Abstract
Norbert Wiener warned us to avoid the potential application of cybernetics to the production of technologies of oppression – that is, we need to design structures and processes in which violence is not an alternative or, at least, is an alternative of last resort. This chapter presents cybernetics as a way of thinking about ways of thinking, making the way of thinking a choice. The cybernetic vocabulary of choice and autonomy provides a foundation for building a participative-dialogic approach to design (and society) that is distinct from the purposeful (goal-oriented ) and hierarchical (reward-oriented ) design approach of traditional engineering and management . In a participative-dialogic society, design becomes a necessity , not only to address the concerns expressed by Wiener , but also to satisfy the human need for participation in the decisions that affect our daily lives.
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Notes
- 1.
See page 10 in this volume.
- 2.
I have chosen not to use the word anarchy in this chapter in order to avoid having to address all the emotions associated with the word, although I have used it elsewhere [23]. Suffice it to say that, if and when I use the word, I do not do so to refer to a society without a government, but rather to refer to a non-hierarchical form of governance – rules, but no rulers.
- 3.
The use of the word information here is not to be confused with its common use as a flow of data from an environment to the system. Here, information is realized by how a system and its structure respond to perturbations, either from an external medium or from its own internal operations. If the system’s structure remains invariant under perturbation, it is informationally closed ; if its structure changes in response to perturbations, it is informationally open.
- 4.
Conversations happen in a language , with asynchronicities (conflicts , disagreements , frictions, etc.) being realized in one of the two tracks of language – the descriptive track (differences in understanding of what is said, the relations in the topic at hand) or the orientative track (differences in what ‘what is said’ does, the dynamics of interaction ). I have focused more in this chapter on the cybernetic contribution to the topic of dynamics than to the topic of relations, but they go hand in hand. Often, differences in native languages and cultures , while potential sources of asynchronicity, pose barriers to getting a conversation off the ground at all. Advancing the value of conversation for participation in spite of (or maybe even encouraged by) these differences is, I think, essential to realizing a participative-dialogic society.
- 5.
Horst Rittel’s discussion of and approach to “wicked problems” [20] exhibit parallels to the discussion of and approach to undecidable questions. The problems of social design are certainly in the category of wicked, and Rittel’s dialogic approach, including argumentation and debate (and a focus on language ), is consistent with the approach here to both social design and design research .
- 6.
I do not address a specific approach to participatory design here. There are a number of possibilities. The approach I have been exploring for the past few years is Stafford Beer’s team syntegrity [7]. While somewhat complicated to implement and rigid in appearance, it is non-hierarchical and facilitates conversation. I am interested in how it might be simplified, given a more flexible “feel” and adapted to large-scale application. Klaus Krippendorff’s human-centered design [14], with a focus on language and culture , also deserves mention.
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Richards, L.D. (2019). Cybernetics and Society Redux: The Necessity of Design. In: Fischer, T., Herr, C. (eds) Design Cybernetics. Design Research Foundations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18557-2_15
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