(…) This explanation is based on the misconception that i have already mentionned, that living creatures evolve to do things ‘for the good of the species’ or ‘for the good of the group’. It is easy to see how this idea got its start in biology. Much of an animal’s life is devoted to reproduction, and most of the acts of altruistic self-sacrifice that are observed in nature are performed by parents towards their young. ‘Pepretuation of the species’ is a common euphemism for reproduction, and its undeniably a consequence of reproduction. It requires only a slight over-stretching of logic to deduce that the ‘function’ of reproduction is ‘to’ perpetuate the species. From thisit is but a further short false step to conclude that animals will in general behave in such a way as to favour the perpetuation of the species. ALtruism towards fellow members of the species seems to follow.
This line of thought can be put into vaguely Darwinian terms. Evolution works by natural selection, and natural selection means the differential survival of the ‘fittest’. But are we talking about the fittest individuals, teh fittest races, the fittest species, or what? For some purposes this does not greatly matter, but when we are talking about altruism it is obviously crucial.
(…) I am not advocating a morality based on evolution. A am saying how things have evolved. I am not saying how we humans morally ought to behave. I stress this because I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case. My own feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of universal ruthless selfishness would be a very nasty society in which to live. But unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop it being true.
(…) the designer is therefore the artist of today, not because he is a genius but because he works in such a way as to re-establish contact between art and the public, because he has the humility and ability to respond to whatever demand is made of him
by the society in which he lives, because he knows the job, and the ways and means of solving each problem of design. And finally because he responds to the human needs of his time, and helps people to solve certain problems without stylistic preconceptions or false notions of artistic dignity derived from the schism of the arts.
(…) Research design is concerned with experiments of both plastic and visual structures in two or more dimensions. It tries out the possibilities of combining two or more dimensions, attempts to clarify images and methods in the technological field, and carries out research into images on film.
(…) Design came into being in 1919, when Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus at Weimar. Part of the prospectus of this school reads:
‘ We know that only the technical means of artistic achievement can be taught, not art itself. The function of art has in the past been given a formal importance which has served it from our daily life; but art is always present when apeople lives sincerely and healthily
‘Our job is therefore to invent a new system of education that may lead — by wayof a new kinf od specialized teaching of science and technology — to a complete knowledge of human needs and a universal awareness of them
‘ Thus our task is to make a new kind of artist, a creator capable of understanding every kind of need: not because he is a prodigy, but because h eknows how to approach human needs according to a precise method. We wish to make him conscious of his creative power, not scared of new facts, and independent of formulas in his own work.’
(…) What Gropius wrote is still valid. This first school of design did tend to make a new kind of artist, an artist useful to society because he helps society to recover its balance, and not to lurch between a false world to live one’s material life in and an ideal world to takemoral refuge in.