In a conversation outside the Westin hotel, Ralph reiterated his belief that powerpoint democratised multi-media. Which reminded me of something an Indian once said to me: "You British gave us democracy. It was like giving a monkey a jasmine garland*".
His point was that India was not in a position to make best use of that power over itself in 1947. Having power is only good if you can wield it effectively. Democracy tends to work best with educated and literate populations**. N.B. I am not suggesting that India (or any other state) should forgo democracy for technocratic rule by expert or neo-colonialism or enlightened despotism. But if powerpoint (& digital cameras & Flickr & podcasting & video sharing & etc) is a democratising force then it needs a literate citizenship to take it up. And I'm not sure we have that yet. But you have to start somewhere.
Which is why I still think we need the visually literate to be educators as much as designers in their own right.
*Hey ma, I just offended 1 billion people.
**Although you have to start somewhere and dictators often don't want their populations to be literate and educated enough to disagree with them.
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3 comments:
Hello Matt,
You have not have offended nearly as many as you think you might have :-) I hail from the land of the billion people (there is only two of them, and i come from the one which has an international cricket team :) ... and i could not agree with you more... except for that fact that you imply India is a democracy... well... only kind of! You can buy and sell votes, fear campaigns work just as well as they do in any other country... (eg. children overboard scandal getting a government elected, the tampa thing getting a government elected, terrorism scare's getting the government elected... i'm surprised work choices did not work - perhaps the population got savvier... but don't worry... any political system will beat any intelligence out of everyone over time and the next campaign we should be back to the scare tactics and fear mongering we all know and love ;) ... so in fact, i further what you saw... and state, that perhaps democracy as we know it does not work with even percieved literate people. perhaps the democracy as it is defined now (one vote per person) is not the one socrates dreamed off... perhaps we need another system altogether... everyone's say is not equal and everyone cannot make equally balanced decisions on the future... how you stop abuse of any alternative system is a good question though... we all know that the chinese government officials have billions in their banks and its hardly a fair system... hardly communistic i would say... we need a new world order... and indeed... i do believe that democracy can work in a truly intelligent society... but which country have you seen an intelligent mob in?
Hi Matt,
I am also one from the land of a billion :) and your post does not offend if anything it reiterates a sentiment that i believe in myself and one which i have heard many a times.
But then I also believe that there aren't a lot of us who would've had it any other way, if i may digress a bit, democracy was long overdue in India and any further delay might have worsened everything for everybody involved.
I believe that having got democracy at the time we did was important in shaping us to what we currently are as a country, to understand this you have to understand the psyche of a typical Indian citizen, cynicism is a part of the game it is inherent in you as an Indian - as is, quite surprisingly, optimism - there is faith, in the country, in the system in spite of what it may be currently be.
I believe it has been a commendable feat in itself to get to where we are at the moment and more so because of what the country is - the diversity, the variety, the different kinds of people and cultures that you see all over the country and with all this tapestry of people, culture and what not to reach a stage where in just 50 years of democracy people globally cannot afford to ignore you as a force is commendable.
Where am i leading with this?
what i am trying to say is that sometimes it is necessary to give the monkey the garland, the misuse of the garland or the destruction of the garland is in my view a step in the evolution of the monkey finally being able to appreciate the garland and seeing it for what it is.
you can have a literate citizenship which are handed their democratising tools by the educators and designers and then they are told to use them and then as we've seen in the past, when a group of people are given the freedom to do what they want they usually end up imitating each other, not my words and i cannot remember where i read them but they are so true IMHO.
at times it helps if there isn't a battle plan, in fact it also helps if there isn't a commander in charge leading, but then that can also be a double edged sword in itself :)
sentient being... you put me to shame with your well thought out response... :-) perhaps the monkey does need to be given the garland :-)
i still think that democracy is over rated though... i don't believe it works in any of the countries in the world... democracy is "mob mentality" ... and that is not good...
viva la revolution!
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