In 1787 one-third of the proposed signers of The Constitution of the United States refused to pen their names to this unique, world-changing document. They could not agree. Yet even 225 years later this manifest lays out the essential principles most Americans live by, with roughly 30 percent of the electorate constantly at odds with the majority opinion, yanking at the threads of our fragile democratic tapestry on one end or the other, creating tension. It's that tension that is our strength. The alternative, a state without apparent conflict, would be no utopia. It would be fascism and we know how that works out.1
Realities of a democracy:
1) “Maintain harmony” is a contradiction in terms.
2) Polarization opens up dialogue.2
3) Open dialogue forces us to reexamine our beliefs and processes.
This is all to the good.
How our country got this way is a lesson for others. The motley American populace of the eighteenth century had collectively bitten off the thumb of an oppressive monarchy. They wanted to be free, on that they could agree. The founders understood that without a dictator there would always be dissent and conflict within our tossed-salad citizenry. So, in their wisdom, they set up three branches of government—each with its own agenda. This sturdy tripod of checks and balances would hold the creative tension, keep the conversation lively. They also anticipated that the documents they had created—the Bill of Rights, the Constitution—would be debated, reinterpreted and amended many times. They even foresaw the possibility of another revolution: If the government is unjust, it’s up to the people to overthrow it.3
Yet they could not have imagined all the battles that would lead our democracy to gradually, miraculously, ultimately advance: civil rights, voting rights, minimum wage, child labor and a woman’s right to choose are all part of settled law. Any of these rights would have been seen as radical in 1787. However bloody and painful the process, differing perspectives about these issues were aired in public debates and laws were eventually passed in accord with our complicated and somewhat arcane Constitution. Many who take our rights for granted today are oblivious to their fragility: They can be taken away. Some feel they have already been taken away. How do we keep the spirit of open discourse alive, support and strengthen our rights?
GOING TO EXTREMESNegotiating the rights of the individual versus the greater good provides much of the tension in any democracy since humans rarely agree 100 percent on anything. “Let the people decide” opens up a huge can of worms. And the time, emotional energy and effort that reconciliation requires has taught many of us to avoid conflict at all cost. We offload the stress to others (e.g., “Leave it to the elected officials.”) but in reality, conflict needs to be acknowledged and a process for resolution sought. This is essential to all human relationships, especially to a complex union such as ours.
When you were very young, you didn’t hold back. You were an extremist. You were totally connected to your feelings, you felt with your whole body: You burst into song when you felt love; you thrashed about and bawled when you felt angry. Everyone in the room knew when you were happy or pissed off. But the open-heartedness of a child inevitably evolves into the guarded heart of an adult when adopting social graces become an absolute must.
It takes lots of practice to modify your behavior as you get older, to learn to channel your self-expression in a way that others connect with while still being equally real, productive and fulfilling to you. One way is to join an activist group of rank amateurs bound by mutual values. Volunteer organizations attract all types creating vibrant social-emotional gymnasiums in which you can develop better social muscles. Mature individuals who apply their strongly-felt values to affect social progress make these movements work.
CITIZEN ILLUSTRATORThe revered professional children’s book illustrator/author Simms Taback was also an amateur union organizer. Raised in the Bronx, Simms was the son of Leon Taback, a union rep, an activist concerned with the well-being of the rank-and-file worker: A Yiddish-speaking Russian immigrant atheist and registered Communist.
Simms Taback believed that the output of artists enriches the world and that the rights of disempowered creators need to be constantly bolstered and strengthened in our democracy. After he graduated from The Cooper Union in 1952, he devoted much of his free time and energy in any way he could to improve the quality of the profession mainly through The Illustrators Guild and then the Graphic Artists Guild (when the Guilds merged).
Taback put himself in the center of conflict in a very individualistic profession struggling for recognition and fair treatment for its members. He became the father of this creative community, driven by love for his fellow illustrators and a strong sense of social justice. He worked patiently with anyone who wanted to help. He was not trained to do this, nor did he do this for pay or even recognition. He was an amateur, a lover.4
Jeff Seaver was a young illustrator who, in 1978, attended a joint meeting of the Guilds at which Taback was speaking about copyright issues. Seaver raised his hand asking angrily, “Is anyone else aware that the New York Times is saying they will own all rights to all the work we do for them?” From the podium Taback replied, “You need to talk to our media relations committee, young man.” Seaver approached Taback after and asked who was on the media relations committee. He smiled and said with confidence, “You are.” And so Seaver became deeply involved in the Guild, working with Taback and other members, including me, to run the Guild for many years. Taback trusted in our abilities, youth and zeal. It was through him that Seaver and I both came to believe, “Together we can really change things.” Through Taback, Seaver learned what collective bargaining was and how to do it. Through Taback’s unwavering support, I learned resiliency and persistence in the face of defeat. He was a model, mentor and confidante for each of us for the entire 34 years we both knew him. I'm sure many others felt the same. On Christmas morning 2011, Taback, age 79, died after a long illness. He was surrounded by his family and had just attended the opening of a retrospective of his work near his home in Ventura, California.5
ARE YOU A BI-CONCEPTUALIST? PROBABLY.Are you an ultra conservative, conservative, moderate, progressive or ultra progressive? While you’re supposed to check only one, “depends” is probably the more accurate answer. Humans are three-dimensional. Our multi-level viewpoints allow our minds to hold onto several concepts at once—and that’s key to understanding and learning. It puts us in the room with other complex individuals and, while we are apt to disagree on many things, we can probably agree on some things, which opens the door to cooperative and empathetic dialogue—and respect for others with whom you disagree. We often rely on good-hearted intermediaries to help turn that which is muddled into meaningful clear communication.6
CITIZEN DESIGNERIn 2011, in the midst of a stellar career in graphic design, Sylvia Harris formed Citizen Research & Design to provide accessible communication to mass audiences.7 Her clients had always been universally non-commercial and her work was dedicated to clearly presenting essential information, never propaganda, to the general public. Harris was an African American born and raised in the segregated South of the 1950s at a time and place when the Klu Klux Klan still demonstrated openly. She moved north to study design at Yale and dedicate her career to information design. Designer David Gibson, her friend and partner for many years in Two Twelve (a graphic design firm well-known for wayfinding and information design), spoke movingly at her memorial, “She had a fierce desire to do the right thing that combined beguilingly with a graceful, youthful, easy charm...Sylvia was always learning new things, and once she had mastered them, she wanted to share the experience with the rest of the world.”8
Citizen R&D’s work centered on information design and wayfinding for clients such as Medicare, the US Postal Service, NYU, the ACLU and the US Census. Her perennial questions were “How will the user use this? What do we need to provide them? How do we best provide it?” When you get a delivery slip from the USPS, you see Harris’s hand on that slip. Or you buy a beautifully-conceived and executed postage stamp, you know that Harris’s advice to the USPS made that stamp possible. When you confront a behemoth like Medicare, imagine Harris patiently—and inexplicably cheerfully—helping to sort through all the dysfunction that bureaucracies create to end up with clear, helpful and well-designed communication tools.
Harris was a member of the legendary Park Slope Food Coop, a 40 million dollar a year member-run store in Brooklyn, New York, for seventeen years. Motivated largely by mutual values, each and every one of PSFC’s 16,000 members works shoulder-to-shoulder to bring affordable high-quality food to its membership. psfc needed a wayfinding system for the front of the store and Harris offered to convene a group of members to distill the need as well as to teach and train them about how this could best be accomplished. This sounds like the ultimate nightmare scenario: a professional guiding opinionated amateurs—all co-owners, all equals. Jessica Robinson, general coordinator of PSFC, says, “She walked them through a really smart process. I’ve never met anyone who had a more balanced ego. She was so professionally successful and yet able to sit down with a group of people with no design background and be an enthusiastic, nonjudgmental listener. She always found a way for people to participate. It was almost like she didn’t hear disagreement. She heard content not tone. She’d move right past negative emotions and the tension would leave the room. Robinson, who knew Harris through the coop for many of her years there, adds, “She absorbed people and their ideas, integrated them into her life.” A charismatic woman, a practicing Buddhist with a spring in her step, Harris was everyone’s best friend. The motto over her computer station was “Work hard and be nice to people.”
In July 2011 Harris e-mailed me about her new venture, Citizen R&D, which she was running out of her family’s brownstone in Brooklyn. I watched her explain in videos exactly how information design was done on the elegantly simple website she had just launched. I mused, “You are giving it all away, girl. No designer does that.” I smiled: This was the big heart of Sylvia Harris, the quintessential good citizen. Two days later she spoke at a USPS conference on federal stamp design in Washington, DC. Robust and vibrant as always, Harris gave an animated talk but, as she returned to her seat, she slumped in her chair. As the applause died away, tragically so did her big heart. Even though she was revived, she was unable to regain consciousness. She died at the hospital, with her family present. She was 57.
FINDING COMMON GROUNDFeeling stifled? Conflicted due to insecurity? Confused by hard-to-figure-out mores or twisted rules of popular etiquette? Miffed by other people’s emotional issues? Not to worry, this happens to most people as they grow up. It helps to keep in mind that as tortured as most of us are, most of us just want to do the right thing.
But what is the right thing? While most people are moderate in their beliefs, extremists cling to irrationally-held views, obsessively refusing to compromise on what they feel is “the truth.” Extremists act as catalysts for dialogue. This allows the vast majority of us to dip our big toes in the extremist pool just long enough to hop back out with everyone else hanging out on the centrist shore. And through this process the majority becomes more fully informed and as a result the center shifts just a little to the left or the right. It’s how radical PETA putting a spotlight on animal rights helps the more moderate ASPCA. It’s how Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party wake up a sleepy moderate electorate. It’s how the flamboyant Gay Pride parades are helping marriage equality laws to pass in many states.
TWO AWARDS THAT ENCOURAGE DESIGN TO AFFECT POSITIVE SOCIETAL CHANGEThe Simms Taback Award/The Graphic Artists Guild: Given to an individual whose integrity and tireless action has improved the lot of graphic artists. www.graphicartistsguild.org
The Sylvia Harris Citizen Design Award/The FJC Foundation: Supports projects that inform and inspire the public and the dedicated designers who create them, in particular designers of color. citizenrd.com/award-donation
THE AGE OF UNREASONIn reality most people (not just extremists) think they are right, that their reasoning is conscious, logical, unemotional, universal and functions to serve their best interest. That’s what we have come to believe in western culture. Yet new knowledge about neuroscience shows us that this is absolutely and totally untrue. In reality, most of us (regardless of our intelligence, education level or self-discipline) are oblivious to the fact that 98 percent of thought is unconscious and therefore not in our conscious control. It’s also not language-based.
The two percent of thinking that is conscious takes lots of energy and time; time we can’t afford since we make the vast majority of our decisions on the spot. Yet because we believe we’ve thought through our positions, we tend to stubbornly stick to their rightness (as individuals and as groups). And we seek out ways to reconfirm our positions (thanks for making that so easy Google) and avoid evidence that we are wrong (the delete button).9
I THINK THEREFORE I AM—OR AM I?We admire people who we think think quickly and who we think are unwavering in their views (we equate this with sharp, deep intelligence). They must be right—we think. Yet that quick wit is often “shoot from the hip” thinking. And, if you were to analyze what these “sharp thinkers” were saying, you'd see all the holes, flaws and fallacies. Conversely, people we think are hesitating in answering may actually be consciously thinking (e.g., ruminating over their answers), which we erroneously denigrate as waffling, as indecision.
Besides having illusions about what’s going on inside their big brains, we also falsely admire people because of the shapes of their heads. We like broad chins and wide set eyes in males. Central casting reinforces this illusion; leading men and women are relentlessly good looking. Sadly, this is also how we tend to choose our leaders: fast talkers with engaging smiles. And tall. They should be tall—and have good hair.
AMERICAN DREAMERAdd to our perpetual self-deceptions our flawed memories. Once any event happens, just one minute after (or even sooner) that event has become warped. The more we think about it, the more entrenched and altered that memory becomes. And since we love good memories we often do things just to make them. Disneyland is a perfect example of a place made for memories (and photo albums). We humans are dreamers, which is vital to our evolution when we bring our dreams to life.
Artists and philosophers have the ultimate freedom of expression, of dreamtime. There is no critic, no client and no middle man, nor is there a censor placing limits on the imagination. It’s a license to obsess. Creative works have lead to dialogue, some to real progress, de-evolution and everything in between in America.
AMERICA NOW AND HEREThe public airing of tension has been unique to American culture and it’s an important quality in much of contemporary art. And, since the success of democracy depends on group dialogue and cooperation, we use our creativity to jumpstart the discussion—to explore the hard issues, get beyond the ten-second sound bite.
Artist Eric Fischl, who was raised in the 1950s against a backdrop of alcoholism and a country club culture obsessed with image over content, has found a focus in undercurrents in his work, “that which cannot be said.” After 9/11, he realized artists could help reroute the polarization of America to a positive avenue. He is, in that way, bringing art back into focus. America Now and Here is sparking dialogue through a multi-disciplinary installation/performance experience, coming soon to your hometown during its two-year tour of the United States.10
Fischl has partnered with hundreds of artists, poets and performers such as Laurie Anderson, Billy Collins, Barbara Kruger, Ghada Amer, Anne Lindberg, Sally Mann, Tom Friedman, Feist, DJ Spooky, Damien Rice, Kiki Smith, Roseanne Cash and Chuck Close. Their work is meant to get people thinking, responding, talking together, on their home turf. What does America—this great democratic experiment—mean to us, to you, now and here?
The kick-off of this county-fair-meets-circus was in May 2011, in the heartland, Kansas City. America Now and Here partnered with fifty local community organizations and over one hundred artists of all sizes and stripes from the region to ensure the greatest reach. Young local artists were enlisted as well to act as guides, to facilitate dialogue, to help humanize art. Plays were acted out in public as if they were exchanges being overheard. Guides were armed with ten questions to get the conversation going with visitors such as: What message do you want to send to our country? What is the role that art plays in American identity? All these gestures become great conversation starters and help people relax, pause and truly engage with art; to think about what art is saying about America and to contribute their voice to a national dialogue.
While we humans are very quick to caricature others in very negative ways, we rarely see our own flaws clearly. Dorothy Dunn, director of America Now and Here, says, “We catch ourselves jumping to conclusions. People assume they know the message. We keep it playful, which helps bring people together who never gather. Gets them out of their ruts.”
Standing near artist Anne Lindberg’s Democracy, a typographic word mashup in rusted bent wire, a guide asked a young girl in the crowd, “How does this represent democracy to you?” To which the girl answered, “Because all the words are jumbled together and don't make sense.” A few adults present interpreted that to mean that only a few coherent voices can be heard in a democracy, the rest is noise, lost or repressed. The voices of those underserved, underrepresented often do not get heard. This conversation was off to a good start.
THE HEART OF CREATIVITY Visual creators—the artist, designer, illustrator, photographer, creative director—each has a gift, the facility to reimagine and unjumble the mess; to create beauty and visualize a distilled, considered point of view; to apply that point of view to even the most mundane communication. We are living in a dangerous time, an era of inequality, division and despair in America. This is how we can help to engage everyone in our country to heal the broken heart of democracy. ca
Notes
1. Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer.
2. The Political Mind, George Lakoff.
3. Bill of Rights
4. Amateur comes from the Old French (lover of) and Latin (lover).
5. simmstaback.com
6. Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer.
7. citizenrd.com
8. bobulate.com/post/12885065415/an-eightfold-path-of-sylvianess
9. The Political Mind, George Lakoff.
10. The 2012/2013 inaugural tour is the first phase of a national experience designed to engage communities large and small across the country for years to come.
