The Loss of Innocence and the Development of Harmony
Or, what is Maturity anyway?
Summary
On Thursday this last week I got to be part of an excellent discussion with a couple of folks on Twitter where we talked about the beginning of Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christoper Alexander and Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan. There were some really cool ideas that came out of the chat and one in particular I've been thinking about on the development of forms and the loss of innocence that accompanies them.
The loss of innocence and the development of harmony
In Notes on The Synthesis of Form Christopher Alexander characterises the development of a new architectural movements as a cycle:
The cycle begins with realising the shortcomings of the current movement. Something has changed in the world, new tools are available, the culture has shifted and the current architectural paradigm no longer produces buildings well fit to the forces around them. Unfortunately, this realisation is usually followed by an attempt to remain unaware of the shortcomings of the current movement. This means a retreat into the formalisms of a "style". Instead of seeking to create buildings well fit to their surroundings the architects create structures to fit their intellectual definitions of what a good building should be. Eventually, however, the cycle ends when this wilful ignorance breaks down and there is an acceptance of the current forms inadequacy leading to the development of a new movement.
To illustrate Alexander uses the example of architects beginning to question the merit of academic formalism1 in the 18th century. After the first criticisms began rather than finding a new way to harmonise the forces of society there was a period of even more formalised styles, like the neo-Gothic and neo-Tudor. These styles clung to the intellectual ideas of the academy for almost 100 years. Finally in the 20th century architecture "came to terms" with the 'machine' age starting with the Bauhaus movement.
This cycle is eerily resonant with how Marshall McLuhan describes the process of a new medium emerging and transforming people's perception. In McLuhan's framing, a medium is an "extension", a way of transforming people's base experiences of the world and changing their relationship to time and space. For example, the medium of electric light changes our ability to see by extending our vision to to new spaces and new times of day.
Media in this framing however is not without value judgements. It never simply extends our perception, but always shapes it in subtle ways. Take writing. The written word does not simply extend our language in time and space, but also shapes that language to reflect consistent, logical, uniform, and private thought. This in turn reflects back on how we see the world. McLuhan's conjecture is that taken in aggregate, the emergence of a new medium and its associated culture - like the emergence of writing and the shift from an oral culture to a written one - has a more profound effect on human society than any specific content that is conveyed by that medium. This is the fundamental meaning of "the medium is the message".
Yet, as a new media is emerging, it remains imperceptible precisely because it engenders a change in our perception. It is not until a successive media provides us with new tools of perception that we are even able to 'see' the ways in which we have been changed by the previous media.
Like Christopher Alexander observations on architecture, McLuhan observed that even when the new media emerges, it does so in a milieu informed by the old media and old cultural patterns of perception associated with them. Usually, this means that the new medium, even while it begins to change things, is first understood through the formalisms of the old medium. It takes time for the most harmonious forms of the new medium to come about2. McLuhan argued that the way to avoid being swept up in the new medium, to avoid both applying the false forms of an old medium as well as being blind to how the new medium is changing perception, is to develop a kind of distance. In Alexander's language, a kind of self-consciousness3.
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Maturity, being of age, is about one's ability to create forms that are harmonious and express both the best of the world and the one doing the shaping. However, to reach such a state we must first go through a period of immaturity. During this period we create forms while unaware of what we are doing. Due to our inexperience these forms are always partial, and in at least some ways maladaptive.
To improve our ability to create harmonious patterns, we must become aware of these creations in their totality. Most importantly we must be able to see their shortcomings clearly. Doing so will allow us to meet the real challenges of the day head on without resorting to prior, now lifeless, formalisms. Yet it will require a sacrifice. We will need to give up our belief in the cherished solutions of our youth. The ones that, at the time, seemed so permanent and complete. This is the loss of innocence. It is painful but it is necessary.
Think the flavours of Palladian Architecture
Some concrete examples of this could include things like the skeuomorphism that dominated early computer UI design, or the classified ads style posting that was a mainstay of the early internet.
McLuhan once quipped that he had gained this ability because he came from Canada which was stuck in the 19th century, but due to proximity was able to observe the 20th century US up close. It is certainly true that when it comes to thinking about the US, Canadians have no shortage of self-consciousness.