BENJAMIN BAS

A revaluation of negativity within a cult of positivism

This work is partly me positing my identity as a philosopher and a designer, not as a synthesis of the two but the identity of the tension between them. It is a reflection on my experience as a design student and a student of philosophy. 

I will do this in two parts, the first part will consist of a theoretical analysis of my experiences as a design student within the culture of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the TU Delft. The second part will try to explicate my theory of negative design that developed as a result of those experiences. This theory is a collection of tools that feel valuable to me at the moment, they help me approach design without getting caught up in the productivistic machine that drives the design world. 

I want to preface this work by saying that this is not entirely a prescriptive work, but a work that aims at inducing reflection. Nothing that will be said is set in stone, and I am always open to reflection, as that is the real goal of this idea. So let us start with describing the culture that shaped this critique, I like to call it the positivity cult.

De world consists of tensions. Clashes of ideologies standing against each other or the needs of humanity that can not be unified with what the material world can provide us. What I see as the positivity cult are the people who see these tensions but refuse to accept them. They jump to resolve tensions with the means of a third option, as they can’t stand the conflict. This mentality can be represented by the words of an old professor of mine, professor Paul Hekkert, during his speech at the Dies Natalis of the TU Delft. 

“The hardest and most desirable strategy is to resolve the conflict: the desired behaviour becomes the new normal thanks to the designed product.”

This of course sounds like a righteous endeavour, but I want to show how this attitude can be toxic for the culture at the TU Delft and outside of it. This attitude, according to me, fosters a cult of positivity. As an example, we can look at the biggest problem of the modern age, climate change. 

Climate change can be described as a tension between humanities growing consumption rates and the rate in which we deplete the resources the earth can provide us. Tension here refers to the fact that the two poles of this situation can not exist at the same time. We can not keep consuming this amount of resources and expect that this will not result in resource depletion. Our excessive urge to consume did of course not come out of nowhere, it stems from the liberal ideology that is present today in many western countries. This liberalism centralises the individual and its freedom. 

 “The liberty of a person is strictly a function of the restraints that the agent faces in the carrying out of her decisions”

Freedom becomes individual freedom to choose, the freedom to, as our president worded it aptly, just be able to keep on barbecuing. Here we see why this situation results in a tension. Because freedom in a liberal society is measured in the freedom of the individual to do what they want, every restriction or minor limitation of the individuals’ freedom will be seen as an attack on the freedom of society. The earlier mentioned speech by Paul Hekkert posits this as a simple problem we can just evade.

“And “doing the right thing” does not necessarily have to come at a price! Many politicians would have us believe that we must develop a taste for sacrifice: they ask us to eat less meat, exercise more, stop flying, or leave our cars at home. Whether we are considering energy consumption, food options, or healthy behaviours, designers can develop possibilities for action that make us love the right thing, take for granted that it is the obvious choice, and incorporate it into our everyday lives without much effort or any sense of loss.”

We can not ask people to eat less meat, fly less, or take their bikes to work more often, as this would result in a sense of loss. A loss not only of your piece of meat but also of your freedom. The solution can not be a loss, it has to be a positive reconciliation of the tension. 

A third way

Back to climate change. There is a direct contradiction between our urge to consume and a decline in resources of our planet. How do we solve this contradiction? How do you solve a situation where both sides of the situation can not co-exist? This can only be achieved if one of the poles of this situation changes. Either we stop consuming as much as we do now, or our world magically stops having a resource problem. It becomes clear that we have to change our consumer behaviour. Yet this is exactly what we try to avoid as it harms our feeling of freedom, contradictions are hard as it means that the world must change. We do not like contradictions, we want problems. A problem has a solution, a product that can make it so that we can stay the same, that we do not lose our freedoms. This is why we frame the contradiction of climate change as a simple problem that can have a product as its solution, which the consumer can choose out of their own free will. 

The designer becomes a stock clerk that presents its products in the supermarket isle of ideology. The consumer can pick and choose and feel good about themselves. The designer tries to out produce the problem that is caused by overproduction, this mentality we can call productivism. Buying coffee at Starbucks does not only mean buying coffee, it also means buying into an ideology. This ideology masks the bad feeling that comes up while giving in to consumerist behaviour. Yes, you just bought a 7 euro coffee, but we make sure that the farmers of the coffee beans in Africa get their fair share, the beans are cultivated honestly and regenerative, and we donate 10 cents to charity. 

For the productivist it is the case that “more products mean more cultural improvement… ad infinitum. .. products are understood to be progress embodied and construed as the driving force of cultural “progress.” 

So we should not be surprised that the designer immediately looks for the solution to the tension in the form of a product. This mentality feeds our ideology and makes it so we think the solution is consuming more instead of less. 

“Products, apart from their functional and instrumental purposes, also serve as carriers of a worldview, a way of relating to not only our human social world, but the natural world as well. For many people the relationships they establish with or through their technologies are more immediate and “real” than any “always distant” concerns about the environmental consequences associated with their consumption.”

Designers try to design for our future in order to secure a planet that is sustainable. Yet, the road to achieve this seems to always follow the productivist mentality that brought us to this situation in the first place. This is the culture I would like to call the positivity cult. Every tension has a solution, and if not, we just adapt the problem. 

Problem creation

In the design process, the designer develops an understanding of the structures of the design context. These structures come up when the designer runs into inconsistencies while exploring the context. With this, the designer can redefine the problem and the solution space. A designer never starts his process with a simple problem, but with an analysis of the complete context out of which inconsistencies and tensions arise. These moments are moments when:  “all the statements…are true or valid, but they cannot be combined.” 

Places where a situation gets stuck. To get this situation unstuck, the whole context and framework wherein this tension exists need to be redefined. Tensions and contradictions can not disappear without a change in the context of the subject matter as it is dependent on this context. A metaphor of this we see in the concept of a parallax. A parallax is when an object seems to have moved in position relative to its background, dependent on your point of view. As an example, we can take measuring an object with a transparent ruler. When a transparent ruler is placed on an object, there emerges a difference between scale on the ruler and the object itself. If the measurement is read from right above the ruler and the object, there isn’t a problem, but if the person reading the measurement is looking from an angle than the parallax effect comes into play. The numbers shift depending on the position of the person reading the measurements. What I want to make clear here is that in reality there is never a neutral position to look at the measurements, we are always looking at it from a certain angle, or a certain ideological perspective. If we what we are looking at gets stuck in a tension, the only way to make sure to resolve this tension is to look at it from a different perspective. In order to do this, you have to first accept this tension as unsolvable from the context it arose in, a context that is dependent on your ideological point of view. 

Take sustainable development as an example. The method within the faculty of Industrial Design at the TU Delft is focused on sustainable development. “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland definition). The contradiction that arise from our constant need for development (productivism) and the limits of our planet, are here effectively sidelined. By seeing sustainable development as the solution, we retroactively redefine the context into a simple problem, and not the unresolved tension that it is. The problem effectively becomes: What was the best way to approach development in order for us to not end up in this insurmountable situation. Sustainable development would have been a good idea if it was introduced and applied a hundred years ago. It is as if we try to start over without accepting the damage we inflicted already. 

When designer look at the world and see tensions, between for example ideology and material reality, there is not really a problem yet. A problem only arises when we add a goal to that tension. The tension between the world lessening in resources and our ideology of abundance is only a problem when we add as a condition that we want to stay the same throughout the change of the world, we dont want to change our ideological perspective. But when we present the situation, we often forget to mention that we added this prerequisite. This prerequisite structures what the problem becomes, and with that defines what the solution can become. Problem and solution are not distinct, they define each other, defining the problem means defining the solution, and proposing a solution can retroactively define the problem. Our need to keep our individual freedoms, individualism and liberal ideology restricts us in defining the problem and solution space. 

Tarrying with the negative

To conclude, we as designer look at climate change from a certain perspective. This perspective is what feels comfortable for us, solving problems through producing products. Because this feels comfortable, it becomes a reflex to look at everything from this productivistic perspective. This works until a contradiction arises because of this perspective. 

“A guy is looking for his lost key under the street light; when asked where he lost it, he admits that it was in a dark corner. So why is he looking for it here, under the light? Because the visibility is much better here.” 

This is what we see happening in the world of design, we look for solutions within the well lit method of productivism, but it is this method that causes the situation we are trying to get out of. 

In order for us to get unstuck from this situation, we need an attitude that is not branded by positivity. Marx’s quote that philosophers have interpreted the world enough and now is the time to change it made sense in the time of Marx. And in the years after Marx, the world has changed in such a rapid tempo that we might have to ask ourselves if it isn’t time to stop and start interpreting the world again. 

This is not a call for passivity, and I also do not claim that there aren’t problems that need our attention. It is merely a call to pull those problems out of the framework of productivism. To see room for progress in our situation today, we need a moment of critical reflection. A moment that reveals the tension within society as tensions and not simple problems. This moment is a negative moment, and from this negative moment the conditions can arise within which progress is possible again. Progress not merely as accumulative growth, more production, but a redefinition of what progress means. It is breaking free a stranded ship that is slowly deteriorating because of its inactivity. We do not know its destination, we do not care for directing it towards a specific goal. We only care for making sure it can sail again. 

Negative Design

The reason that we are talking about negative design here is because we are rebelling against the cult of positivity. The goal of negative design is to lay bare the internal contradictions within our society with regard to the big problems we encounter. Not because we are looking for solutions, but to make sure we accept the conditions of these contradictions. After this acceptance, we can start and try to interpret these contradicting situations. This is like ploughing our ideological grounds to make it fertile again. This fertile ground is not predestined to house the highest trees or the biggest crops, we do not know what it will house. That is not our priority. The negative designer uses speculation in a new way. Not to speculate in a prescriptive manner, how the world should look, but to speculate on what the world will look like if we take the contradictions of today to its extreme. 

This is called speculative design, a design principle by Anthony Dune and Fiona Raby. Negative design is inspired by the principles of speculative design. 

Dunne and Raby describe speculative design as follows

“an activity where conjecture is as good as knowledge, where futuristic and alternative scenarios convey ideas, and where the goal is to emphasize implications of “mindless” decisions for mankind.”

From this description we can give an outline of some of the main tenets of negative design.

Conjecture is as good as knowledge

In negative design, this is represented with the concept of Truth-fiction. Fiction is just as valuable as truth for the negative designer, often stories carry messages better than facts can. The negative designer uses these fictions to strengthen their message. This can be done with a simple metaphor (like the famous Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by Buckminster Fuller), but it can also be more than that. Truth-fiction can be used to blur the line between theory and fiction and establish fiction as a more serious medium. Making people doubt what’s real and what’s not real, is a powerful experience for the negative designer. It forces people to think about what it means to be real, and if the distinction they followed between real unreal, facts feelings or truth and fiction are valuable. 

Emphasize implications of “mindless” decisions for mankind

What if? This is the most powerful tool in the arsenal of the negative designer. What if hyper individualism of society keeps on progressing? What if the gap between rich and poor keeps growing? By thinking these hypothetical scenarios to their extremes, and trying to speculatively visualize what these extremes would look like through the means of design, the negative designer is able to lay bare the contradictions in society today. 

An example of this can be seen in Yanis Varoufakis’ principle of Techno-feudalism. Varoufakis claims that we no longer live in the age of capitalism. Capitalism exploded itself and changed into a Techno-feudalism. This is a system where we reverted back to a form of feudal lordship, only our lords are now the big tech conglomerates, and it is not about land but about the digital world. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google (FAANG) control the largest share of the digital world and lend their digital space to you in order for you to be able to live your digital life. They do this in the same way feudal lords lend out lots of land to peasants in the medieval feudal system. Varoufakis himself adds the following caveat. 

“This is a large claim that comes on the heels of many premature forecasts of capitalism’s demise, especially from the left. But this time it may well be true.”

The theory is more of a prediction than that it accurately describes the situation we are in today. Yet, this idea of Techno-feudalism works really well to show the dangers of companies that have a monopoly on such a large part of our daily existence. Varoufakis effectively lays bare the contradictions of today’s age through the means of designing an unwanted future.  

It doesn’t matter if it’s true if it feels true is the slogan of Truth-fiction.

This sentence would immediately alarm many people. The structure of Truth-fiction seems to be very close to the structure of many conspiracy theories. But where conspiracy theories blur the line between truth and fiction in order to lay claim to the realm of reality, Truth-fiction uses this blurring of the line to make people question the reality they exist in. We do not claim that this is how the world works, we only ask the question: what if the world worked like this?

Hermeneutics

As we explained earlier, products nowadays are seen as progress embodied, progress is embodied by the form of products we can consume. A product is a way of telling a story, and stories are how progress is explicated. But there are other ways of conveying stories than through the means of products. Everything can be a story, and everything can contribute to cultural or technological progress. Culture is man explained in retrospect through the means of a story. Interpreting these stories, is what we call hermeneutics, the designer has to retrain itself into a hermeneutic, he has to start interpreting stories. The negative designer has to make people question the stories that are most pervasive in this day and age, like progress always being productive. The focus lies on making people doubt the stories they know, because the stories that people know right now are no longer recognised as stories but as persistent absolute truths. 

We can look back at climate change once again, it is comfortable for people to look at climate change as a horde we have to get over in order for us to remain the same. We just have to build over this small obstacle, and then we can keep on living life as we are used to. 

The negative designer wants to make clear that this is not a horde but a limit. We can not spend all our energy on trying to climb this wall, we have to revert our path. We need to change the story of climate change into one that does not use the lens of productivism, which will see everything as a wall it can mount if it tries hard enough. 

These stories, and most stories of our day and age, contain the idea of the line that goes up. To rise above yourself, progression as a line that goes up etc. These stories fit productivism very well, because a line that goes up is dependent on accumulation, something can not rise if it doesn’t duplicate itself. This is why it is hard to explain progress through anything other than objects that can accumulate, like products or money. But we can also add value to stories that use decline or descend as their main motif. 

Radical openness

“It never ends: the product innovation process is a continuous circular process. A company moves through the cycle all the time, developing new products and redeveloping existing products, sometimes simultaneously.”

To conclude, none of what is posited here is a rigid method. None of the points made are set in stone, we know they will probably change depending on the context of our situation. This is not a design circle we can follow step by step. 

The goal is not a product, the goal is to give people a certain sense of doubt about the way they think about the world. We can not give people a positive solution that they can latch onto to solve all problems in their lives. We want to make people reflect on their situation and give them the feeling that a loss of their world-view is one of the most valuable things there is. This because:

The barren land is just as meaningful as the flowers that will sprout from it.

This we can never reach through the means of a crystallized method, which is why negative design is radically open. What is presented here are mere tools that can help the negative designer, but every context is different. None of what we do exists in a vacuum, the structure will lay itself bare within the context and can not be assumed beforehand. 

So we can end with a conclusion of the 5 tenets of negative design, which we could easily call non-tenets, as they are bound to change. We are merely speculatively positing what negative design can mean, but we are not setting it in stone. The only way to know if they would work is to try them out. 

1 Fiction is as important as truth, it doesn’t matter if it’s true if it feels true. 

2 Create problems, lay bare contradictions, emphasize implications of “mindless” decision-making. 

3 The end goal can be a loss, the barren land is just as meaningful as the flowers that will sprout from it. 

4 The negative designer is a hermeneutic, design and interpret stories not products

5 Radical openness, treat everything as if it’s carved in stone, until it proves to you that it is not. 

Sources

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Christman, John. “Liberalism and Individual Positive Freedom.” Ethics 101, no. 2 (1991): 343–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381867, 343.

 Elshof, Leo. “Productivism and the Product Paradigm in Technological Education.” Journal of Technology Education 17, no. 2, (lente 2006) https://doi.org/10.21061/jte.v17i2.a.2, 21

 Dorst, Kees. “Design Problems and Design Paradoxes,” Design Issues 22, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 14.

 World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 15.

 Žižek, Slavoj, Audun Mortensen, and Momus. Žižek’s Jokes: (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?). Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2014. muse.jhu.edu/book/28916, 56.

 Dunne, Anthony and Fiona. Raby. 2013. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 14

 Varoufakis, Yanis. 2021. “Techno-Feudalism Is Taking over | by Yanis Varoufakis.” Project Syndicate. June 28, 2021. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/techno-feudalism-replacing-market-capitalism-by-yanis-varoufakis-2021-06.

 Boeijen, Annemiek van, Jaap Daalhuizen, J. Zijlstra, and Roos van der Schoor. 2014. Delft design guide: design methods. 23