About a week ago, Elizabeth Goodspeed published a widely-read article on the disillusionment of graphic designers, which is as rich and nuanced as a piece on a design magazine can be. I won’t attempt to do it full justice here; instead, I want to zoom in on a single facet that struck me in particular. But before that, I want to comment on those readers who dismiss the emotional atmosphere of a professional category (in this case designers) as mere “navel-gazing”, self-referential and out of touch. How can one talk about self-deprecating memes about the job, when dictators are on the rise?
The answer is simple: the little things are part of the big things. By dismissing the former, we miss the chance to understand both. Instead, the small things help us frame the big things better. Goodspeed’s article is a good example of that. Let me illustrate this through a bit of critical cherry-picking.
The author describes the design field as “an industry full of people who care deeply, but feel let down.” One can agree or disagree with Goodspeed, provided we first understand what “care” means. So, here’s my understanding of this concept. In the last decade, to care has fundamentally meant declaring that one cares. In this sense, care became the emotional politics of the progressive elite and the artworld. The design world simply followed suit – often without even realizing it!
Some days ago, actress Jane Fonda defended being “woke” on the basis of empathy (just like design thinking), and on the idea that it’s good to “give a damn about other people.” The problem, however, is that nobody cares that you care, anymore. And the responsibility partly lies with the liberal world inhabited by Jane Fonda – who, though, unlike other caring Hollywood celebrities, has at least a convincing activist CV.
The care discourse emerged from grassroots movements, like Pirate Care, and spread a powerful, even shocking message: helping others was increasingly being criminalized. But soon, “care” became centered on the values and virtues of the individual. Such individual (a designer just like a Hollywood celebrity) embodied a liberal (read: abstract) notion of ethics, making expression of care feel ritualistic and distant. Eventually, such manifestations became fodder for irony within artworld circles. The result: constant accusations of performativity and insincerity – once again, traits mainly pinned to the individual. That’s why, today, it is “possible to be inauthentic and sincere, or insincere and authentic”, as I wrote in What Design Can’t Do.
The politics of care turned out to be, in this sense, doubly ineffective. First, instead of forging alliances, they led to an unproductive, endless (self-)questioning of individual motives. Second, they made caring as a whole feel insincere. Most design books on ethics are part of this problem: they propose “methods”, as if ethical principles weren’t context-dependent and could – in 2025! – be universally applied. While much of the care discourse boils down to: “look, I’m good”, much of design ethics boils down to: “it’s good to be good.” Given that both expressions take up space and cognitive resources that could be directed toward more pragmatic and specific approaches, one might even ask whether they themselves are ethical.
On the other hand, the politics of cruelty, which seems to be gaining traction everywhere, is doubly effective. Not only does it appear consequential (see, for instance, the U.S. communication strategies around deportations), it also paralyzes its adversaries. These opponents, stuck in an individualistic lens of sincerity, can only respond with indignation (because they care!) and ask: Do they really mean it? Are they just being ironic? And so on.
It’s time to realize that we live in a Machiavellian world of deceit and lies (including the lies we tell ourselves), where even a display of kindness can lead to harmful outcomes. Let’s finally admit that our good intentions have helped pave the road to the hell we now find ourselves in. Signaling virtues in public, whether professional or moral, is self-defeating. Let’s stop asking whether something is performative, whether someone is sincere. Instead, let’s assume (like Wikipedia editors do) “good faith”: I know you care, no need to point that out. But if you point that out, I will look at your intentions as actions, and evaluate them by their effects. We’d do well to remember Stafford Beer’s words: “The purpose of a system is what it does”, not what it claims to do. Claims themselves are part of the system, and they can just as easily produce the opposite of what they assert.