tagged with democracy
On the difference between conservatives and liberals, or, why conservatives lie through their teeth while liberals expect the truth to surface:
It is a typically conservative estimate of human beings to see them as sunk in irrational prejudice, incapable of reasoning coherently; and it is a more radical attitude to hold that while we may indeed be afflicted by all sorts of mystifications, some of which might even be endemic to the mind itself, we nevertheless have some capacity for making sense of our world in a moderately cogent way. If human beings really were gullible and benighted enough to place their faith in great numbers in ideas which were utterly devoid of meaning, then we might reasonably ask whether such people were worth politically supporting at all. If they are that credulous, how could they ever hope to emancipate themselves? Eagleton, Ideology (12)
This could less charitably be referred to as the difference between authoritarianism and democracy. I intend to continue to pitch my tent with the radicals.
Kinross on the typographer’s bible:
For all its learning, for all the width of its reference, Bringhurst’s book lacked a critical or historical sense. In this vision, concentrated so exclusively on the well-resolved product and neglecting the dimension of process (and thus the unfinished, the disputed, the failed and discarded), there could be no power of explanation. Kinross, Modern Typography (175)
I love the language here. “The unfinished, the disputed, the failed and discarded” evoke the poor, the neglected, the tired and sick; he’s appealing to our sense of democracy. No government can succeed if it oppresses or ignores the majority of its people, just as no theory can be complete if it forsakes the process by which a work is created. Criticism does not admit of immaculate conception.
Sandberg’s typography suggested a way out of the modernist impasse of perfect technique. Conditioned at first by sheer material scarcity, his typography seized the opportunities offered by ordinary materials: characteristically, paper or board normally reserved for wrapping or packaging. Roughness and chance were prime qualities of his work, … but Sandberg also stuck to DIN formats and to a limited and mundane selection of typefaces. He was also an early user of text set with equal word-spaces (unjustified). This mode of setting synthesized the two aspects: open to exact specification and thus more rational than the approximations of justified setting; but also ‘ragged’ and informal in appearance. Sandberg’s was a typography of open, democratic dialogue, and a continuation of the spirit of resistance into the post-war world. Kinross, Modern Typography (125)
On the democracy of letters:
Even in a largely secular community, we still hesitate to set ‘god’ (a concept that can be disbelieved) and not ‘God’ (an undisputed primary being). Kinross, Unjustified Texts (133)
I have always written “god” and not “God” (which reveals something about my beliefs), and yet I still feel that hesitation that Kinross speaks of, knowing it runs contrary to the prevailing typographic/ideological currents and that even a small decision in typesetting can cause offense:
An editorial statement in the special issue [of Typographische Mitteilungen] concluded: ‘write small! no letters with powdered wigs and class-coronets / democracy in orthography too!’ So lowercase was adopted by people who felt that egalitarian principles should extend to letters. Kinross, Unjustified Texts (139)
It’s a lovely image to consider: the lowercase letterforms demanding a democratically arranged constitution (read: alphabet), fighting off the tyranny of the capitals.
Furthermore –
…fundamentalism and democracy are completely antithetical. Berman, Dark Ages America (5)
If fundamentalism is a textual affair, then it relies on revealed truths, not discovered ones. Revealed “truths” refuse to be interrogated and resist all but the most myopic of interpretations. Democracy hinges on an educated and capable citizenship to engage in a discourse about the nature of their government; it needs reason, not revelation.
