Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man was first published in 1794 and gives a philosophical framework for ADVANCE DESIGN. Schiller spoke to the problems humanity faced at the onset of modernity:
On the one hand, the extension of empirical knowledge and sharper thinking rendered a more precise distinction of the sciences necessary, while on the other the elaborate machinery of the state demanded a more consistent separation of ranks and occupations; the inner unity of human nature was torn apart, and a ruinous dispute set its harmonious powers at odds.
Eternally shackled to one small fragment of the whole, man imagined himself to be a fragment, in his ear the constant and monotonous noise of the wheel that he turned; never capable of developing the harmony of his being, and instead of marking the humanity in his nature, he simply became the impress of his occupation, his particular knowledge.
But not even that bare fragmentary union still attaching the individual parts to the whole depended upon forms that they were able to determine themselves (for who would voluntarily surrender his liberty to a mechanism so artificial and shy of light?); any such autonomy was spurious, since the forms were in fact prescribed for them, inhibiting any free insight.
We do know that the powerful genius does not take the limits of his occupation to be the limits of his activity, but the mediocre talent uses up the entirety of his meagre powers in pursuing the occupation that has fallen to him; and anyone who has time left over for his own pursuits once his occupational duties are fulfilled must already be uncommonly gifted. Moreover, the state seldom thinks it any recommendation when powers exceed tasks; nor if the higher intellectual needs of the man of genius compete with the demands of office. The state jealously guards a monopoly over its servants; it would rather its man dallied with passions of the flesh than with those of the mind, and who could blame it for so doing?
And, quite gradually, real individual life is extinguished, so that the threadbare existence of the abstract idea of the whole might prevail; the state remains for ever alien to its citizens, finding no feeling for it. Wearying at last of maintaining a bond whose burden is so little eased by the state, positive society relapses into a moral state of nature.
While the fragmentation of minds was necessary to bring technology to its current state, this was ultimately a drain on humanity that is palpable today. By segmenting the society in a siloed mechanistic manner, there is no understanding of what is being built as a whole. Continuing the separation of the sciences into deep material analysis along individual lines will only exacerbate the problems that we currently face, not solve them.
Shiller's philosophy can be summarized as the process of developing the aesthetic faculty through the playful impulse between the material and formal impulses. Taking design as science, the art then is to conceive The New Design Science.
Searching for design science leads one to Buckminster Fuller. The design science revolution put forth by Fuller's ilk is in opposition to achieving the beauty of ADVANCE DESIGN's New Design Science. We need to look holistically at the system, but not in the whole systems paradigm of the Buckminster Fuller Institute wherein all disciplines work toward prescribed goals while remaining siloed. The New Design Scientists must spread themselves along all disciplines to conduct a legitimate material analysis. Only then can we begin to understand the game being played and work our formal impulse accordingly with, against or in compromise with the system.
Fuller appears to have been a transcendental rube, playing the role of quirky innovative genius outsider, but his prescience concerning future technology raises questions about the extent of his operational milieu. A cursory glance shows his Phi Beta Kappa membership in company with such greats as Jeff Bezos. Fuller was in direct contact with Pierre Trudeau of Canada, who hand delivered a paper to Russia promoting Fuller's concept of a global time-energy system that aligns with the capabilities of today's blockchains. How is someone who is heralded as an outlaw of design appointed as a 'Distinguished Scientist' of the United States Institute of Behavioral Research? How does a maverick receive numerous honorary doctorates? These accolades should be a magnificent rippling red flag for any diligent honest truth seeker. In reality, Fuller's new age ideology comes from the same dark world order institutions steeped in white supremacy and eugenic thought that he purports to overthrow. All this including the fact that his books gave inspiration to Barbara Marx Hubbard with whom he divulged his mini-christhood, exposing his association with a lineage of anti-human new age evolutionary psychopathy. His total material cosmology, viewing reality as 'Spaceship Earth', constrains the current design paradigm. Bucky's design science is no revolution. It is a false light facade dug to trap the higher mind.
Fuller in Critical Path states that:
It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry. The essence of livingry is human-life advantaging and environment controlling. With the highest aeronautical and engineering facilities of the world redirected from weaponry to livingry production, all humanity would have the option of becoming enduringly successful.
Buckminster's computer driven utopia would inherently be controlled by military capital. Thinking that a switch from weaponry to livingry would result in freedom for mankind and create 'four-billion billionaires' is evidently laughable. This new global system simply creates a new set of feudal landlords and facilitates the return of previously powerful old aristocracies. The same people who have created the problems of today are misleading well-meaning individuals by way of Hegelian dialectic. Schiller recognized how the establishment sets up these false solutions:
...and if it so happens that they rouse themselves to higher needs, they seize with greedy credulity upon the formulations that state and priesthood have prepared for them in anticipation.
A major driving force for technological advancement after the world wars was the looming nuke apocalypse that coincided with the cold war space race. The nuke apocalypse has become climate apocalypse, with solutions promoted by the Fuller Institute under the names of 'trust-based philanthropy', 'regenerative design' and 'impact-finance'. These fields are plagued with hollow platitudes which the honest designer will recognize. Watch out for the messaging of late stage capitalism and the new economy of eco-concious esg-data-led feel-good-about-building-the-digital-enslavement-panopticon rhetoric. Attempting to meet inherently unachievable sustainability goals feeds on the self-righteousness of the higher minded individual. To metricize, quantify and understand all nature through the proliferation of sensors and smart devices is ultimate materialism. We see a move toward new economic ideas that are a surrogate for actual revolution that realigns man with nature. These newly emerging fields run rampant throughout Fuller's followers who have manifested in Luciferian cults such as the Design Science Studio.
In January of 2020, the Buckminster Fuller Institute declared a new design science decade. Is it pure coincidence that this coincides directly with the onset of the global pandemic lockdowns, the rise of the metaverse and the multipolar world order? The easiest way to comprehend the current shift we are witnessing is to cultivate an understanding of the alchemical process of transmutation from dark to light pervasive in the symbolism of today. Per Shiller, we need to access our savage sensuous faculties to reclaim our humanity, but we need to be careful not to fall into what is the false light of Lucifer and find ourselves fully given over to the new economy and beast system. Full heart and sensuous faculty does not achieve aesthetic beauty without proper balance of the formal impulse. In conceiving The New Design Science, we can not allow the challenges to be dictated to us. As designers living in the problem space, we must decide the challenges for ourselves. There needs to be a reconciling of our complicity in building the system.
In the next issue we define our guiding principles. Until then, I leave you with Animal In A Dream by Julian Cashwan Pratt:
Same ones who live for me, die for me.
Pain is never forgotten.
And blood can not be paid back with security or money.
Participation in anything is the death of something.
A camp in the country, a checkpoint in the city.
Every institution has hand in the business of death and eclipse.
How do I participate?
What do I eclipse?
How do I wanna die?
How do I wanna fight?
How do I wanna live?