Cicero on Systems & Social Design

CICERO ON SYSTEMS & SOCIAL DESIGN

October 30, 2013

DFA Design Speaker SeriesCase Western Reserve University

Kipum (Kip) LeeInteraction/service designer, instructor & PhD candidate

CICERO TO HIS BROTHER: “... I hold that eloquence is dependent upon the trained skill of highly educated men, while you consider that it must be separated from the refinements of learning and made to depend on a sort of natural talent and on practice.”

DISCIPLINE VERSUS NATURAL TALENT

“For as soon as our world-empire had been established, and an enduring peace had assured us leisure, there was hardly a youth, athirst for fame, who did not deem it his duty to strive with might and main after eloquence.”

THE APPEAL OF ORATORY & ART OF ELOQUENCE

“... the subject of the other arts are derived as a rule from hidden and remote sources, while the whole art of oratory lies open to the view, and is concerned in some measure with the common practice, custom, and speech of mankind,

AT THE LEVEL OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE

so that, whereas in all other arts that is most excellent which is farthest removed from the understanding and mental capacity of the untrained, in oratory the very cardinal sin is to depart from the language of everyday life, and the usage approved by the sense of the community.”

TIED TO HUMAN EXPERIENCE

“And considering all this, who would not rightly marvel that, in all the long record of ages, times, and states, so small a number of orators is to be found? ... what else could anyone think to be the cause, unless it be the really incredible vastness and difficulty of the subject?”

RARITY OF GREAT ORATORS & CHALLENGE OF SUBJECT MATTER

CRASSUS: “... for my assertion is this: that the wise control of the complete orator is that which chiefly upholds not only his own dignity, but the safety of countless individuals and of the entire State ... a source of service to your friends, and profitable members of the Republic.”

THESIS: WIDE APPLICATION OF ORATORY

SCAEVOLA: “Crassus, I do not think you should make professions so extensive and so numerous. What you are able to guarantee is a thing great enough, namely, that in the courts whatever case you present should appear to be the better and more plausible,

THESIS CHALLENGED: LIMITED APPLICATION

SCAEVOLA: that in assemblies and in the Senate your oratory should have most weight in carrying the vote ... If you can achieve anything more than this, therein you will seem to me not an orator but a Crassus, who is making use of some talent that is peculiarly his own and not common to orators in general.”

THESIS CHALLENGED: CULT OF PERSONALITY

CRASSUS: “... without a mastery of ordinances, customs and general law, without a knowledge of human nature and character, he cannot engage even in these restricted activities. But to a man who has learned these things, can there be anything lacking that belongs to the knowledge of the highest matters?”

“A WAY” CONSISTING OF FUNDAMENTALS

CRASSUS: “Therefore whatever the theme, from whatever art or whatever branch of knowledge it be taken, the orator, just as if he had got up the case for a client, will state it better and more gracefully than the actual discoverer and the specialist.”

POSSIBLE TO GRASP SUBJECT BETTER THAN EXPERTS

Accessible: (all) have the capacity to design at the level of human experience

Difficult: while many are enthusiastic about it, high quality products are rare

Powerful: wide in reach, no determined subject matter, in some sense can be mastered by non-masters

SUMMARY: DESIGN IS ...

SAFE AGUA PERU’S “THE GIRADORA”

http://www.designmattersatartcenter.org/projects/

MILITARY AND MOB HABITS

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/02/25/protesters-storm-green-zone-as-11-killed-in-iraqi-day-of-rage/

WOMEN IN ORCHESTRAS

http://central.colostate.edu/event/music-csu-concert-orchestra-with-csu-womens-chorus/

THANKS!

KML61@case.edu

http://placesofdesign.com

@kipum