sssh! this is a working library.

How ideology is like a park bench:

Ideology … is not just a matter of what I think about a situation; it is somehow inscribed in that situation itself. It is no good my reminding myself that I am opposed to racism as I sit down on a park bench marked ‘Whites Only’; by the act of sitting on it, I have supported and perpetuated racist ideology. The ideology, so to speak, is in the bench; not in my head. Eagleton, Ideology (40)

A lovely side benefit to this analogy is the solidification of ideology. In Eagleton’s hands, ideology becomes a heavy object of iron and wood. You don’t carry it with you so much as look for it when you need to rest.

On postmodernism, politics, plastic surgery, and the serendipity of a good metaphor:

[The current administration’s] disdain for anything as prosaic as reality also aligns it, rather oddly, with postmodern culture, for which reality – rather like the body in the cosmetic surgeon’s operating theatre – is pliable stuff to be moulded into whatever shapes you fancy, not recalcitrant material that thwarts your attempts to mould it. Eagleton, Ideology (xv)

Coming back around again to criticism and ideology:

… cultural studies has been developed in application to popular culture and is in opposition not only to an exclusive, high culture but also to all distinctions of value within culture. It thus conflicts with the highminded, reforming and occasionally revolutionary way of designing (of William Morris – and company), which would certainly maintain distinctions of good and bad in the ways in which the material world is ordered: on such presuppositions must any confident design education be based. Kinross, Unjustified Texts (322)

There are two ideologies at play here: that of the cultural critic and that of the typographer. The practice of cultural studies is informed by concerns of oppression and driven by an interest in culture at the margins; as such, it treats with suspicion any attempt to discern the value of a particular cultural element, believing that such distinctions are usually an attempt by one culture to oppress another. This relativistic stance emerges from a deeply held interest in reducing inequality.

However, the typographer is an aesthetician, someone who is rooted in the material world (and not just the intangible world of ideas); he believes in craftsmanship and skill. The iterative process of design – start with something rough and slowly work to refine it, improving its physical qualities with each step – gives birth to a belief system that registers the difference between good and bad without apology. As such, the typographer requires a critical perspective that embraces the work of assigning value and formulates a process for doing so; he cannot make sense of an approach that denies all distinctions of value in the name of equality.

Kinross’ larger point here is that we cannot simply borrow literary theories and apply them to design without first considering their effectiveness – and, I would argue, their underlying beliefs – with respect to this different medium.

More on criticism and ideology:

There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory: as with South African sport, it has been there from the beginning. I mean by the political no more than the way we organize our social life together, and the power relations this involves; … the history of modern literary theory is part of the political and ideological history of our epoch. … Indeed literary theory is less an object of intellectual enquiry in its own right than a particular perspective in which to view the history of our times. Eagleton, Literary Theory (169)

In other words, the study of criticism reveals the ideologies that pervade a place and time. The critic is both arbiter of that ideology – being a powerful force in its construction – and an at times unwitting victim – unable to escape the very same power structures he drags under his pen to critique.

On being a critic

The first definition of critic is often negative: “one who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something.”¹ The principal image here is of one who complains, who judges – probably prematurely and harshly – that which would be well enough left alone. A critic is one who spoils the dinner party with her invocations of disapproval.

Let’s put that aside for now. For while the negative connotation persists in sticking to the critic’s shoes, it’s really not her fault. A more effective definition of the critic is one who looks for the truth. By “looks” I mean looks with an attentiveness to the details, to the hidden meanings or sideways connections, to what is on the surface and what lies beneath; by “truth” I mean just that: real, reasoned truth, not the postmodern display of it – overwrought with self-doubt – but the real fucking thing. As hard as it may be to believe in some circles, we all still know what truth is; we’ve just allowed ourselves to become convinced that since truth is hard to find we shouldn’t bother to look.

Where the critic chooses to look is her prerogative, but she may look anywhere and still be a critic. Literature and film are natural points of focus, as is design; but I’ve seen criticism applied as effectively to Shakespeare as to TV commercials. In fact, in many ways, criticism today is more interesting when it looks to those areas that have traditionally been ignored; Shakespeare does not lack for critical attention, but Starbucks may.

How the critic looks is more interesting. For every critic harbors an ideology that informs her criticism. She may not admit of that ideology; or – bless her heart – she may not recognize it, so ingrained is it in her thinking that she cannot step back far enough to see it. But it’s always there. The application of her criticism is, then, a test to see if the object of study lives up to this ideology; or, if it fails, to dissect the nature of its failure such that something may be learned from it. It is through her criticism that she spreads her ideology, and as such, her criticism is a method for promoting a better world.

Put another way: criticism is the means by which an ideology is promoted and distributed with the aim of making the world a better place. Each critic may have a different idea of what that “better place” may be like (meaning, they may have different, and even conflicting, ideologies), but the methods and nature of their goals are always the same. To judge the critic, then, you must judge her vision of what the world should be.

It is my belief that the methods and ideas that make up the field of literary criticism are in fact most effective when allowed to escape the traditional field of literature. It is also my belief that these methods – in particular, those of close readings and an attention to historical and political context – are as applicable to literature as they are to design. And, furthermore, that these methods are especially suitable to that breed of critic known as the designer.

Designers possess the natural attentiveness that is at the heart of any critic. If you’ve been trained to notice that single awkward moment on the page where an ff ligature is missing, or that one extra pixel of space that offsets a column, then you already possess the skills of a literary critic. You just need to heed the words as much as the type. And since design is already entangled with the text itself – being the physical means by which a text is produced – an attentiveness to the meaning of words is hardly outside the designer’s purview.

I have read and listened to many a designer profess their disgust with the way things are in the world today. Many an organization has been created whose stated goal is to leverage the talent of designers to reduce world poverty, or combat the malicious spread of globalization, or end the war. What seems to follow is a lot of hand wringing and poster design. Let’s be honest with ourselves: no war will come to an end because of a poster. We don’t need more posters; we need critics – people who have the skills and persistence to uncover the truth and proclaim it loudly.

What I hope to do in this space over the next few weeks and months is to demonstrate how what we traditionally know of as “literary” criticism is applicable beyond literature, and how it can be an effective tool for designers. I’ve begun to lay the groundwork for this already, but it’s going to take some time to really work out all my ideas here. I hope you’ll bear with me; this is the kind of argument that is likely to proceed in fits and starts, and I may change my mind about some things along the way; the path to an idea is often as interesting – if not more so – than the idea itself.

As we follow that path, think again of our poor critic, as she’s forced from the dining room and told never to return. Now look, instead, at who’s asking her to leave: who is he protecting? Why is he so afraid of what the critic has to say that he tries to silence her? What does he have to lose? What do you have to gain?

1. From the Oxford American Dictionary.↩