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Timothy Burke’s meditation on design thinking and the desire for control is well worth the read.
The short version is that utopian ideas tend to rely on predictions of human behavior that are either one-dimensional or simply based on the preferences of the designer. As any writer knows, readers can take texts in directions that the writer never even imagined. The same is true of inventions, buildings, programs and innovations of all kinds.
That’s usually called the law of unintended consequences, but I don’t think that quite captures it. Unintended consequences can be unforeseeable or entirely accidental, as in the use of chemicals for various products years before science discovers that those chemicals are harmful. What Burke is getting at is something more like free will. People insist on behaving as they will, for their own reasons. Those reasons may violate the intent of the designer of the system.
That doesn’t strike me as an argument against thinking about systems, though. It’s more an argument for making them porous and adaptable.
Political science liked to claim in the late 20th century that the early 20th century proved that utopias are deadly. There’s an obvious truth to that. But it’s also true that demands that seemed unreasonable or even outlandish a generation ago are common sense now. Sometimes what looks like utopianism is something closer to contingency planning. Sometimes simply asking, “Does it really have to be this way?” can be the first step forward.
We have the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world. Do we have to? We have enormous opportunity gaps by race and class. Do we have to?
Utopians who ask questions, rather than provide final answers, are a crucial source of hope. I hope they keep going. We need them.
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This week I attended the retirement party for Art Marshall, who started on the faculty at Brookdale in 1969. As he noted at the dinner, his interview was the day after the Moon landing.
He leaves as a respected figure, contributing to the end. I have to tip my cap. Well done, Professor Marshall.
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Last weekend I saw my friend Lori Messinger for the first time since the ’90s. Our paths crossed for a few years in grad school before she moved on to social work. She’s currently a dean in the social work program at the University of Tennessee.
In an effort to be a gentleman, I thoughtfully did all the aging for both of us.
Seeing an old friend for the first time in decades is always a little jarring. We’ve been in touch through social media, but real life offers a fuller picture. (I got a kick out of the partial Southern accent that wasn’t there in the ’90s.) As different as we are, and as accidental as our paths have been, we share an unshakable higher ed nerdiness. Neither of us had any intention of going into administration, yet here we are.
She met TW and TG, and commented that even after learning their names, to her, they’re still TW and TG. I can respect that.
After all these years, though, and despite exposure to the helping professions and a more genteel culture, the tough Philly side of her is still discernible. Some things don’t change.
If you had told me in 1992 what our titles would be today, I would have laughed out loud. But I have to admit that “Dean Messinger” has a ring to it.
