theory.” n “The real validity of the theory depends on the derived propositions being consonant with the actual facts. If experience and theory contradict each other, one of the two must be reexamined” (Horkheimer 1972: 188).
- 28. 2 4 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s As the fundamental principles of critical theory have found application outside literature it is transforming into an interdisciplinary cultural theory with roots not in one but several disciplines. Cultural theory texts cover a staggeringly wide array of topics including Marxism, semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, hermeneutics, feminism, psychoanalysis and postmodernism. Cultural theory can be defined as a literature that aims to develop a systematically ordered model of the empirical world to explain the nature of culture and its implications for social life (Smith 2001). Since the 1980s, cultural studies has emerged to take center stage as a movement and a discipline, and has gained significant ground in universities all over the world. On Things, Objects, Gadgets... The terminology used to talk about things is almost as varied as things are themselves. What are things? And how do they differ from objects, artifacts, products, devices, gadgets, goods and commodities? May these terms be used interchangeably as they all embody and express the matter of materiality? Though in common parlance they may be often employed to convey similar meanings, they may be distinguished on the basis of specific attributes and disciplinary approaches. Quick examinations and brief etymologies of some of these terms will help differentiate them from one another.7 The term “artifact,” (or artefact) often used in art and design and derived from Latin roots arte (by skill) and factum (thing made), refers to something that is a result of human labor (often artistic). In archaeology, the term “artifacts” may be used to refer to products of prehistoric or aboriginal craft to differentiate them from naturally produced ones. This may be contrasted with the term “product”, derived from Latin productum, which also refers to something produced; a product is the end result of a process. Product is a term primarily employed in design and engineering. As an artistic good, an artifact may often be produced by craft, while products, in most cases, rely on mechanized modes of manufacture. Inherent in this definition of products is the understanding that they exist in identical, multiple copies as they are manufactured in large quantities. A “device” has its etymological roots in the Old French word devis, and signifies a thing created or adapted for a specific purpose. This term makes a reference to the technology embedded within it (mechanical, electronic, etc.), which allows it to perform the particular tasks for which it is designed. “Gadgets” are small devices or tools that often possess an ingenious quality. This word is derived from sailors’ slang for mechanical parts of ships for which they lacked or forgot the name. Here too, the presence of technology is foregrounded as a defining aspect of devices. The term “goods” finds usage largely in a commercial sense, and refers to property or merchandise, things that may be bought and sold, mostly in large quantities. The “commodity” owes its linguistic roots to Middle French commodité and Latin commoditas, which mean benefit or profit, and their usage often amplifies not only their mercantile existence and economic function but their presence in Marxist analysis as well. For Borgmann, commodities are “highly reduced entities and abstract in the sense that within the overall framework of
- 29. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 5 technology they are free of local and historical ties. Thus they are sharply defined and easily measured” (1987: 81). The word “thing” has a wide range of meanings that can be traced back to the fourth century to several languages including Old English, Old High German, Old Dutch and Classic Latin. The primary meanings that relate to contemporary usage are entity, being, matter or body. “Object” is derived from Medieval Latin objectum, which means “thing put before” and it is sometimes explained in binary terms as it stands in opposition to the subject. Heidegger makes a clear distinction between ‘things’ and ‘objects’. Things, to him, are self-supporting and independent, while objects exist in opposition to subjects. The favored term in design is “product” while in political economy and Marxist analysis it is “com modity.” While commodities for Borgmann are measurable, “things engage us in so many and subtle ways that no quantification can capture them” (1987: 81). “Objects” and “things” are possibly the most non-discipline specific and semantically expansive terms, and are often used in philosophy and anthropology. Their labels do not amplify any one of their attributes, thereby facilitating multiple interpretations of equal value. “Things are objects available to our senses as discrete and distinct entities which do not count as other beings or other objects” (Dant 1999: 11). The interchangeability of usage of the terms “things” and “objects” is obvious in Dant’s definition. Confessing that things have effectively dodged an exacting definition in spite of the attention of philosophers, Attfield defines them as “objects of human production and exchange with and through which people live their everyday existence” (2000: 11). While recognizing the philosophical difference among the terms, “things” and “objects” will both be employed in this book to refer to all physical entities created by human labor that acquire cultural meanings as they circulate through the socioeconomic processes of production, distribution and consumption. Understanding Objects as a Means of Understanding Culture People employ an extraordinary quantity and diversity of material things in their daily lives to signify identity, social relations, history, ritual, power, resistance, economic standing and politics. For designers, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers and all students of culture, an understanding of how objects are theorized in multiple disciplines can aid in the development of a comprehensive and potentially holistic reading of the cultural meanings of objects. This can help designers develop a higher awareness of the role of objects as mediators of human relations, and assist cultural studies scholars understand the social and cultural impact of design activity. Through their ubiquitous presence in our material landscape, things press on us. They are present not only as visual and material elements of our environments—they also serve as the basic components of our cultural lives. Inherently polysemic,8 they are utilitarian gadgets as much as they are frivolous excesses; they play a significant role in the formation of identity, style, status, and they are material embodiments of cultural practices. Just as archaeologists read ancient cultural practices in excavated artifacts, we can understand contemporary
- 30. 2 6 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s popular material culture by analyzing and interpreting everyday things. If one traces the trajectory of designed objects through their existence, it is evident that they make incredibly complex journeys from their origins as immaterial concepts in the minds of designers, inventors and engineers to their disposal into rubbish bins or dispersal into recycling containers. As they interact with several stakeholders through this trajectory of production, distribution and consumption, they acquire and discard multiple meanings. Each one of the activities of making, circulating, using and discarding signifies a unique culture: that of design and manufacturing, of sharing and exchange, of possession and use, and of waste and abandonment. “Biographies of things can make salient what might otherwise remain obscure” (Kopytoff 1986: 67). Kopytoff suggests that asking the same questions of things (where does a thing come from, who made it, what has happened in its life so far, etc.) as one would of people, can lead to the discovery of critical cultural meanings. As Daniel Miller (eloquently) writes in his seminal essay Why Some Things Matter, such studies are a “highly effective means to enquire into the fundamental questions of what it is to be human within the diversity of culture” (1998: 20). The study of objects remains diverse in approach and “eclectic in its methods. Approaches from history, archaeology, geography, design and literature are all equally acceptable contributions” (Miller 1998: 19). This diversity adds richness to the discourse, but also means that the scholarship in the field tends to be scattered across disciplines. This situation has prohibited the development of a comprehensively coherent model for studying things grounded in a specific array of theories, methods, and approaches. However, considering the nature of the material world and culture, it is neither possible nor desirable to develop a singular model or theory of things. Instead, analytical frameworks that allow incorporation of multiple approaches representing several disciplines might offer more promise. A Very Brief History Of The Philosophy Of Things Philosophy, arguably the oldest discipline of academe, has pondered the existence of physical things—matter, substance, objects—for centuries. Questions about the nature of physical reality, the meaning of matter and its relation to the human mind have engaged and perplexed philosophers since Greek antiquity. The core topic of this book does not permit a lengthy discussion of the history of philosophy of matter and things, but a quick peek into the minds of some of the important Western philosophers will help supplement the synoptical view of things. This synopsis was complied by poring over several seminal texts but much of it is indebted to a few wonderfully lucid histories of philosophy (Durant 1961, Wedberg 1982, Shand 1993, Solomon Higgins 1996, Kenny 2006). In the Western ancient philosophical tradition, the contemplation of all things physical can be traced back to pre-Socratic philosophers Thales (625?–547? b.c.e.), Anaximander (610 ca.–545 b.c.e.) and Anaximenes (fl.ca. 540 b.c.e.)—the materialists—who shared the conviction that the world was made up of some type of basic matter. For Thales this fundamental substance was water; for Anaximander it was apeiron (loosely translated from
- 31. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 7 the Greek as basic stuff), and for Anaximenes it was air. They believed that there was a singular element of which everything was composed, and their thinking was important because it signaled a move away from mythological explanations of the universe. Following and turning away from the materialists, Pythagoras (ca. 581–ca. 507 b.c.e.) suggested that the elements of which the world was composed were not material entities but numbers and proportions. In mathematics, he found a universal truth that was not dependent on context of location or time of day. Equations and formulae were constant regardless of where they were encountered, and were therefore suitable for explaining the fundamentals of matter. For another Greek philosopher Heraclitus (ca.428–348 or 347 b.c.e.) fire was primary matter, its unsteady and dynamic state a metaphor for the constantly changing world. Parmenides (ca.535–475 b.c.e.), on the other hand, did not seek to explain materiality (and reality) through the elements (air, water, fire...). Instead, he suggested, often through convoluted and dense argumentation, that reality was ultimately unknowable and all that we saw around us was nothing more than an illusion. While these philosophers sought out single, perceivable elements to unify and connect all reality, the philosophers referred to as the pluralists constructed the world using multiple elements. Anaxagoras (ca. 500–428 b.c.e.) rejected the notion of oneness for a pluralistic position, and announced that things were composed, not of such primary matter as air or fire, but of a combination of materials. There was, for him, an innumerable list of materials such as marble and copper, skin and hair of which things were made. The notion that things could be composed of (and therefore divided into) multiple parts instead of a singular entity inspired Democritus (ca.460–ca. 370 b.c.e.) to push the concept of divisibility until he arrived at the idea of the atom—that which can no longer be split into its elements. The atom became the new primary matter of reality; it was in everything, including for Democritus, the soul. Early Greek philosophy—physical philosophy—“looked out upon the material world and asked what was the final and irreducible constituent of things” (Durant 1961: 3). Plato (ca.428–348 or 347 b.c.e.) presented a vision of cosmology composed of two ele ments: the World of Becoming, the gritty, impermanent reality we know and see around us, and the World of Being, a perfect, unchanging world of ideal forms. In Republic, Plato explains this duality using the metaphor of shadows; the World of Becoming—the shadow— is a real but flitting representation of the real reality, the World of Being. Aristotle, Plato’s pupil and regarded as the philosopher’s philosopher, collapsed this duality by disputing Plato’s vision of one ideal, unchanging form for many discrete and changing objects. For Aristotle, only individual things existed. “There is no superreality, no world of forms insisted Aristotle, but only the individual things in the world” (Solomon and Higgins 1996: 59). These, to Aristotle, were substances, each with a set of essential and non-essential properties. The essential properties of things defined their unchanging essence. And, the non-essential properties could and would change without altering their essence. Essential properties gave things their permanence, while non-essential properties gave them their individuality.
- 32. 2 8 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s Things also had purpose or function that served as guiding principles. Substance gave things presence, while function gave them their means of change and growth. In the history of Western philosophy, Bertrand Russell refers to the time between 400 and 1400 as the age of Catholic philosophy. Roughly coinciding with the Middle Ages (from the fourth through the sixteenth century, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance) this was a time when the Church exercised a greater influence on the minds of philosophers. However, this started changing with the emerging significance of science, leading to the era now referred to as the age of modern philosophy (between the seven teenth and twentieth centuries). Frenchman René Descartes (1596–1650), considered one of the rationalist philosophers and a founder of modern philosophy, sought an objective explanation of reality which is not dependant on human senses. Mathematical concepts, he believed, were sense-independent, and they could be employed in formulating an explana tion of the material world. For Descartes, mathematics could be trusted where the senses were deceptive. For instance, a white object may appear pink if viewed in red light, just as a spoon may appear distorted if seen in a glass half-filled with water. He believed that all essential properties of matter were derived from geometry. For Descartes, the properties of extension, motion and shape represented those dimensions of matter that were essential to its existence. (Extension referred to anything that had length, breadth and depth.) These properties could not be separated from things and therefore were critical to our perception of their presence. “There are three substances according to Descartes: matter, whose essential property is extension; mind, whose essential property is thought; and God, whose essential properties are perfection, omnipotence, benevolence, infiniteness, and existence” (Shand 1993: 82). Soul and body, mind and matter were separate entities and our intellect, not our senses, perceived their essential properties. For Descartes, the external world could only be known through the mind. In fact, he suggested that human existence itself could be justified in its thinking, a notion that that led to his now legendary dictum Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Descartes was truly influential in shifting “the locus of scientific enquiry from things themselves to the ideas we have of them” (Moyal 1991: 2). Benedict(Baruch)deSpinoza(1632–1677)acceptedDescartes’notionofthefundamental separation between things and ideas, and suggested a one-to-one relationship between them called the theory of parallelism. The mental process corresponds to the material process. However, Spinoza also believed that everything was made of one substance: God or the totality of nature. All things, therefore, were different forms of this one substance and he referred to them as modes. Substance could not be divided into parts; it was self-caused and self-explanatory. Descartes’ mind (thought) and matter (extension) for Spinoza were only attributes of the same substance, two sides of the same coin. John Locke (1632–1704), referred to as an empiricist philosopher, rejected Descartes’ re liance on reason and methodical doubt as a means of understanding the world and instead suggested that knowledge was derived from experience through our senses. He assumed the mind to be a tabula rasa, a blank slate on which our experiences of the world are written.
- 33. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 2 9 Therefore our perception of things was entirely dependent on how we experienced their “sensible” properties. Locke attributed some of these properties to the things themselves (such as mass) and some (such as color) to us. This, however, was an unresolved explanation by Locke’s own hypothesis. If all we know is what our senses gather through experience, where properties of things lie has little consequence to their existence. If all matter is purely sensation, it exists only as a form of mind. German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) took Spinoza’s doctrine of substance in a wholly new direction with his theory of monadology. He created a new vision for a material world that was composed of monads, which were invisible but omnipresent spiritual entities (not physical atoms). Substance, the ultimate, unchanging and indivisible constituent of reality, was composed of monads. Leibniz believed that the diverse and continually changing world around us can only be explained and understood by something constant. “Things appear to change in the world; the explanation of these changes comes to an end at something that remains the same, otherwise the explanation would go on forever” (Shand 1993: 105). Monads were not atoms and they had no quant itative dimensions (length, mass, weight). The world that we perceived was secondary and derived from an infinity of monads. Created by god, monads were self-contained, self- explanatory and utterly independent, and therefore there was no interaction among them. Leibniz tackled the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter by proposing the principle of pre-determined harmony. By his explanation, the physical world and the mental world were structured a priori to be in harmony in spite of being independent of each other. Leibnitz’s metaphysics (evidenced in monads and pre-determined harmonies) displayed a certain level of mysticism that traced all explanation (such as monads and harmony) back to the idea of a perfect god. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), in developing his vision of knowledge, was successful in drawing from both, rationalists like Descartes as well as empiricists like Locke. He rejected Locke’s hypothesis that our knowledge of the world was limited to what our senses gathered. “Though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience” (Kant 1902: 43). He suggested that some of our concepts are not derived empirically by experiencing the world but are “independent of experience... Knowledge of this kind is called a priori” (Kant 1902: 43). This form of knowing transcended our sensations. For Kant, our knowledge of the thing in the world involved a series of processes that engaged sensations and perceptions, collected by experience and structured by a priori concepts. The sensation of a thing—say, a chair, for example—starts with sensory stimuli. We see its color, feel the pressure of the material against our skin and we might hear it creak as we settle into it. These sensations, however, do not constitute our perception of the complete chair as it exists in its context, unless they are organized and grouped in our mind. It is here that a priori knowledge of space and time step in. These perceptions are categorized by the mind (and coordinated) to become knowledge. “Just as perceptions arrange sensations around objects in space and time, so conceptions arrange perceptions (objects and events)
- 34. 3 0 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s about the ideas of cause, unity, reciprocal relations, necessity, contingency, etc.; these and other “categories” are the structure into which perceptions are received, and by which they are classified and moulded into the ordered concepts of thought. These are the very essence and character of the mind; mind is the coordination of experience” (Durant 1961: 270–1). These categories organize our experiences into what we understand as objects. Kant also made a distinction between the noumenal world (that which exists beyond our experience, the thing-in-itself) and the phenomenal world (the one that we are able to experience) and in doing so clearly established the limits of our knowledge. The object as it appears to us is a phenomenon, an appearance, perhaps very different from the external object before it came into the ken of our senses; what that original object was we can never know; the “thing-in-itself” may be an object of thought or inference (a “noumenon”), but it cannot be experienced-for in being experienced it would be changed by its passage through sense and thought. (Durant 1961: 272). German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) faulted Kant for set ting up a dichotomy between what we see and what exists behind it, between appearance and essence, between the phenomenon and noumenon, between the subject and the object. For him, the notion of a dialectical logic created a unity between the two artificial entities. He suggested that there was nothing beyond appearances that needs to be revealed. “[Hegel] maintains, rather, that if it is claimed that reality is unknown to us, that there are unknowable things-in-themselves, then this can only be because there is no more to things- in-themselves than is contained in the statement that they exist, that there is, as it were, no more to the iceberg than its tip” (Inwood 1983: 120). To Hegel, the knowledge that we possess of things is in fact knowledge of their properties such as their color, taste, or weight. Our knowledge is of a thing with properties; we never know the bearer of those properties. “He points out that the thing-in-itself in this sense is unknowable simply because there is nothing to be known. Whatever knowledge we have about a lump of sugar [for example] counts as knowledge of its properties and not of it, the bearer of those properties” (Inwood 1983: 121). These properties are determined by the relationships a thing has with other things. To Hegel, our process of knowing could not be separate from absolute reality, but needed to be a part of it. The separation of knowing from the absolute was unjustifiable and incoherent. Hegel’s dialectic is often explained as a triadic relationship among thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Though he did not expressly use these terms himself, he believed that things and ideas have their opposites inherent in them. “The living die, simply because as living they bear in themselves the germ of death” (Hegel 2009). In a sense, the notion of planned obsolescence refers to that very idea, when the total life and ultimate death of products are designed into their form, technology and use. These two states of things and their inner contradictions can be compared to thesis and antithesis. To Hegel, the dialectical moment represents a form of unification of the opposites, a condition that may be referred to as synthesis.
- 35. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 1 ViennesephilosopherLudwigWittgenstein(1889–1951)inTractatusLogico-Philosophicus presented the world as “the totality of facts not of things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 29). He further explained facts as states of affairs, which, in turn were combinations of objects. “Just as we cannot think of spatial objects apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connection with other things” (Wittgenstein 1998: 30). To Wittgenstein, objects linked together as if on a chain, creating a state of affairs, and reality was essentially all possible states of affairs. It was the properties of objects that determined the relation among them; in other words, objects were inseparable from context. Wittgenstein suggested that objects had internal and external properties; the internal properties determined how they combined with other objects and the external properties situated them within specific states of affairs. It is in the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) that we find the most extensive discussion of things. In his essay The Thing (1971), Heidegger uses the example of a jug as the means to explain what a thing is and how it differentiates itself from an object. While the thing is an independent, self-supporting entity, an object exists as something against us, something that “stands forth” opposite to the subject. He describes the jug through its principal attributes—it is a vessel for “holding” wine, it appears out of the potter’s “making,” it facilities “outpouring” wine as gift, etc. Heidegger uses the term “presencing” to denote these properties of the jug. In the poured gift, the jug “presences” as jug (Heidegger 1971: 173). Heidegger traces the etymology of the word “thing” and its German form Ding to one of its more ancient meanings—assembly or gathering. “A jug ‘things’ insofar as it holds the ‘gift’ of wine, and thereby gathers the sky’s water, the earth’s grape, humanity’s production of wine, and the presence of gods when wine is used in religious ceremonies (libation)” (Economides 2007). Heidegger referred to these four—earth, sky, divinity and mortals—as the fourfold within which the thing stays united; it is here that “the thing things” or presences (Heidegger 1971: 181). Heidegger also explains a category of things he calls useful things. These are things that allow us to perform tasks such as writing, reading, driving, etc.; they are tools. His famous analysis of tools suggests that these things are invisible to us as long as they function in a manner that we expect them to; however, it is when they are unusable that they spring into our consciousness. Using these objects reveals their particular “handiness,” a quality that is dormant until the thing is picked up and put to task. “What is peculiar to what is initially at hand is that it withdraws, so to speak, in its character of handiness in order to be really handy” (Heidegger 1996: 65). Tools exist in two states: ready-to-hand when they are in this withdrawn state but ready to be used, and present- at-hand when they are conspicuous. These withdrawn things can be compared to Braun designer Dieter Rams’ conceptions of products as “silent butlers” available to serve when needed and quick to fade into the background when not in use. While Heidegger’s things withdraw in a phenomenological sense, Rams’ things do so in a direct physical way “[as] silent butlers: invisible and subservient, and there simply to make living easier and more comfortable. They were to be as self-effacing as possible...” (Sparke 1998: 184). However,
- 36. 3 2 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s these disappearing acts of things come to a halt when they break down. “When we discover its unusability, the thing becomes conspicuous” (Heidegger 1996: 68). In fact, Heidegger finds these things not only conspicuous but obtrusive and obstinate. Useful things are those which we use and take care of without paying “specific attention” to; unusable things are those we keep “bumping into,” obstinate things that refuse to work for us. Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), author of Logical Investigations often credited as being the inventor of phenomenology, was interested in analyzing the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. One of the key ideas presented in phenomenology is that of intentionality or directedness. All consciousness is consciousness of something, and our experiences are directed towards things through images, ideas, concepts, etc. Husserl referred to the consciousness of objects as the intentional object. He rejected the subjective notion that things can never be known to us because of the limitations of our perceptions. Instead, “phenomenologists claimed that both the traditional concepts of subject and of object were philosophical constructs which in fact distorted the true nature of human experience of the world” (Moran 2000: 13). Therefore, phenomenology focuses on how objects appear to us in our consciousness through experience. Husserl introduced the notion of Lebenswelt or life-world, as a world of objects, people and relationships that subjects can experience collectively. It is in this life-world that experiences unfold; it serves as an ever-changing backdrop where things become meaningful to people. Contemporary philosopher Graham Harman has developed Heidegger’s tool analysis in an exciting new direction he calls object-oriented philosophy. Harman highlights two critical concepts from Heidegger’s analysis of tools—invisibility and totality. Ready-to-hand things are invisible; they disappear into a world Harman calls subterranean (2002). This invisibility is not merely a lack of human awareness of the presence of the object; it refers to a “kingdom,” a conceptual condition where the function of the tool withdraws. The second concept, that of totality refers to the fact that nothing (no thing) exists in isolation from other things. All things are inseparable components of a larger network. “The totality of equipment means that each tool occupies a thoroughly specific position in the system of forces that makes up the world” (Harman 2002: 23). It is important to note that Harman constructs a much more expansive meaning for the word “tool” than is held in common perception; he refers not only to hammers, chain saws and knives, but all things of this world, natural and artificial. “The world of tools is an invisible realm from which the visible structure of the universe emerges” (Harman 2002: 24). For Harman, Heidegger’s unusable products—things that suddenly appear in the visible realm when they stop working—are broken tools. This dualism between tool and broken tool constitutes one of the foundations of his object-oriented philosophy. “Before any object is present-at-hand, it is ready-to-hand: sincerely engaged in executing itself, inaugurating a reality in which its characteristic style is unleashed. The tool-being of the object lives as if beneath the manifest presence of the object” (Harman 2002: 220). Harman offers an entirely new perspective on the tool/broken tool dualism by suggesting that the two are not
- 37. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 3 sides of the same coin, but are different entities altogether. The tool-being is a relational system that includes the thing and the human being using it. “Not only does tool-being withdraw from all relation; it itself turns out to be a relational system (Harman 2002: 267). In developing this object-oriented philosophy, he advocates a restoration of the primacy of things, not necessarily as parts of wholes or contexts, but as individual items. A new theory of objects should “retrieve the integrity and isolation of discrete substances without positing them as a limited set of privileged discrete units” (Harman 2002: 276). While this may seem contradictory, Harman suggests that all entities are simultaneously relational and isolated. In fact, for him, relations themselves are entities. This is the fundamental duality of the world (not the duality of noumenon and phenomenon). All things are forms of a composite reality—a reality that includes tool and broken tool. While in Tool-Being (2002) Harman lays out a proposition that objects exist in independ ence and isolation, in Guerilla Metaphysics (2005), the sequel, he offers the other half of this object-oriented philosophy by showing how objects relate to one another. Things exist in a private world where they live their individual lives, and they also participate in a public world in which they rub shoulders with all other things. Harman rejects the notion of universal building blocks or elements of which these objects are mere sums; objects are much more. The relations in which all objects engage are structured around qualities and occur in a medium. “A medium is any space in which two objects interact, whether the human mind is one of these objects or not” (Harman 2005: 91). This medium facilitates relations among objects, and this is where worldly events unfold. Bruno Latour, French sociologist and eminent scholar in science and technology studies, suggests that things be considered not merely as matters of fact, but also as matters of concern: For too long, objects have been wrongly portrayed as matters-of-fact. This is unfair to them, unfair to science, unfair to objectivity, unfair to experience. They are much more interesting, variegated, uncertain, complicated, far reaching, heterogeneous, risky, historical, local, material and networky than the pathetic version offered for too long by philosophers. Rocks are not simply there to be kicked at, desks to be thumped at. (Latour 2005: 21) He urges us to consider objects critically “with the tools of anthropology, philosophy, metaphysics, history, sociology to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence” (Latour 2004: 246). Latour picks up Heidegger’s use of the word “gathering” and suggests that it might be a promising direction to explore matters of concern. “A thing is, in one sense, an object out there and, in another sense, an issue very much in here, at any rate, a gathering” (Latour 2004: 233). A thing, when imagined as a gathering, reveals all that it can hold within it; it foregrounds all the connections and relations that it exists because of and within. Latour also extends Heidegger’s fourfold (earth, sky, divinity and mortals) within which things are united to “thousands of folds.” In other
- 38. 3 4 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s words, Latour seems to suggest that while objects do exist as individuals, they gather their meanings from the large network in which they exist. These ideas are central to his actor- network theory (ANT). Objects are what they are because of the relationships in which they exist. They exist in large dynamic networks of people, other objects, institutions, events, etc., and should be treated as having equal weight and interest as everything else in the network. According to ANT, objects are not seen as types of substance with varying properties; neither are they seen as representations of other, unknowable realities. Actor network theory pioneer Law suggests that there is an inherent dynamic tension between the centered actor and the distributed network that is critical to the way ANT works (Law 2003). When all the actors within a network are aligned to a certain goal, there is stability in the network. Actor network theory scholars prefer to use the term actant rather than actor and they mean it to refer to all things human and non-human, material and ephemeral, large and small. Urban transportation, for example, involves such actants as trains, buses, cars, highways, departments of transportation, advertising, federal funding, transportation policy, com muters, electricity, gasoline, pollution, specific bodies of transportation knowledge, univers ity research, and so on. All these actants exist within a large strong network, and they derive their form and their properties from their specific locations in this network. A network is formed through multiple processes of translation (Callon 1986), where actants set agendas, establish connections with other actants, define roles and mobilize actions. These networks are dynamic, in a continuous state of evolution (and often dissolution) and therefore constantly in need of maintenance. Actor network theory has received significant attention in science and technology studies and has found application in a large number of disciplines. Verbeek, another contemporary philosopher, who has turned his attention to things, like Harman, also asks for a philosophy of artifacts that is different from a philosophy of tech nology. He suggests that the philosophy of technology has itself ignored artifacts. Verbeek objects to the classical view of technology as a dominating power that can bring nothing but alienation and mass rule. Technology should not be considered in terms of possibilities, he says, but “in terms of its concrete presence and reality in human experience and practices” (Verbeek 2005: 9). Verbeek’s philosophy of artifacts is grounded in the notion of mediation. Things mediate relations between people, between people and technology and between people and the world. “Artifacts can only be understood in terms of the relation that human beings have to them” (Verbeek 2005: 117). It is the process of mediation by which technological artifacts enter our lives, shape our experiences and make reality present to us. Verbeek points out that this mediation is ambivalent, as it can in some cases strengthen the presence of reality but can also weaken it. One of the few philosophers to extend his work explicitly and directly to the profession of industrial design, Verbeek attaches two moral dimensions to design activity. “First, designed products play a mediated role in the moral considerations of people, and second, the design process can involve moral choices with reference to this mediating role” (Verbeek 2005: 217). People make choices with their
- 39. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 5 products; they use them in certain ways and these actions often have moral dimensions. They may save someone’s life (using a defibrillator), damage the environment (using a polluting car), hurt animals (using a gun) or nurture a child (using a stroller). Therefore, in the process of design, as Verbeek’s second moral dimension notes, designers themselves have to make choices about the kinds of actions the artifacts will allow and encourage or prevent and forbid. Designers have to anticipate the potential mediating roles that artifacts will play and use those in shaping their own design choices. This philosophical discussion of things from Thales to Verbeek demonstrates that a few key concerns continue to re-emerge throughout the history of this topic. The nature of substance and the primary constituent of matter is one such concern. Philosophers have wondered what things are actually made of (whether fire, water, the atom, a monad or strings). Another concern is the obsession with duality (between matter and mind, object and subject, noumenon and phenomenon, World of Becoming and World of Being, ready- to-hand and present-at-hand, tool and broken tool, and so on). And finally, the third concern deals with the human-object relation. The question is whether things exist only in the minds of people or whether they exist with people in a complex network. For this study, things will be treated as inseparable from the networks to which they belong. Disciplining Things Each academic tradition examines specific aspects of the existence of things and therefore the key concerns and methods used by scholars in the disciplines vary as well. However, scholars do share some theories and methods (such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, etc.) regardless of their designated academic departments. The following pages offer brief overviews of a few disciplines engaged in object studies. Each discipline adopts its own ideological position(s), uses specific methods and seeks specific kinds of results. Topical boundaries among these disciplines are permeable and elastic—the same texts and scholars are often cross-referenced, modes of criticism (such as Marxist, rhetorical or semiotic analysis) are often shared, and so are emphases and viewpoints (consumption rather than production). The similarities and differences can be attributed to disciplinary traditions and the increasing interest in multidisciplinary work. Anthropology According to the Royal Anthropological Institute, “anthropology concerns itself with humans as complex social beings with a capacity for language, thought and culture” and its study “is about understanding biological and cultural aspects of life among peoples throughout the world.”9 In the U.S., anthropology is often divided into four subfields— biological or physical anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology and archaeology. While biological/physical anthropology focuses its attention on such biological issues as evolution, genetics, primatology, etc., linguistic anthropology examines the social and cultural meanings of language in human communication. The other two branches of
- 40. 3 6 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s anthropology, archaeology and socio-cultural anthropology are the most directly involved in the interpretation of artifacts and cultures. Archaeology may be defined as the study of human cultures and the natural, social, ideological, economic, and political environments in which they operated in the recent and distant past. Socio-cultural anthropology, on the other hand, concerns itself with in-depth examinations of the culture and social systems of people, and the human capacities that enable them. Socio-cultural anthropologists are interested in matters of everyday life and they conduct ethnographic studies to understand common rituals, gender relationships, family structures, mythologies, religion, etc. of societies.10 Although traditionally associated with cultures and objects of ancient civilizations, many socio-cultural anthropologists have turned their attention in recent years to the study of consumption and the social meanings of mass-produced, everyday objects. Exploratory and inductive in nature, socio-cultural anthropology possesses the conceptual flexibility to Figure 1.2. Disciplinary Concerns, Methods and Case Studies. Illustration by Amethyst Saludo.
- 41. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 7 study complex situations involving people, the environment and cultures in dynamic and constantly evolving societies. According to Berger, “the task of the anthropological analyst of material culture is to see the role that various objects play in the most important myths and rituals of specific cultures and subcultures and the manner in which all of these relate to dominant values and beliefs” (1992: 47). By viewing objects as cultural data, socio-cultural anthropologists are better able to comprehend their meanings. They gather information over reasonably long periods of time using ethnographic research methods such as field observation and key informant interviewing. Archaeology may be defined as the scientific study of ancient cultures (typically preliterate) through the scrutiny of the artifacts left behind. In general, archaeologists use methodologies such as excavating, sampling, aerial photography, chemical and visual analysis, nuclear dating, etc. in order to understand the artifacts of their scrutiny. For example, if found at an archaeological site, artifacts made of stone (lithics) can reveal invaluable information about how past cultures managed their natural resources. Other artifacts such as projectile points used in spears can be analyzed to understand the hunting habits and skill levels of toolmakers, and chronologically date the civilizations. Therefore, pottery, jewelry, baskets, or their broken bits, become repositories of the practices of entire civilizations. Using a wide array of research methods, contemporary anthropologists have undertaken the examination of a dynamically growing variety of artifacts including interiors of barber shops, magazines, food, military vehicles, chairs, toys, etc. Cultural Studies Cultural studies is inherently multidisciplinary; it absorbs methodologies from various disciplines and in its analysis situates a wide range of cultural products within social issues such as race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. The following quotation aptly reflects the complexity of this approach: While the term cultural studies may be used broadly, to refer to all aspects of the study of culture, and as such may be taken to encompass the diverse ways in which culture is understood and analyzed, for example, in sociology, history, ethnography and literary criticism, and even sociobiology, it may also, more precisely, be taken to refer to a distinctive field of academic enquiry. (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008: 81) Recognition of the politics of power is central to cultural studies discourse, and its critique is often inspired by Marxism, feminism, structuralism, post-colonial studies, queer theory, etc. Apart from the investigation of products, scholars in this field have also critiqued music, sports, pornography, technology, advertising, and many other forms of cultural production. Cultural studies scholars often derive their ideologies and interpretive tools from cult ural theory and examine contemporary issues of power, identity, history, gender, etc. in various forms of cultural production and cultural consumption (Cavallaro 2001). Critical theory “traverses and undermines boundaries between competing disciplines, and stresses
- 42. 3 8 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s interconnections between philosophy, economics and politics, and culture and society...” (Kellner 1989a: 7). Indeed, it is the very existence of the complexity and multiplicity of meanings of things that necessitates the kind of multidisciplinary approach central to cultural studies. A good example of the cultural studies approach in the analysis of technological objects is a study of the Walkman introduced by Sony Corporation in 1979. In performing its “cultural study,” du Gay et al. refer to it as “a typical cultural artefact and medium of modern culture” (1997: 2). They suggest that “through studying its ‘story’ or ‘biography’ one can learn a great deal about the ways in which culture works in late-modern societies such as our own” (du Gay et al. 1997: 2). The authors narrate the story of the Walkman through five cultural processes: its production (cultural and technological), consumption (meaning-making by consumers), representation (in verbal and visual language), identity (of the corporation, people and the product), and regulation (institutional control of the use of objects). Michael Bull furthers the cultural study of the Walkman by providing an account that “draws Critical Theory together with a more ethnographic approach tied to an empirically Figure 1.3. Circuit of Culture. Adapted from Du Gay et al. (1997), illustration by Amethyst Saludo.
- 43. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 3 9 orientated phenomenological methodology” (2000: 10). By studying the social practices associated with the Walkman, he is able to explain how people use products to manage everyday life. Both studies situate the object within structures of society and draw from theories that contend with everyday life, urban environments, technology and consumption. These cultural studies analyses demonstrate that the Walkman has multiple meanings generated through design, advertising, use and regulation. It also shows how the product serves as an identity marker, especially for youth. Several other cultural theorists have examined the role of objects in society using spec ific case studies. In his work with subcultural groups in postwar Britain, Dick Hebdige (1988) provides an in-depth analysis of the Mods and their fascination with the Italian motor scooters—the Vespas, manufactured by Piaggio. Raymond Williams has written a sociological critique of television, which includes its social history, its role as technology and as cultural form, and its dependence on institutions of public service (such as the government) and those of commerce (media corporations). Williams’ (1975) analysis reveals that television was successful in its early days because its cultural form suited prevalent models of private consumption while its physical form was designed like furniture and therefore fit the domestic environment. In general, these and other cultural studies of things heavily emphasize the importance of considering the meanings of objects within the social processes of consumption and production. Material Culture Studies Born out of anthropology, material culture studies is recognized today as the one field of study that is wholly engaged with materiality and its significance in the social world. Scholars in this area have established that though objects were largely ignored by the social sciences in the past as inconsequential to the concept of culture, they are now recognized as integral components of the culture of everyday life. In fact, all that was material was often regarded to exist in opposition to all that was cultural; matter was seen as subservient to mind; the thing trivial in relation to thought. Material culture studies has played a significant role in changing this view; objects are now deemed worthy of study and it is generally accepted that their examination can help us understand the significance of materiality in human life. “This field of study centres on the idea that materiality is an integral dimension of culture, and that there are dimensions of social existence that cannot be fully understood without it” (Tilley et al. 2006: 1). Tilley et al. (2006) refer to this field of study as eclectic and uncharted and undisciplined; and in this sense, they view it as a manifestation of the culture of postmodernity involving plurality and ambiguity. In the seminal, introductory chapter to The Social Life of Things, Appadurai suggests that we should “approach commodities as things in a certain situation, a situation that can characterize many different kinds of thing, at different points in their social lives” (1988: 13). He argues, as do cultural studies scholars, that one should take into account all the stages of the object’s journey through its life: production, distribution, and consumption.
- 44. 4 0 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s Historically, scholars in the Marxist tradition have focused primarily on forces of production, describing them as instrumental in coercing people to consume. This treatment of people as dupes operating under corporate manipulation has been losing ground in more recent work, such as Miller’s Material Culture and Mass Consumption (1994), in which he develops the idea of consumption as a positive force in the development of identity. It is also suggested through these and other more recent texts that our culture is progressively becoming a more material one, and the study of consumption is particularly necessary to adjust the imbalance caused by the historical emphasis on production. These approaches do not view objects as signifiers of the alienation caused by modern life, but as markers of the processes by which we understand society and ourselves. As the examination of all things material—indeed all of materiality—falls within the general purview of material culture studies, its analytical reach has included a staggering variety of objects. Scholars have examined architecture, landscapes, cities, food, clothing, cars, scooters, signage, furniture, art and technology in a variety of cultural contexts, in contemporary and past societies. And as the field grows, its repertoire of material entities expands exponentially. In this analysis, scholars employ theoretical models (often from cultural theory) as well as ethnography (often field observations and interviews). The automobile, aptly referred to as the “machine that changed the world” (Womack, Jones and Roos 1990) is the object for study in Daniel Miller’s edited volume Car Cultures (2001). Miller and other authors follow the journey of the automobile in societies all over the world and demonstrate its role as an agent of oppression and class differentiation, a signifier of urbanism, a refuge, artistic production, and so on. The essays are a testimony to the multiple meanings of the car as a culturally embedded object in society. Another example of the study of material culture is seen in Attfield’s Wild Things (2000), in which she uses furniture as a case to examine concepts of tradition, Modernism and design. Her analysis reveals that original antique chairs are perceived to be more valuable than reproductions and fakes because they objectify the notion of authenticity. Other instances of material culture studies include the critical examination of such electronic goods as the iPod, fashion items such as blue jeans/denim, entertainment venues such as Disneyland and food items such as Coca-Cola. Material culture remains eclectic in approach, and embraces various combinations of philosophical analysis, critical theory as well as ethnography. Science and Technology Studies (STS) An emerging group of scholars interested in the origins, nature and social significance of science and technology has suggested that technology shapes society as much as it is shaped by it. One of their goals is to upend the popular notion of technology as the sole driver of progress in society and replace with a socially informed reading which suggests that “what matters is not technology itself but the social or economic system in which it is embedded” (Winner 1980: 122). Science and technology studies insists that technology is not an independent force driving societal change, but one of several factors (cultural, economic,
- 45. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 4 1 political)thatleadstochange.Inotherwords,theyurgeustoavoidtechnologicaldeterminism and consider the social construction of technology (SCOT). “The technological, instead of being a sphere separate from society, is part of what makes society possible- in other words, it is constitutive of society” (Mackenzie and Wajcman 1999: 23). The study of science and technology has also engaged with feminism to show that gender identities should be taken into account for a full understanding of the social aspects of technology. In her analysis, Cockburn (1985) points out that women have been distanced from science and technology on account of male dominance not only in society in general but in the working trades as well. These perspectives have led to the development of a more holistic understanding of domestic technologies and products such as ovens, microwaves, refrigerators and shavers.11 Researchers often conduct extensive observations and use surveys, interviews and questionnaires in the homes of people to comprehend fully the relationship between the domestic and the technological. The actor-network theory (ANT) developed by Callon, Latour and Law emerged from STS, and in its examination of technology, it considers the material and non-material world as a network inhabited by human and non-human agents. Law suggests that “society, organisations, agents and machines are all effects generated in patterned networks of diverse (not simply human) materials” (Law 2003). ANT, therefore, may be described as a sociology of interactive effects. Objects and people together shape the interactions in any given situation. While ANT emerged from a social study of technology, its model can be fruitfully used in the examination of all phenomena of the world. Not unlike material culture studies, STS literature includes a diverse range of objects from pencils to nuclear missiles, analyzed from the perspective of social construction of technology. The high-wheeled bicycle from the 1870s (Bijker 1995), Edison’s electric light (Hughes 1999), open-hearth stoves and microwaves (Schwartz-Cowan 1983) are some products featured in this discourse. Cipolla’s discussion of the significance of armed, ocean- worthy sailing ships in the development of the European empire, as well as Mackenzie’s discussion of nuclear missile guidance systems are examples that document STS’s concerns regarding the relationship between military technology, politics and the shaping of empires. This field of study highlights the fact that technological determinism can lead to an incomplete recognition of the forces that shape human civilizations. Multidisciplinary approaches to the analysis of things can reveal a variety of meanings as is evidenced in the example of Apple’s iPhone. An anthropological analysis can expose the process of mythification of Apple and its products; a cultural studies analysis can explain how issues of style influence processes of consumption; and an analysis inspired by principles of STS can better explain the role of gender in iPhone design and use. The Problems and Benefits of Theorizing Things It is clear that in order to develop an understanding of the cultural meanings of things, it is imperative to create a discourse around them by drawing upon the theoretical developments in a variety of disciplines. It is through theoretical analysis that the Gordian task of mapping
- 46. 4 2 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s the intersection between the world of things and the world of people can be undertaken. But, the process of theorizing things is confronted with a series of challenges. The enormous quantity and staggering variety of objects represents the first challenge. Can theoretical construction be expansive enough to be applicable to such magnitude? Second, is it possible to chart all possible meanings and interpretations of objects? And third, does this form of theorization amount to a form of fetishism? The material world presents a prodigious diversity of things, which includes everything from toothpicks to computers. If, in the process of theorizing, this diversity is categorized into product types such as chairs, computers, mp3 players, etc., it is equally important that the specific products contained within each of the categories such as Herman Miller’s Aeron Figure 1.4. Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Cultural Analysis of Apple’s iPhone. Illustration by Amethyst Saludo.
- 47. t h eo r i z i n g t h i n g s 4 3 Chair, the Sony Vaio, the 80 GB iPod, etc. are accommodated as well. As Miller suggests, “the generality of materiality, that is any attempt to construct general theories of the material quality of artefacts, commodities, aesthetic forms and so forth, must be complemented by another strategy that looks to the specificity of material domains and the way form itself is employed to become the fabric of cultural worlds” (1994: 6). On one hand, theory must be able to explain the meanings of all bottle openers (the category that represents diversity) as well as the Alessi Diabolix (a specific example). Though the iPod from Apple can be situated within the category of all mp3 players, it also stands apart as a significant, iconic product with unique meanings outside the general category. Any theoretical explanation should be able to highlight the meanings that parallel all similar products as well as those that differentiate it from the rest. In constructing a discourse of objects it is also important to ensure that it accommodates their polysemic nature—that it accounts for all their possible meanings. Meanings of objects are context dependent and they change with changes in spatio-temporal location, frame of reference, cultural environment, etc. To be effective, theorization should address all attributes of things that influence their existence and meaning in relation to people, other things and the environment. These attributes may be corporeal, ephemeral, economic, social, technological, cultural or political. Material culture scholars warn of the theorization of objects as a form of fetishism. Fetishism has several meanings, one of which describes it as a process in which people attribute human qualities to objects and develop obsessive attachments to them. Can the study of materiality itself be a form of fetishism? Are we, through this process of analysis and theorization truly able to understand our culture and ourselves more clearly, or are we ultimately converting objects into fetishes? “The blatant contemplation of the material presence of things, with no alibi that transfers the object into cultural identity or social relation, runs the serious risk of being accused of fetishism” (Attfield 2000: 34). According to Marx, fetishism turns commodities into strange things, and leads to a situation where “things are personified and persons objectified” (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008: 56). Subjecting things simply to the gaze, or reducing them so they may be read as text, art or sign, and not as cultural forms may amount to fetishism. Any study of material culture, therefore should recognize objects as socially and culturally embedded. Newer consumption-based approaches treat objects as integral elements of cultural life and emphasize that their values surpass mere use and exchange. This perspective validates the study of consumption and the theorization of objects as a necessary interpretive activity aimed towards creating a more holistic understanding of people, society and culture. The response to under-theorization cannot be a singular, comprehensive, reductive theory. It has to be an interdisciplinary endeavor that locates things within a larger social critique and expands the discourse of design. Despite the impediments that may face this task, it is a worthy exercise with several benefits to design. Locating objects within theory can not only advance design’s understanding of the material world but it can galvanize its self-reflexivity.
- 48. 4 4 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s Should industrial designers inform their practice with a critical knowledge of things and initiate their creative efforts by questioning social and cultural meanings of objects, processes of their production, their risk of becoming fetishes, etc., they may recognize more clearly the impact of their design actions. This knowledge may be used in the conceptualization of a new product to steer the design or after its launch to study its actual impact. Its application also extends toward the redesign of products that may be due for a new version, or for those that may have failed after introduction. The theoretical construction of things can perform an invaluable pedagogical function. As students learn about the design process in undergraduate industrial design programs, theoretical approaches can provide them with a vantage point from which to understand the social and cultural role of objects in society. In a highly studio-based educational environment, the introduction of critical concepts from cultural theory can cast objects in a new light, and serve the function of encouraging students to reflect on the societal significance of the built environment. Just as the process of theorizing things needs to draw from several disciplines, its benefits can extend across disciplines as well. Media and cultural studies can supplement their analyses of the production of media forms with knowledge of design processes. Anthropology and material culture, in their study of everyday life and culture, can gain a better understanding of the role played by design and designed goods in processes of fetishization, exchange and consumption. Theories of things generated within design studies can complement and build upon those in science and technology studies such as ANT and social construction of technology (SCOT), further advancing the increasing engagement between STS and design. The growing literature in design, evidenced by the increasing number of journals and critical texts, signifies a maturing of the discipline. Scholarly en deavors directed toward the theoretical interpretation of material things can only advance this process. The several benefits listed of theorizing things will contribute to the richness, robustness, diversity and growth of the field of design studies.
- 49. 2 Valued Possessions: TheWorth of Things Value does not designate that which is desired, but that which is desirable... Ludwig Grünberg, Mystery of Values A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it... Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B Back Again) We believe customers just don’t buy a product; they buy value in the form of entertainment, experience and self-identity. Hartmut Esslinger, Frog: Form Follows Emotion Thinking about the value of our material possessions instantly raises a series of complicated questions. What is the true worth of the things that surround us and fill up our spaces as well as our lives? Do we really value everything we buy and own? How do we develop value judgments? Clearly, we have come to depend upon large numbers of products for almost all of our routine work and leisure tasks. We need things to extend our physical and mental capabilities; we use them to express our personal as well as group identities and we are utterly lost without their constant presence. Can the value of things therefore be measured in terms of the level of our reliance on them; can it be measured in terms of how their absence incapacitates us; or can it be treated as a measure of how tightly we wrap our identities with them? Is value designed into objects as an intrinsic property through processes of production, is it what advertising tell us it is, or is it something we construct actively as we consume? In other words, is value a quality of the object or of the subject? And, how long do these values endure? The statistics of daily waste generation in the Western world sadly suggest that we often discard things with as much ease as we acquire them, and if that is the case, how much do we really value our goods? Such questions are fundamental to understanding the value of things. In this chapter, value will first be introduced as a fluid aggregate relation, i.e. not as a fixed property attached to things, but instead as a multidimensional, constantly changing relation between people and things. Scholars in a variety of disciplines have proposed the notion of value as a relation, and brief summaries of their points of view will demonstrate the advantages of this approach. Although the most common understanding of value typically refers to financial worth, it is clear that other forms of valuation also need to be carefully examined. This chapter explores some of the questions of value as they are discussed in
- 50. 4 6 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s axiology, political economy, anthropology, business and design. The discussion of value in political economy will focus on use-value, exchange value and sign-value of commodities as proposed by Marx and Baudrillard. In business literature value is often construed in financial terms, and typically refers to consumer value, market value and shareholder value. In anthropological literature, value is imagined as a relation that appears in the exchange of goods. In design and engineering, value is often treated as a goal to be achieved by corporations for the products they create for consumers. Objects are polysemic (they have multiple meanings), and therefore the value attached to them takes several forms. In order to demonstrate the multidimensional quality of value, a taxonomy, which includes its economic, functional, cultural, social, aesthetic, brand, emotional, historical, environmental, political and symbolic forms will be developed in this chapter. These multiple dimensions make “aggregate” an appropriate term to describe value. Finally, the chapter will end with a discussion about the difference between value and values. While value may be the worth of something, values refer to ethics and moral codes. If design redirects its attention from value to values, it might present itself as a new strategy for sustainable development. Value as a Fluid Aggregate Relation “All value is radically contingent, being neither a fixed attribute, an inherent quality, or an objective property of things but, rather, an effect of multiple, constantly changing, and continuously interacting variables or, to put this another way, the product of the dynamics of a system, specifically an economic system” (Hernstein Smith 1988: 30). Value, as Hernstein Smith explains, is fluid; what something means to someone at any given time is dependent on a range of factors like personal needs, individual preference, available resources, market conditions, branding, profit margins, etc. Hernstein Smith suggests that there are two kinds of interrelated economic systems that rely on and drive each other—a personal economy and the market economy. Both these systems are constantly mutating; global markets are known to be volatile and they shift directions by the second, and our personal value systems are given to changes as well. In addition, these systems are integrally linked to each other because “part of our environment is the market economy, and the market economy is composed, in part, of the diverse personal economies of individual producers, distributors, consumers, and so forth” (Hernstein Smith 1988: 31). Through their lives, things are tossed among people and between these economic systems, and therefore their value is in a state of constant flux. The value of things is established in their dynamic interaction with people within specific contexts. Value can be conceived as a fluid aggregate relation, continuously in flux through processes of production, distribution and consumption involving the engagement of numerous stakeholders. The fluid aggregate value of things depends upon a large array of motivations and forces, many of which are socially, economically and politically constructed. It is not unusual to discover that certain things that an individual may consider invaluable may possess no market value whatsoever, and things that sell on the market for significant sums
- 51. v a lu e d p o s s e s s i o n s 4 7 may seem utterly worthless to an individual. Value is dynamic; it changes over space and over time. Removed from its usual spatiotemporal context, a thing may lose its utilitarian value entirely and in its new location gain other unexpected symbolic value as an exotic object. The value aggregate is constantly shifting, its fluctuations determined by changes in meaning. The Fluid Aggregate of Value: A Subject-Object Relation Axiology is one of the three most general philosophical sciences besides epistemology (inquiry into knowledge) and metaphysics (inquiry into existence), and its fundamental charge is the examination of human/personal values as well as the value of goods. “While metaphysics and ethics flourished in Ancient Greece, and theory of knowledge started in the seventeenth century, value theory, also called axiology, was not formulated until the end of the nineteenth century” (Frondizi 1971: 3). And, since its inception, axiology has grappled with the same fundamental and somewhat intractable problem that has doggedly flustered thinkers in other branches of philosophy—the object-subject dichotomy. Does reality exist outside and in spite of our existence (the objective stance) or is reality purely a construction of the human mind (the subjective position)? Is life meaningful because we think it is, or would it be meaningful regardless of our existence? Are goodness and beauty inherent to things or are they fabrications of the human mind? Grünberg explains this dilemma in the form of the question: “are some things, works, deeds valuable because we assign value to them, or do we assign value to them because they are valuable?” (2005: 5). This question reveals one of the key issues of contention about how value is determined—subjectively or objectively. In other words, is value a natural property of things, or of the beholder’s eye? Does value inhabit things, or us? The difficulty of answering this question is further complicated by two other questions. If there was nothing to evaluate, would values exist? And, if values did not exist, how would we evaluate things? Philosophers have taken up positions for and against the subjectivity and objectivity of value, with few attempting to bridge this fundamental theoretical chasm. “In whatever empirical or transcendental sense the difference between objects and sub jects is conceived, value is never a ‘quality’ of the objects, but a judgment upon them which remains inherent in the subject” (Simmel 2001: 63). Simmel therefore posits value in subjective terms, as an appraisal of the object by the subject, not as a property of things. Further along in the discussion though, adopting a highly objective position he suggests that objects “are not only appreciated as valuable by us, but would still be valuable if no one appreciated them” (Simmel 2001: 67). Simmel (the subject) appears to want his (objective) cake and eat it too, but it is when he refers to value as “attributed to the objects of subjective desire” that his somewhat difficult and ambiguous position becomes partially clear (2001: 67). He clarifies by proposing that in order to truly comprehend the meaning and significance of the concept of value, the subject-object distinction is not critical, and the human mind is able to negotiate the contrast and distance between them. He cites the example of thorough
- 52. 4 8 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s enjoyment of objects when one is so fully immersed and engaged in the experience that it is utterly possible to forget the distance between oneself (subject) and the focus of one’s attention (object). In such situations, the subject-object dichotomy is blurred if not erased. Yet, in the empirical world, he says, objects do exist as separate from us, and it is in this contrast that value resides. “The moment of enjoyment itself, when the opposition between subject and object is effaced, consumes the value” (Simmel 2001: 66). Value, to Simmel, transcends object and subject into a third form that he calls demand. In situations where a certain need can be met by any one of a number of object choices, value is determined subjectively by the individual rather than the object that satisfies the need. However, when the need is such that it can only be met by a specific object that differentiates itself from the rest, value is determined more objectively. Simmel, in grappling with value, positions it as a bridge that spans the gap between us and the things that surround us, as something that transcends the object-subject divide in a third form called demand, and as a judgment that could be both determined by the nature of things and the type of our impulse. Frondizi, too, recognizes the theoretical impasse produced by the subjective and objective ideological positions adopted by philosophers. “The difficulty springs from an ‘either-or’ way of thinking, that value has to be an empirical, natural quality or that it has nothing to do with empirical qualities and is a nonnatural quality grasped by intuition” (Frondizi 1971: 159). He dismisses the object-subject dichotomy by suggesting that value represents a tension between the subject and the object, and therefore stands for both. Rejecting both radical objectivism and subjectivism, he suggests that values are neither projected on things (properties of objects) nor are they reflected in things (as properties of people); they are a result of the relation between objects and subjects. And these relations depend upon the physical environment, cultural environment, social environment, the space-time factor and human needs (Frondizi 1971). Presenting value as a Gestalt quality, he suggests that it should be understood as a complex whole that is irreducible to its parts. For example, the aesthetic value of a beautiful chair does not depend on its individual components and parts (back, seat, armrest, support, etc.), nor on the characteristics of these components (color, texture, form, material, personality, etc.); instead, its value depends on how these parts behave as a whole to provide the experience of beauty. “Value is a Gestalt quality, the synthesis of objective and subjective contribution, and which exists and has meaning only in concrete human situations” (Frondizi 1971: 160). Collapsing the subjective and objective interpretations into one Gestalt may be seen as a form of intellectual sidestepping, a maneuver that grants escape from having to confront the dichotomy. However, this seems to be the only mechanism by which to make sense of the divergent positions. In describing the conditions of postmodern architecture, Venturi (1977) uses the terms “either-and”, “black and white”, over “either-or” and “black or white” to refer to a more contemporary, non-exclusive form of building that negotiates its popular and elitist meanings. Similarly, a concept of value that embraces these divergent points of view is more meaningful in making sense of the value of things.1
- 53. v a lu e d p o s s e s s i o n s 4 9 Value exists because it is generated by a relational act between an object (a thing) that is being evaluated, and a subject (a person) engaged in the process of evaluation. Therefore, the fluid aggregate of value is not an intrinsic quality of an object; it is a relation. According to Grünberg, within the notion of value is tied up the idea of relativity and polarity, of good and bad, valuable and valueless, positive and negative. Objects are judged in relation to other objects and to standards. “Once value is assigned to an object, indifference is impossible. Axiological temperature never reads zero” (Grünberg 2000: 17). If true, this would mean that value exists on a continuum between two poles without the availability of a midpoint. To Grünberg, therefore, this would be tantamount to suggesting that you either like something or you do not; you cannot be neutral to it. This philosophical position does not necessarily hold true in case of things, for it is indeed possible to be utterly disinterested in certain products and not have a value opinion about them. The neutral position is not that of valuelessness; it merely indicates a different form of valuation, one that is neither positive nor negative. There is value in neutrality; neutrality is value. Nature and Attributes of the Value Aggregate Things gain and lose value (value accretion and value depletion) throughout their existence. These processes span the entire lifecycle of the product including the stages of production (design and manufacturing), distribution (transportation and advertising), consumption (acquisition and use) and disposal (landfilling and recycling). In product development, design is perceived as a service that can provide tangible and intangible value to goods if it addresses the unique needs of all the stakeholders—manufacturers, marketing personnel, distributors, regulators and users. For example, while an eco-friendly product may be more valuable to an environmentally conscious consumer, profitability may be more valuable to the manufacturer and shelf life more valuable to the retailer. Therefore, the fluid aggregate of value is constructed by the individual perceptions of all stakeholders who, in some fashion, engage the object. The value attributed to things changes constantly with context, and as social norms and practices evolve, as economic contexts change, as new technologies emerge and as objects move through their life cycles, they gain or lose value. As people grow older, become educated professionals, travel to new places, develop political alliances or move up or down the socioeconomic ladder, they adjust the value they attach to things. In other words, value is determined in socio-economic settings and on individual terms. The qualities of things that make them valuable often include such properties as affordability, beauty, authenticity, durability, rarity, status, usability, identity, emotional connection and so on. These characteristics might possess universal appeal, but the creation of a classification system for value presents challenges. A general taxonomy of value attributes can be used to map some of the fundamental drivers people use to evaluate the worth of things. However, while classification has heuristic value and can help understand complex concepts, the taxonomy itself should not be assumed to be a refutation of the complexity or an act of reduction.
- 54. 5 0 de s i g n i n g t h i n g s Though each distinct type has a label and appears as a unique entity, there is conceptual overlap among them. An heirloom object, for instance, may have significant emotional value to the owner while being of historical value to the family. In March 2009, a few personal belongings of Mahatma Gandhi were auctioned in New York City. The items—Gandhi’s eyeglasses, a pair of sandals, a watch and other effects—were sold for 1.8 million U.S. dollars. The Gandhi family found it “reprehensible” that these “priceless” items could be exchanged for money. The Indian government attempted to stop the auction and demanded the return of these “national treasures.” It is clear that in this case the emotional, symbolic, political and historical values embodied in the artifacts are inseparable from each other. In fact, things acquire symbolic value because they possess other forms of value such as brand value or cultural value. The following value types should therefore be treated as means of acknowledging rather than reducing the complexity of the notion of value. n Financial/economic value. This form of value generally is linked to the price of objects and their affordability. While price is fixed by profit margins and market conditions, affordability is determined by salary, amount of disposable income, measure of how parsimonious or spendthrift a consumer is, and so on. Profit, a form of economic value that is of extreme significance to corporations almost always stands in opposition to affordability. n Aesthetic value. Style plays a significant role in the purchase of goods, especially for such fashion accessories as clothing, shoes, jewelry, watches and some personal consumer electronics. Highly contextual, aesthetic value depends upon the physical characteristics of things as well as the cultural, historical and social milieu in which they exist. n Functional/utilitarian value. Largely determined on the basis of how well something works, utilitarian value is a function of engineering and design. n Brand value. A product’s brand is composed of a series of tangible and intangible qualities perceived by consumers. Corporations like Apple, Louis Vuitton and Prada possess high brand value and inspire significant consumer loyalty. In such cases, functional and economic values of the products are often ignored for brand value. n Emotional value. Material goods often become repositories as well as triggers of memories and emotions. In such cases, their value lies not directly in form, function or other immediate properties, but on their ability to inspire specific emotions and feelings in people. n Historical value. Design classics, limited edition products, archeological artifacts and other goods that signify histories of designers, specific designs, or civilizations possess unique historical value. n Environmental value. Products designed and manufactured around principles of eco design (green goods) possess environmental value as they represent sensitivity to the natural world. These products also possess emotional, social, cultural, political and economic value derived from their greenness.
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- 56. hogy a hátáravan ragasztva a Yucatan-Dracoena-pomádé hirdetménye. Hát még a hirlapi trombitálások! Nem is említem az állandó rovatokat, feltünő nagy betükkel, gömbölyü, vagy keresztbe fordított parallelepipedon alakban, vagy romboid mintába szedett sorokkal; a tömérdek bizonyítványt hírhedett nagy férfiaktól, elkezdve Napoleonon, az egyiptomi alkirályon, egész a Fidzsi-sziget kaczikájáig, a kik mind rettenetesen elhálálkodtak, hogy elvesztett hajzatuk visszanyerését egyenesen a Yucatan-Dracoena csodaerejének köszönhetik. Ezek már elhasznált fogások. Az értelmes olvasó beléjök sem botlik tőbbé. De vannak más módjai a védtelen olvasó megejtésének. Apróbetűs történetkék az ujdonságok közé beszúrva; egy kitagadott fiatal örökös regénye a feuilletonban, ki elvégre a kopasz nagybátyját azzal hódítja meg, hogy Yucatan- Dracoenával ujra dús hajzatot varázsol fejére (kapható Bhealer et Co.-nál New-York). Majd meg egy rémtörténet a jégbe leszakadt korcsolyázókról, kik mind odavesznek, mire a segély megérkezett, kivéve egy fiatal hölgyet, kinek hosszú haja akkor is a víz szinén lebegett, a kit annál fogva kihúztak a partra. (Használta a Yucatan- Dracoena kenőcsöt, Bhealer et Co.-tól New-York.) Majd meg egy roppant sensatiót gerjesztő hír: «ujabb lázadás!» (Mikor a régi is elég volt már!) Kétezer parókacsináló összeesküvése, kik demolirozni szándékoznak a keresetüket végképen megrontó Yucatan-Dracoena- hajkenőcsgyárt. (Bhealer et Comp. New-York.) Hanem mindezeknél hathatósabb reclame volt miss Leona Danger maga. Miss Leona Danger, a csodaszép haju hölgy volt a legsikeresebb reclame mr. Bhealer vállalatára nézve. Ő volt az, ki eljárt mr. Bhealer- rel tánczvigalmakba, hangversenyekbe, színházakba, meetingekbe, szóval a hol sok embert lehet találni; rendesen felbontott s hosszan leeresztett hajjal, mely megjelenését annál feltünőbbé tette. Rendesen mr. Bhealer vezette őt karján, s mindenki abban volt megnyugodva, hogy a hosszu haju miss a mr. menyasszonya. Ú
- 57. Úgy tudom, hogymaga miss Leona is erről volt meggyőződve. Mr. Bhealer pompás szállást tartott számára, melyben az irodalom és művészvilág celebritásai gyakran összegyűltek, felolvasásokat, hangversenyeket tartottak, s aztán hálából hirdették a hosszuhaju hölgy estélyeit, ki viszont élő hirdetménye volt a Yucatan-Dracoena- gyárnak. A Yucatan-Dracoena-gyár egy év alatt ismeretes lett egész New- Yorkban, egész Amerikában, az egész világon. Hatemeletes ház volt az, lefelé még két emeletet számítva pinczékben, s mind a nyolcz osztály sorában Yucatan-Dracoena- hajkenőcsöt gyártottak, hűtöttek, kevertek, tégelyeztek, csomagoztak s küldöttek a szélrózsa minden irányában lakó kopaszok számára. Legio volt a munkások száma, a kik ezzel foglalkoztak, s a legió munkás és a világ minden részéből eredő megrendelések felett, mr. Happy vitte a felügyeletet. Ő volt a titkár, a mindenhez látó csendes Comp., a mindenes. Ő ügyelt fel az üzletre kora reggeltől késő éjszakáig; ő lótott-futott detail-kereskedő után, ő tartotta evidentiában a collikat, ő vezette a főkönyveket, ő járt a Yucatan-Dracoena megszerzése után, s ő esküdött a vásárosoknak, hogy valóban saját maga hozta el Yucatanból vad indiánoktól megváltva, az igazi hajnövesztő Dracoena magot. És ezért az volt a jutalma, hogy esténkint neki is szabad volt megjelenni miss Leona concert spiritueljén. Én is voltam ott egynehányszor. Megvallom, hogy soha sem szerettem a humbugot, s a siker, mely ezt kisérte, épen nem vont magához, de érdekelt megtudni, hogy mi lesz elvégre is a hosszuhaju hölgyből? A creol nő nem mindennapi műveltséggel birt s egészen méltónak tartá magát arra a szerencsére, hogy egykor mr. Bhealer nejévé legyen. É
- 58. Én pedig megvoltam felőle győződve, hogy soha sem fog az lenni. Mért gondoltam ezt? Annál az egyszerű oknál fogva, hogy ugyanazon ember, a ki egy millió embert meg tud csalni, hogyan tehetné azt, hogy az egy millió egyediket is meg ne csalja? Engem is rászedett; nem tagadom. Még én is használtam csoda hajkenőcsét, pedig bizonyos voltam felőle, hogy az nem használ semmit. Hogy pedig egy millió embert legalább megcsalt egy év alatt, az onnan könnyen kiszámítható, hogy másfél év mulva félmillió dollárnak volt birtokosa. És mind ezt azért adózta neki a félvilág, hogy miss Leonának olyan szép hajfürtei vannak. Mennyi hálával tartozott ő ezeknek a szép hajfürtöknek! Ha aranyba, gyöngyökbe foglalta volna, ha oltárszekrénybe zárta volna, ha térden járta volna körül, mint búcsújáró a csodatevő szent képet, megérdemlette volna. Ez volt szerencséjének megalapítója, a legmesésebb meggazdagodásnak aranybányája, a tündérországi szomorúfűz, melyről a szellő aranyokat ráz le levelek helyett; hanem azért én még sem hittem soha, hogy ő miss Leonát el fogja venni. A hölgy nemcsak szép volt, de kedélyes is. Költői ábrándozás volt lelkületének alapvonása, s rejtett tüzü szemeiből látszott, hogy képes oly szenvedélyre, mely egy férfit őrültté tehet. De hát mi köze volt mr. Bhealernek a szerelmi őrültséghez? Ő okos ember volt, s a hol csak lehetett, inkább mást tett bolonddá, mint magát. Engemet, mint mondám, régibb ismeretségnél fogva gyakran meghítt magához. Én pedig őt nagy úr korában sem igen szerettem. Nem jól érzem magamat az ilyen hirtelen felcseperedett milliomosok fitogtató pompája közepett. De ő, a mint meggazdagodott, ismét fölkeresett s örömét találta benne, hogy egy olyan embernek mutogathatja mesés gazdagságát, a ki őt még nehány év előtt
- 59. szegény legénynek ismerte.Iparkodott bizonyos családiasságot kötni köztem és saját környezete közt. Többször eljött hozzám is, s olyankor merész terveiről beszélt; mert a ki egy milliomot szerzett, annak soha sem elég egy milliom, annak másik milliom is kell. Egy napon beszélgetés közben előhozta, hogy bizony ő neki is ideje volna már arról gondolkozni, hogy megházasodjék. Ráhagytam, hogy bizony ideje volna. – Lesz-e ön a házassági szerződésnél tanum? szólíta fel. Ez egyenes felhivásra nem mondhattam mást igennél; s némileg meg is voltam vele elégedve, hogy tehát a hosszuhaju hölgy végre czéljához jut. Nem sokat nyer ugyan vele, mert az egész ember nem ér egy pipa dohányt; hanem azt már a hölgyek tudják, miért sietnek olyan nagyon bekötni a fejüket egy férfival, akármilyen legyen is az. Azt mondtam neki, hogy szívesen leszek násznagya. Azután a napot is megmondta, hogy mikor fog esküdni. Gondom volt rá, hogy aznapra úgy rendezzem ügyeimet, hogy rövid időre szabadulhassak tőlük. Az ilyesmi is kötelesség az életben. A mondott nap reggelén maga jött el értem elegans fogatán mr. Bhealer. Vőlegényruhája sárgabaraczkszín bársony quekkerből állott, aranyozott gombokkal és fekete bársony pantallonból, fehér atlasz mellénynyel és azon korallgombokkal; úgy hiszem elég feltünő volt. Gomblyukába rózsacsokor volt tűzve, világos-kék szalaggal. Miután tiszta fehér keztyüs kezével megszorítá kezemet, s háromféle illatszerrel beszagosította szobámat, melyet önmaga körül árasztott, fölkért, hogy lehessen olyan szerencsés engem saját fogatán mátkája szállására elvihetni. Kész voltam rá. Felültünk egymás mellé, s én úgy vettem észre, hogy ismerősöm semmivel sem elfogultabb, mint szoktak vőlegények hasonló esetben lenni.
- 60. Hanem a minta fogat megállt, s az inas kinyitá a kocsi ajtaját, csodálkozva tapasztaltam, hogy a ház, melynek kapujában leszálltunk, nem ugyanaz, melyben tudtommal miss Leona lakik. No talán már ide költöztette. Kérdezősködés nélkül engedtem magamat általa előre utasíttatni, a ház belsejébe. A folyosón végighaladva, a földszinti parloirba értünk, a hol az amerikai vendégei látogatását szokta fogadni. Megjelenésünkkor egy segéd, vagy inas, vagy clerc, vagy nem tudom mi távozott a teremből, azzal a biztatással, hogy hirül fogja adni jöttünket. Mi addig leültünk a kandalló elé egy pár hintáló székre. Bhealer úr tréfálózott, hogy az idő különben is hosszas szokott lenni, mikor a hölgyek toilettjüket végzik; hát még mikor menyasszonyi toilettet végeznek, az épen végevárhatatlan. Egy arafátyol feltüzése maga megtart egy óráig. Én jónak láttam megjegyezni, hogy soha életemben szebb arafátyolt nem tudok képzelni, mint a minő miss Leona sarkig leeresztett hajhulláma volt, mikor őt legelőször megláttam. Mr. Bhealer azt mondta rá, hogy ez igaz. Én okosabb themáról nem véltem beszélhetni, mint miss Leonáról, ebben az ünnepélyes órában. – Ön valóban helyesen mondta nekem azt, hogy egy új Californiát fedezett fel; mert miss Leona csodaszép haja csakugyan az lett önre nézve. Ön két év alatt egy milliót sepert össze vele. – Másfelet! igazítá ki szavamat mr. Bhealer. Igazán csinos kis aranyseprő bartwisch! És nevetett ennek az ötletnek.
- 61. Kötelességemnek tartottam, hogymég több szépet mondjak neki menyasszonyáról. Hiszen egy vőlegényt csak kell biztatni ilyenkor egygyel-mással. – Azt hiszem, hogy miss Leona Dangernek határtalan jó szíve még ritkább kincs egy hölgynél, mint ama rendkívüli szépség. – No de még! tódítá mr. Bhealer. Hogy milyen derék jó szívű hölgy miss Leona, azt még csak ezután fogja ön tapasztalni. No majd meglátja. – És ez a szív egészen az öné? – Teljesen. Bolondul utánam. Ha tűzbe-vízbe küldeném, elmenne értem. – Önt e szerint nem csupán hála köti e derék leányhoz, hanem egyuttal megérdemlett hajlam is. – Kétségtelenül. Ez egész beszélgetésünk alatt valami olyan sajátságos sardonikus mosolygással nézett rám a szeme szögletéből mr. Bhealer, mintha ő volna az, a ki engem most valami nagyszerű megtréfáltatásba belevisz. Most egyszerre robajos selyemsuhogás hallatszott felettünk, csalhatatlan előjele annak, hogy hölgyek közelítenek. Mi felugrottunk székeinkről, mr. Bhealer megrántotta kabátom szárnyát: «most azután egy szót se többet miss Leonáról!» sugá fülembe, s azzal karomnál fogva előre tolt, hogy az érkezőknek bemutasson. A csigalépcsőn, mely a felső osztályokból a parloirba vezetett alá, egész csoport selyembe és illusionba öltözött hölgy, s utánok egy sereg idegen férfi szállt alá, kik közt épen csak miss Leonát nem láttam sehol. Mr. Bhealer sorba bemutogatott mindenkinek; elébb egy vastag urnak, azután egy sovány asszonyságnak, azután egy vöröshaju
- 62. kisasszonynak, meg egyhamis fürtös kisasszonynak; de a kiknek neveire én mind nem emlékszem, mert a mint a szőke kisasszonyhoz érve, azt úgy ismerteté meg velem, mint miss Lidia Corinthot, jövendőbeli eljegyzett menyasszonyát, ez engem annyira zavarba hozott, hogy azontul nem hallottam semmit. Az igaz, hogy mis Lidia Corinth is szép hölgy volt, hanem olyan sajátszerű szépség, a mihez én soha nem tudnék hozzászokni. Ha tíz esztendeig feleségem volna is, azt hinném, hogy valami idegen asszony. Tökéletesen olyan arcz, a mely, ha azt mondja valakinek: «ma nem vagyok itthon» hát elhiszik neki. Az ember mindig az ajtón kivül hiszi magát mellette. Micsoda más volt miss Leona Danger, mikor az eszkimó boutiquejében legelőször is megpillantottuk! Szegény Leona! Hát a te szép fekete hajfürteid ennek a sárga frizurának a számára termették a gyémántokat? No, hanem hát ez nem az én gondom. Engem tanúnak híttak ide, nem drámabirálónak. Mit avatkozzam én a más dolgába? Eredj, vidd a menyasszonyodat; bánom is én! A rövidleges bemutatás után következett, hogy kocsira üljön a násznép s induljon a templomba. A krinolinokat előre bocsátva, s nagy életveszedelemmel bepakolva a hintókba, mi ketten a vőlegénynyel leghátul maradtunk, a hogy szokás, s ezuttal nem az ő urifogatába, mely a menyasszonyt vitte, hanem egy bérkocsiba jutottunk. Ez volt a nászmenetet bezáró utolsó kocsi, hanem a mint egy párszor a bérkocsis hátrafelé integetéseiből kivehettem, még valami más kocsi is jött utánunk, s a bérkocsis tartott tőle, hogy az a rúdjával beüti az ő hintaját hátul. – Mi az? kérdé mister Bhealer. – Egy boxcab.
- 63. – Ki ülbenne? – Egy miss, feketében. – Feketében. Az nem hozzánk tartozik. – Vinné az ördög, a hova tartozik; de mindig belénk ütközik a rúdjával, mikor a többi kocsitól nem mehetünk – Mondja ön neki, hogy kerüljön el bennünket. – Mondtam már, de nem fogadja meg. – No hát maradjon. Én azonban csak még sem állhattam, hogy mr. Bhealernek szemére ne hányjam ezt a hűtelenséget. Hisz ez még amerikai szempontból is czudarság. – Ön tehát miss Leonát ott hagyta a faképnél? – No az természetes, szólt mr. Bhealer, igen előkelő képet csinálva. A boltjának czimtábláját csak nem veheti nőül az ember. – De mikor önnek az a boltczímtábla olyan jól jövedelmezett. – Hát mondtam én, hogy hűtlen leszek hozzá, mint boltczímtáblához? Én gazdagon fizettem őt eddig, gazdagon fogom fizetni ezután. Jó barátok leszünk s meg fogjuk becsülni egymást. – De ön házasságot is igért neki. – Azt nem tagadom. Irásba is adtam. – Hátha önt be fogja perelni? – Akkor is csak ott lesz, a hol most. Két feleséget csakugyan nem vehetek, ha csak a «sós tó» mellé nem vándorlok ki; a biróság vagy arra fog elitélni, hogy bizonyos évdíjt fizessek az elhagyottnak, vagy egy meghatározott összeget, s én föltettem magamban, hogy a mit a törvényszék meg fog miss Leonának itélni, én kétszerannyit fogok
- 64. fizetni. Ez reménylem,hogy gentlemanlike van mondva. Lássa ön, mr. Bhealernek is van nemes gondolkozásmódja. Én pedig szerettem volna mr. Bhealert kidobni a kocsiból, ott, a hol legnagyobb volt a sár. Hanem azt ugyan nem bántam meg, hogy nem tettem. Nehány percz mulva a mi kocsink is a templom elé ért, a mögöttünk jövő boxcab szintén. A mint hátra tekinték, láttam, hogy egy hölgy szökik le belőle, párducz-elevenséggel, ki fekete ruhát viselt, egészen mexikói divat szerint, bokán felül érőt, s fején a kalap helyett hosszú fekete rebosot, a kreolnőket annyira jellemző fátyolt. Én rá bámultam. Ez Leona volt, és még sem volt Leona. Az ő méltóságteljes arcza, az ő villámló tekintete volt az; az ő bájosan szilaj mozdulatai, az ő nyugtalan ajkfölvetései; de hol volt a csodaszép hosszu haj? Ez a hölgy rövidre volt nyirva, kurta hajfürtei a reboso alól kiszabadulva, szabadon repkedtek homloka, égő arcza körül. Itt baj lesz, gondolám magamban, s iparkodtam egy lépéssel hátrább állani. A hölgy azonban sebes, ruganyos lépésekkel elhaladt előttem, s a baraczkszín bársonykabát után indult. A násznép egész parádéban összecsoportosult már a templomajtó előtt, s épen csak a vőlegényre várt, hogy induljon az imaházba. Mr. Bhealer épen vis-à-vis állt már menyasszonyával, miss Lidia Corinthtal, midőn egy izmos kéz hátulról megragadta a baraczkszín bársonykabát gallérját s megállásra kényszeríté annak tulajdonosát. Mr. Bhealer ijedten fordult vissza, de még jobban megijedt, mikor a gallérját fogó kéz birtokosnéját megismeré.
- 65. – Az Istenért!Mit akar ön? – Hogy mit akarok? Te áruló! Azt majd mindjárt elmondom neked. S azzal a másik izmos kéz a reboso alól egy kegyetlen hajlós rhinoceros-bőr lovagkorbácsot húzott elő. Mr. Bhealer észrevevé, hogy itt hajótörés veszedelme forog fenn, s hirtelen elővevé tengerészi flegmáját, tekintélyével remélvén a boszús hölgyet lefegyverezhetni. – Miss! ön takarodjék haza rögtön! kiáltá boszankodva Leonára, mintha éreztetni akarná vele, hogy ő neki gazdája. Hanem abban a perczben olyat húzott miss Leona a fején keresztül a rhinoceros-szíjjal, hogy a szép sima czilinder rögtön összehorpadt, s a tulnan bevágó ostor végecskéje egy kikeresett helyecskén a szája mellett belecsippentett a képébe, úgy, hogy onnan mindjárt kiserkedt a vér. No mondhatom, hogy ez bolond egy helyzet volt. Akármely más országban is kellemetlen volna hasonló vitába keveredni egy hölgygyel; annál inkább Amerikában, hol a nőnem különösen az állam és minden egyes polgár védelme alatt áll. Annál fogva mister Bhealer csakugyan nem tehetett okosabbat, mint hogy az első ütközet után megváltoztatta a csatarend homlokát, s a hátát tartva a dühöngő hölgy elé, a fülére rántá a bársony kabát gallérját; akármi történjék az utóhadával. A bájos furia pedig nem is kérette magát nagyon a folytatásért, hanem a kegyetlen rhinoceros-korbácscsal olyat húzott a hátán végig egyet hosszában, másikat keresztben, hogy annál különbet ugyan senki sem kivánhat magának vőlegény korában. A harmadik ütés után aztán eldobta a korbácsot, sirva fakadt, eltakarta az arczát: futott a kocsijához vissza.
- 66. Minthogy pedig abársonyfélén az ilyesmi nagyon meglátszik, annálfogva mr. Bhealernek a hátán úgy nézett ki az a két keresztbe vágott huzás, mint a keresztülhuzott számlákon szokott látszani, a mire azt irják, hogy «pour a quit». No hanem azért ez a kis intermezzo ne zavarja meg a díszes nászünnepélyt. Hasonló incidensek a tulsó hemisphæriumon nem tartoznak a rendkívüliségek közé, s aztán inkább egy szép hölgytől három pofot, mint egy férfitől felet; praktikus szempontból felvéve pedig épen még lucrativusnak is nevezhető ez a «fatal accident», a mennyiben ily «self satisfaction» után most már a biróság semmi kárpótlást sem fog megitélni az elhagyott jegyesnek, s így a szökevény hátára rótt krixkrax csakugyan «pour a quit» s valóságos száz procent nyereség. Tehát csak bementünk a templomba. A tapasztaltabb hölgytanúk már a jelenet elején befutottak oda, magukkal ragadván a menyasszonyt, ki ott az előteremben egy kissé elájult, s így állítólag se nem látott, se nem hallott a jelenetből semmit, a mi a templom előtt végbe ment; hanem azért egész accuratessel felocsudott akkorra, mire a vőlegény ismét előkerült, ki ugyan elég elfogulatlan ábrázatot igyekezett mutatni; de a mi neki ismét igen nehezen sikerült ama bizonyos kis hosszukás daganat miatt, a mi az arcza közepétől a szája szegletéig sötétvörösen lenyult, s ott egy kis vérző repedésben végződött, melyet a tisztelt vőlegény himezett zsebkendőjével folyvást takargatni kényszerült. Átkozott gondolat is volt az, a ki legelőször kitalálta, hogy a rhinoceros bőréből lovag-korbácsokat lehet csinálni. Hanem hát a pap nem kérdezte azt, hogy mit takargat a tisztelt keresztyén polgár azzal a zsebkendővel az arczán, mialatt az esketési formát utána mondja az oltár előtt; hanem hivatalosan tudomásul vette, hogy az az egymás kezét tartó pár minden egyházi dogma és polgári paragrafus rendi szerint szereti egymást, meg is áldotta őket, be is írta nevöket a boldog házasok nagy könyvébe s azzal haza
- 67. eresztette a násznépeta szülői házhoz, a hol úgy gondolom, hogy valami nászlakomának kellett volna következni. Csak gondolom. Mert nem volt részem benne. Visszatéret a vőlegénynek a menyasszonynyal lévén szokás együtt haza kocsizni, én részemről a zsemlyeszínhaju nyoszolyólánynyal és annak mamájával jutottam egy hintóba. A zsemlyeszín kisasszony folyvást kiváncsian tudakozódott tőlem, hogy mi történhetett odakinn? mert ő nem látott semmit, nagyon ártatlanka volt szegényke, s szeretett volna nem az lenni; a mamája pedig, ki átellenben ült, folyvást fénymázos topánaimon taposott s basiliscus tekinteteket lövelt rám, nehogy valamit elmondjak, a mi igaz. Én aztán hazudtam keresztyéni kötelességből egész hazáig. Azt mondtam a kisasszonynak, hogy a drastice megjelent hölgy Bhealer úrnak édesanyja, a ki nem akarja megengedni a fiának, hogy megházasodjék, mert még kiskorú; nem tudom, elhitte-e? A lakodalmas házhoz megérkezve, én kötelességszerűen karon fogva bevezetém a rám bizott hölgyeket a parloirba, onnan felmentünk az ebédlőbe, ott egy hosszú asztal erősen meg volt terítve hideg sültekkel, kocsonyákkal és felczifrázott czukorsüteményekkel, a torták óriási dombjai közül, mint fiók münsterek tornyai magasodván ki a sok góthidomú palaczk-nyak. Hanem daczára ennyi biztató körülménynek, a vendégek, kik az asztalt körülállották, rettenetes savanyú ábrázatokat mutattak egymásnak, s olyan távol tarták magukat a süteményektől, mintha mindenki attól félne, hogy ha egyszer valamihez hozzányul, ő is valahonnan a levegőből egy pofont kap. Sem menyasszony, sem vőlegény nem voltak jelen, sem az elébbi szülői, hanem csak álldogált a vendégsereg magára hagyatottan, s várta, hogy kezdjen beszédet valaki, és a mellett úgy érezte magát egyenkint mindenki a társaságban, mint a ki szeretne olyan valaki lenni, a ki nincs itt. Jó egy óráig bámultunk így tetszésünk szerint hol egymásra, hol a tortákra, hol a mennyezetre, s még sem jött senki.
- 68. Egy óra mulvaelőkerült végre mr. Bhealer. Most már a hosszú daganat be volt ragasztva az arczán æquivalens flastrommal, a mi úgy tűnt fel, mintha fél bajuszt ragasztott volna magának, s ekként igen derült kinézést adott tekintetének. Kinálta a vendégeket, hogy lássanak hozzá, egyenek, igyanak, legyenek vígan, mindjárt jön a házi úr is, az asszonyság mulhatlan teendők által van elfoglalva. Nekem pedig fogcsikorgatva súgott oda: «Mi pedig osonjunk innen, mihelyt szerét tehetjük, félek tőle, hogy az az átkozott Medea még fölgyujtja a Yucatan-Dracoena-gyárt. Képesnek tartom arra is!» Nagyon hajlandó voltam az indítvány elfogadására, s mihelyt lehetett, eltűntem; Bhealer utánam. – Hát a mistress? kérdém tőle. – Azzal nagy baj van most. Mihelyt felé közelítnek, azonnal elájul. A mióta haza jöttünk a templomból, tizenkétszer ájult el, ugyanannyi ránézésem folytán. Most már nem akarok eléje jönni hamarább, mint ez a bolond huzás innen a képemről elmulik. Menjünk hozzám, szörnyű szükségem van rá, hogy egy palaczk búfelejtőt igyam ezen a szép napon, egy pár magános jó barát társaságában; ön szives lesz eljönni velem, majd felhivjuk mr. Happyt, s az megnevettet bennünket. Átkozott nászünnep! S hogy kiabált a fülembe ipamuram, meg napamasszony! No ez nem nekem való mulatság! (De épen neked való mulatság! gondolám magamban, mialatt a Yucatan-Dracoena-gyár pompás épületéig hagytam magamat általa kocsiztatni.) Ott kiszálltunk és felmentünk a mr. szállására. A comptoirszolga meglátta mr. Bhealert, s azt kérdé tőle, hogy talán duellálni volt? Azt leszamarazta s kergette, hogy menjen Happyért s mondja meg mr. Happynek, hogy hozzon fel mr. Happy a pinczéből egy tok
- 69. veuve Cliquot-t. Mr. Happynem sokáig váratott magára, alig ültünk le a kandalló mellé, már topogott be a szomszéd teremből. Mr. Happy ezúttal egy araszszal magasabbnak látszott lenni, úgy feltartotta fejét s úgy ágaskodott lába hegyére. A hóna alatt hozott ugyan valami tokot, de az nem hasonlított semmi pinczetokhoz. Engemet meg sem látott, hanem egyenesen mr. Bhealer elé plántálta magát, olyan közel, hogy az orraik érinthették egymást. Mr. Happynak a szája ezúttal nem volt nyitva, hanem inkább összeszorítva, mint az olyan embereké, kik a sirást akarják visszafojtani. Látszott, hogy valami nagyot akar mondani, de nem jött a nyelvére. Tehát képes beszédhez folyamodott. Felnyitotta reszkető kezekkel a dobozka tetejét s belemarkolva, kihúzta abból – miss Leona gyönyörű szép levágott haját. S a mint azt a sajnálatra méltó nagy kárt oda tartá főnöke elé, a kisded emberke szemei megteltek könyekkel. Végre kitört belőle a szó. – Látja ön ezt? Ön cselekedte ezt! Ez volt az ön őriző angyalának a szárnya, a mit elvesztett. – Vigye az ördög az egész őriző angyalt, ordítá rá mr. Bhealer, kinek nagyon jó oka volt miss Leonára haragudni. Vonuljon ön előlem, vagy kilököm önt hajastól együtt. Ez a szó felnyitá mr. Happynél az ékesen szólás zsilipjeit; kétszer a kezefeje körül csavargatá a hosszú hajfonadékot, oly fenyegető mozdulattal, hogy én mr. Bhealerre nézve aggódni kezdtem, hogy no most következik a második bajusz! – Micsoda? kiált mr. Happy, ön az ördögnek ajánlja azon angyalt, ki önt a paradicsomba emelte, és ezt a hajat, melyen ön a cloakából
- 70. a mennyországba kapaszkodottfel; kit ön megcsalt, csúful elárult, kit a halálba űzött; mert tudja meg ön, hogy miss Leona e perczben útban van Sherman táborába, hogy ott mint önkéntes amazon, vagy tábori kém, a hazáért feláldozza drága életét. És önnek, háládatlan, itt küldi ezt az elpusztított mennyországot, egy ország büszkeségét, ezt a dicső hajat; megvette ön, legyen az öné; de tulajdonosnéja nem adta el önnek magát, az önt megveti és semmivé teszi! Mr. Bhealer kezdett szintén dühbe jönni, háromszor is közbe kiáltott: «Mr. Happy!» de a kis quakkernek élesebb szava volt, elnyomta az övét. – Mr. Happy! – Igen is, az én nevem mr. Happy. Én adtam az első dollárokat ön szerencséjének megalapításához. Én szereztem meg önnek az áldozatul esett drága kincset. Én lótottam futottam városról városra az ön gyalázatos dracoenájának hirdetésével. Én emeltem az ön üzletét oda, a hol az most áll. Én esküdtem mindennap százszor, pedig quakker vagyok, hogy az ön szere az egyedül csalhatatlan. És én azt nem az ön két szeméért tettem, hanem azért az angyalért, a ki ezt viselte. És a kicsiny ember e szónál arczához emelte a szép levágott hajat; egészen belé temetkezett, s úgy hiszem, hogy sírt is közbe. Mr. Bhealer pedig szekrényéhez sietett; felnyitotta annak szárnyait, kivett belőle egy pár keresztbe kötött csomagot, s oda dobta az asztalra mr. Happy elé. – Itt van önnek a tízezer dollárja, két évi kamatjával együtt, aztán meg félévi titkári fizetése. Mától fogva el van ön bocsátva a Yucatan-Dracoena-gyárból; – alá is út, fel is út! Mr. Happy rendbe szedte magát e szóra. Látta, hogy itt kemény szívű férfival van dolga. – Igen? El vagyok bocsátva a dracoena-gyárból. Elvihetem a tízezer dolláromat?
- 71. – Elviheti! Smég azt a kóczot is tetejébe. – És ezt a kóczot is! No jól van. Nem esküszöm többet, mert quakker vagyok; de mondom önnek, bizony mondom, hogy elviszem az ön feje felül ezt a házat is. Azzal bevágta maga után a kis ember az ajtót és odább állt. Magam is nem sokára követtem, s örültem nagyon, mikor ismét otthon találhattam magamat a boltomban. Soha sem megyek többet életemben násznagynak senki esküvőjére. A következő napok megmutatták, hogy mit értett mr. Happy a boszúállás alatt. Szemben a Yucatan-Dracoena-gyárral egy boltot bérelt ki, s annak a kirakatába üveg alá kitette miss Leona levágott haját. És azután minden hirlapba beiktatta ezen hirdetményt: «A Yucatan-Dracoena nem létezik! Mr. Bhealer hajkenőcse nem egyéb, mint disznózsír, zsályalé és krumpliszesz. Ezer dollár jutalom annak a vegyésznek, a ki abban valami egyebet is fel tud fedezni. Miss Leona Danger haja nem volt igazi, csak álhaj. A ki nem hiszi, megláthatja mr. Happy boltjában, vis-à-vis a Yucatan-Dracoena (???) gyárral.» És ez minden hirlapban megjelent, minden utczaszögleten, minden szinházban és hangversenyben ugyanoda volt ragasztva, a hol mr. Bhealer hirdetményei pompáztak, mint a hogy jár fütyülve a kis ichneumon mindenütt, a hol a nagy krokodiluss riogatja szét a falánk fenevad elől a zsákmányt. Eleinte mr. Bhealer azt hitte, hogy roppant gazdagságával agyon nyomhatja a kicsiny ellenséget, s még nagyobbszerű modorban feküdt neki a reclame-csinálásnak; hanem én úgy tapasztaltam, hogy az egyszer elvetett skepsis nagyon buján növekedik, az olvasó Ó
- 72. szeme inkább megakadazon a kis «Óvás»-okon, a mik az ő hosszú «attestatumai» után következnek, mint a charlatan kiabáláson. És mr. Happy lerázhatatlan ellenség volt. Mr. Bhealer nem kereshetett magának olyan zúgot, a hol ő rögtön nyomában ne lett volna. Úgy hiszem, egész vagyonát képes volt rá költeni az ő leálarczozására. Én aztán e reclame-háborút kivéve, mely az olvasóközönséget sok ideig derültségben tartotta, évekig nem hallottam mr. Bhealerről semmit. Menyegzője óta én sem voltam feléje soha, ő sem látogatott el hozzám. Úgy egy pár év mulva egy szép reggelen ismét csak betoppan a boltomba. Urias és leereszkedő volt mindig. Külsejére nézve nagyszerű és gentlemanlike. – Minek köszönhetem a szerencsét? – Hja bizony, tisztelt barátom, szólt széttekintve boltom falain. Nekem erre a boltra lenne szükségem, s én önt innét ki akarom árverelni. – Egy év mulva lehet, addig szerződésem van. – Mit is fizet ön egy évre? Négyezer dollárt? Én nyolczezeret igértem a háziúrnak. – Jól tette, uram, hát csak végezze el vele. – Apropos! Mi az ára önnél a legdrágább havannahnak? – Százötven dollár egy ládikával. – Ugyan kérem, legyen szíves egy ládikával a szállásomra elküldeni, majd a titkárom átveszi és kifizeti. – Meglesz.
- 73. Azzal kezet szorítottunk. Mármenni akart, mikor eszébe jutott, hogy tárczáját pénzestől, szivarostól otthon felejtette. – Ugyan kérem, adjon ki vagy öt darabot abból a ládikából. Felbontottam a ládikát s odaadtam belőle a kivántat. A ládikát azután elküldtem egyik segédemtől a szállására. Segédem amerikai gyerek volt, praktikus fiú, nem sokára visszajött a ládikával, s azt mondta, hogy annak az úrnak a titkára nem fizette ki a ládika árát, s ő visszahozta azt. Másnap megint eljött mr. Bhealer, szörnyen csodálkozott rajta, hogy a titkár nem fizetett. Persze nem volt előre értesítve. No majd holnap utasításba fogja neki adni. Azzal ismét elvitt öt szivart a magának kiválasztott ládikából. A titkár ismét nem fizetett. Ez így ment még egy pár nap; mr. Bhealer minden nap talált ki valami okot, miért nem fizet a titkárja, s mindig elvitt öt darab szivart. A hatodik nap aztán yankee-segédem a mistress ajtaján csengetett be, s annak a szobaleányától kért magyarázatot. Az aztán el is mondott mindent. – Ne adjanak önök mister Bhealernek semmit, hisz annak semmije sincs. A gyár rég megbukott; ha a mistress nem exequáltatta volna a neki móringolt részét, az sem volna neki, a hol korhely titkárával együtt meghúzza magát. A mistress ad neki naponkint fél dollár költőpénzt; aztán meg a kit a régi ismerősök közül itt-amott rászedhet. Tehát mr. Happy boszúja még is csak sikerült! Szegény miss Leona hajával le volt vágva a szerencsefiának mesés talizmánja.
- 74. Koldus lett; mindenkoldusok között a legnyomorultabb; a saját feleségének a koldusa, a kiért miss Leonát megcsalta. Következő nap megint eljött hozzám, megint azzal a titkáros mesével. Ezúttal röviden bántam el vele. Megfogtam szépen a karját s azt mondtam neki: – Mr. Bhealer, mondok én önnek valamit, de ne adja tovább. Azt mondom én önnek, mr. Bhealer, hogy ön egy semmirekellő bankrott gazember, s hogy ne jőjjön ön hozzám többé szivart válogatni. Erre a szóra mr. Bhealer félrecsapta a kalapját, megfordult a sarkán, s mintha nem is neki beszéltek volna, fütyörészve odább ment… Ugy-e furcsa merkantil-regény volt ez, tisztelt olvasóm? A legfurcsább benne az, hogy ez mind így történt valósággal.
- 75. A FRÁNYA HADNAGY. (Egyfurirsicz naplójából.) 1850. Soha olyan embert, mint az én hadnagyom volt! Nem azért, hogy az én hadnagyom volt, de olyan víg embert soha sem láttam életemben. Mikor magához fogadott, azt gondoltam szörnyű morózus képéről, no ez valami ugyancsak agyonharaplak úr lesz egyszer, hanem csakhamar át kezdtem látni, hogy ő azt a vadalmába harapott ábrázatot csak úgy kölcsön kérte s az alatt a legvígabb szívet hordja rejtve. Ha én olyan szépen tudnék irni, mint a poéta és a tudós urak, gyönyörűséges regényt csinálnék az én gazdám viselt dolgaiból; de hiába, én azt nem tanultam, nem értek hozzá, ennélfogva csak annyit teszek, hogy leírok egyet-mást, a mi vele történt, össze- vissza, egybefüggés nélkül, a mint az a katonaéletben meg szokott történni. Meglehet, hogy ezeket a históriákat nem fogják azok az urak, a kik többet tudnak, mint én, valami mesterséges szépséggel formáltaknak találni, de hiszen én azt nem is kivánom, csupán csak meg akarok emlékezni az én hajdani gazdámról, a ki hadnagy volt a honvédeknél; a kik ismerték, tudhatják, hogy milyen nagy gavallér volt a leányok körül, s milyen jó katona volt a háborúban. * * *
- 76. Erdélybe tettek bennünketegy újonan alakított zászlóaljhoz, mely még nem volt egészen felszerelve. Csak a puska hiányzott még, meg a tölténytartó. Köpönyegje senkinek sem volt; egyébiránt az egész ármádia annyiban volt uniformis, hogy mind mezitláb járt. Az én hadnagyom sokat panaszkodott a kapitánynál, a ki egy incarnatus cseh erdőmester volt valaha, később kávés Pesten, míg a leányának a férje őrnagygyá lett a zászlóaljunknál s az megtette kapitánynak. Tehát ennek, mondom, sokat panaszkodott a hadnagyom, hogy a szegény katonák fáznak, adjanak nekik legalább köpönyeget. De mind hiába, az őrnagy urak elkártyázták a pénzt, a mit a kormány a csapatok fölszerelésére küldött s a sok unszolásra végre is a jámbor cseh exkávés egy bonmotval fizette ki a hadnagyomat, melyet állítólag Napoleon mondott a katonáinak, mikor Egyptomban leszakadt róluk a ruha és zúgolódni kezdtek. «Avecd pain et du fer on peut aller a Chine.» Annyit tesz körülbelől, hogy: «vassal és kenyérrel Chináig el lehet hatolni.» Az én hadnagyom ezt a sort leiratta velem százötvenszer külön papirosra, azután kivitte a legénysége közé: «No fiaim, itt a köpönyeg,» s feltűzködte a vállaikra gombostűvel. Még csak csizma kellett. Csakugyan kaptunk is egy szép reggel háromszáz darab újdon-új suvixos iskátulát. Engemucscse! ez jó gondolat, mondá a hadnagyom, csizma helyett suvixot küldeni! S másnap, hogy a kis szürke generális szemlét tartott a sereg felett, a mi századunk gyönyörű fényesre kisuvixolt mezitlábakkal defilírozott el a vezér előtt, hátul mindenkinek sarkantyú volt pingálva a sarkára krétával. A vezér először nevetett, azután pedig összeszidta az őrnagyunkat.
- 77. Az őrnagy isnevetett először, s azután összeszidta a kapitányt. A kapitány végre elkezdett veszekedni az én hadnagyommal, a hadnagyom pedig ő vele, s miután az egyik magyarul, a másik németűl nem értett, egyik sem végzett semmit a másikkal. Utóbb is úgy szoktunk el a mezitláb járástól, hogy egy oláh falut dicsőségesen elfoglalva, az oláh menyecskék ott felejtett piros csizmáiban honosítottuk meg lábainkat, s azóta piros csizmás regementnek csúfolták századunkat. Könnyű volt nekik beszélni onnan az üveges hintóból. * * * A legelső csatában nem sok tennivalót találtunk. Messziről lövöldöztek felénk, nekünk csak állni kellett. Az ujonczkatona kapkodta jobbra-balra a fejét, a mint valami láthatatlant fütyölni hallott a levegőben. – Ne kapkodd a fejedet öcsém, kiálta rá olyankor a hadnagyom, mert még bele találod ütni valami golyóba. Volt köztünk egy öreg süket ember. Erővel eljött velünk, hogy ő golyóbist visz haza a gyerekeinek játszani. Negyven esztendő óta nem hallott már egyik fülére sem. Csak úgy kézzel-lábbal lehetett vele beszélni. Egy pillanatban nyolcz ágyút sütöttek el az ellenség részéről egyszerre. Rengett bele hegy völgy. A süket erre szétnézett és azt mondta, hogy valahol elsült egy puska. Mi felénk azonban egy messziről irányzott golyó kezdett gurúlni. Már rég leesett röptéből a földre, gurúlva szép egyenesen s csak olykor ugorva egyet, ha véletlen kavicsba ütődött. A hadnagyom intett az öregnek, hogy ott jön a golyóbis, fogja el szaporán.
- 78. Az sem voltrest, lekapta a nyakából szűrzekéjét s a mint a golyó odaért, hirtelen lefülelte vele, mint az ürgét szokták. Hanem a golyónak az a szokása, hogy még fáradt korában is jól birja magát; mire a mi emberünk elkiáltotta magát, hogy «fogom», már az akkor tíz lépésnyire volt tőle, szörnyű lyukat ütve a ráborított köpönyegen. Ez azután szaladt utána, kergette messze földre, hol előtte járt, hol utána, míg végre vagy ötszáz lépésnyi távolban csakugyan elfogta s hozta vissza nagy triumphussal. Otthon persze azt mesélte, hogy rajta volt a köpönyeg, mikor kilyukasztotta a hatfontos galacsin. A második csatában már egy ágyút vettünk el az ellenségtől. A szerencsétlen nagyon közel jött hozzánk, s mielőtt ránk lőhetett volna, a hadnagyom elhitette a legénységgel, hogy az a mi ágyúnk, melyet mindjárt elfog az ellenség, ne engedjük! Nem is engedtük, nekiiramodtunk; ránk lőtt egy párszor, de soha sem talált, s míg ideje lett volna bámulásából magához térhetni, már útban voltunk vele hazafelé. Az egészet kevesebb időbe került megtenni, mint leirni. Azóta nem csufolta senki a piros csizmás regementet, sőt nemsokára puskát is adtak a kezünkbe. Lőni persze bajos volt egynémelyikkel, de ütni mind igen alkalmasok voltak. * * * Végre-valahára megértük, hogy a kapitányunkat elmozdították a zászlóaljunktól. Áttették őrnagynak valami még nem létező zászlóaljhoz. Ennek az örömére az egész együttlévő tisztikar lakomát rendezett.
- 79. Senki sem szeretteszegényt, a tiszteken kezdve a legapróbb dobosig, magyarúl nem beszélt, csatába soha sem ment, jótékony czélokra soha nem adakozott. Csaták napján mindig kólikát kellett neki kapni, vagy ha előre megérezhette a salétromot, elküldette magát futárnak Debreczenbe; csakugyan addig is járt oda, míg ki nem nevezték őrnagynak, számfelettinek valamelyik garnisonba. Mikor Komáromot feladták, csupán ott háromszáz darabból álló számfeletti őrnagy-gyüjtemény találtatott. Tehát egy szép reggel a mi exkávés kapitányunkat utolérte a promovirt und amovirt. Soha Közlöny érdekesebb nem volt előttünk, mint a mely e jó hírt hozta, még akkor sem, mikor a «külföld» rovat alatt három hétig semmi egyébről, csak a californiai bányákról értekezett. Ez estét rendkivüli szertartással kelle megünnepelni, s minthogy az új őrnagy nem szándékozott kineveztetése áldomását megtartani, maga a tisztikar tartotta meg azt. Látszott, hogy vannak, kik ez előléptetésnek jobban örülnek, mint maga az előléptetett. Azon közben az én fránya hadnagyom volt a tisztikar által megbízva azon szeretetreméltó kötelességgel, miszerint az új őrnagy utolsó tisztességtételére valami rettenetes jó tréfát gondoljon ki. Mikor már vége felé járt a vacsora, előszólíták a hadnagyomat, hogy lássuk már a medvét. – Mivel teendjük az új őrnagyra nézve emlékezetessé e napot? kérdezék tőle. Ő felelé igen komolyan: – Fáklyás zenét fogunk neki adni. – Fáklyás zenét! kiáltá egy az asztal végéről. – Talán macskazenét akartál mondani? replikázott egy harmadik.
- 80. – A legünnepélyesebbfáklyás zenét… ismétlé a hadnagyom, s komoly, mogorva vonásaiból előre lehete látni, hogy az valami fölséges mulatság lesz. A czimborák teljhatalmat adtak hadnagyomnak minden szükséges intézkedésekre s egy óra mulva útban volt az ünnepélyes menet az ujdonsült őrnagy szállása felé s ott nagy dob- és trombitaszóval megállapodott. A dobszóra és fáklyavilágra ijedten dugta ki fejét az ablakon az ujdonsült őrnagy, akkor bújt ki az ágyból, a paplant a nyakába vette, hogy meg ne hüljön, s a hálósipka nyakáig volt tarkójára húzva. A mint tehát fejét kidugta, rettenetes éljenkiáltás fogadta minden oldalról, s a dob és trombita ujra megzendült. Az ember meg volt lepetve. Ennyi tiszteletet ő nem várt s erősen iparkodott azokra az érdemeire visszaemlékezni, mik ez enthusiasmust előidézték. Azonban fejét azért egész majestással hajtogatta jobbra-balra, miáltal a hálósipkán a fehér czafrang hol előre, hol hátra ugrott. A zene elhallgatott, az én hadnagyom felállt egy szalmaszékre és monda a megtiszteltnek egy ilyen szép, körmönfont dikcziót: – Tisztelt férfiú, érdemes kávéfőző morva hazánkfia! A megtisztelt egy szót sem értvén a hozzá intézett nyelvből, levette a hálósüveget a fejéről és rendkívül hizelkedőnek találta a megszólítást. Az én hadnagyom folytatá magasztos ábrázattal: – Nemes emberbarát, ki soha egy csirkének vérét sem ontottad ki, mégis őrnagy lettél, légy üdvözölve általam! Nem akarom szerénységedet az által megpirítani, hogy érdemeidet elősoroljam; hallgatok. Ámde emléked fenmarad azoknak hálás sziveiben, kiknek két havi lénungját szépen elköltötted. S bár ha elmégy is, itt maradnak a be nem fejezett számadások, mikről reád emlékezünk.
- 81. Az érzékeny hang,melylyel e szavakat hadnagyom elmondá, sürű könyeket idézett elő a kávés őrnagy szemeiben, valami olyast látszott rebegni, mintha ő ennyi magasztalást nem érdemlene. A hadnagyom az eddigi magasztos hangból a hősibe ment át. – De bár ha szivünk forró óhajtása az volna, hogy akkor lássunk, mikor a hátunk közepét, reméljük, hogy ott, hol a jutalmakat fogják osztogatni, veled ismét találkozunk. Oh, te csaták hőse, ki elől jártál, mikor retiráltunk, s fedezted a bagázsiát, mikor előre mentünk! Az őrnagy egészen el volt ragadtatva. Igérte, hogy a hazáért mindenre képes volna, de mindenre! Végtére siralmas, fájdalmas accentussal szólt a hadnagyom ekképen: – S minekutána azt kivánnám tenéked, hogy áldjon meg tégedet az ég, mint a suhai malmot (notabene: hétszer ütött bele a ménkű egy nyáron), felhíva érzem magamat, társaimnak (itt az egész kompániára mutatott) azon őszinte óhajtását tudatni veled: vajha megláthassák egykoron a mi szemeink a te elevenen való mennybemeneteledet! A megtisztelt szívére nyomott kézzel esküvék, hogy neki nincsenek ezeknél forróbb kivánságai. Erre megzendült a Rákóczy-induló, a szónok és a megtisztelt egymás nyakába borúltak, az új őrnagy zokogva állítá, hogy ő annyira el van fogódva, hogy egy okos sententiát nem bir előhozni, hanem majd, ha a tisztelt urak beveszik Pestet, keressék föl az ő kávéházát, most a felesége főzi benne a kávét, mert a család férfitagjait az őrnagy sógor mind megtette kit kapitánynak, kit élelmezési biztosnak, ott tehát igen olcsón fognak reggelizhetni és ozsonnázhatni. Ez igen érzékeny bucsúvétel után ünnepélyesen megvált az egész tisztikar a promoveált collegától, a kit, miután senki sem szeretett,
- 82. maig is meghagytakabban a hitben, hogy őt az ő zászlóalja, mikor megvált tőle, fáklyás zenével tisztelte meg utoljára. Később csakugyan megtudtam, mintegy fél év mulva, hogy micsoda zászlóaljhoz tették át a derék emberbarátot. Volt abban a zászlóaljban egy őrnagy, három kapitány, két hadnagy és négy közlegény. Voltak-e valaha többen is, s átszökdöstek más zászlóaljhoz, vagy eredetileg ez volt-e a zászlóalj létszáma? azzal nem szolgálhatok. * * * Egyszer Debreczenbe voltunk rendelve. A vendéglőben lakó tisztek panaszkodtak, hogy van köztük egy olasz, a ki egész éjjel énekel és fistulázik, senki sem alhatik tőle. – Ha csak ez a baj, mondá a hadnagyom, bízzátok rám, megszöktetem én innen. S éjjelre tehát beköltözött az olaszszal tőszomszéd szobába, szépen levetkőzött, lefeküdt, nekem pedig meghagyta, hogy el ne aludjam, mert majd sokat fogják nyitogatni az ajtót. Éjfél után vetődött haza az olasz s mint rendesen szoká, a helyett, hogy lefeküdt volna, kinyitott ajtót, ablakot s elkezde valamennyi alvók gyönyörködtetésére szebbnél szebb áriákat énekelni, egymásután tizenötféle operából. Az én hadnagyom erre felült az ágyban s várta, mikor az olasz a legérzékenyebb andantéba kezdett keseredni; akkor elkezdett gyalulni és fürészelni a szájával. Oly élethíven tudta e hangokat utánozni; minden furást, faragást, gyalutaszítást, fürészelést, az asztalosmesterséget reprezentáló minden czikornyákat, hogy a ki kivülről hallgatta, megesküdhetett rá, hogy odabenn egy igen szorgalmas asztalosmester dolgozik valami sietős munkán.
- 83. Az olaszt szörnyenconfundálta a harmoniátlan fürészelés. Elhallgatott. Várta, hogy mikor lesz vége. Az én gazdám pedig egyre gyalult, fürészelt és faragott. Végre nem állhatta az olasz, bezörgetett: – Sacramento! mit csinálnak ideát? Nem kapván feleletet, azt gondolta, hogy itt az emberek oly nagy munkában vannak, hogy nem hallják a szót, s azzal fogta a gyertyáját, lement a vendéglőshöz, fellármázott valamennyi kellnert, marqueurt és szobaleányt. – Istentelenség! istentelenség! istentelenség! – Mit jelent ez a háromszoros istentelenség, signor? kérdé a felriadt vendéglős. – Először istentelenség az, hogy egy hôtel garniban meg van engedve, hogy egy asztalosmester műhelyt állítson fel, másodszor istentelenség az, hogy egy asztalosmesternek meg van engedve, hogy még ünnepnapon is dolgoztassa a legényeit, harmadszor és utoljára istentelenség az, hogy meg van engedve egy asztalosmesternek, hogy éjfél után egy órakor felkeljen mind a hat legényével együtt, s fúrjon, faragjon, gyaluljon és fürészeljen, mintha soha több nap nem lenne. A korcsmáros szemet szájt tátott e beszédre s kérte az olaszt, hogy mutassa meg, melyik szobában lakik itt az asztalosmester hat legényével? Az olasz egyenesen hozta a hadnagyomhoz. Benyitnak hozzá. Ő fekszik a fal felé fordulva és horkol. Én intek, hogy lábujjhegyen járjanak, fel ne költsék. Szétnéznek gyertyával, látják, hogy itt sehol gyalunak, fürésznek vagy asztalosműhelynek nyoma sincs. – Kegyed álmodott, mondá a vendéglős az olasznak. Á
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