[Sigia-l] List standards (was: Pay close attention; this is not important)

[Betsy Martens]

Help! Heavy dose of dialectics needed here!

On the one hand we have standards ... the canon ... the codification of
certain practices. And on the other we have the new ... the challenges to
the canon ... and the breaking with old ideas.

Both are a part of development, and both are essential, and both change.
Standards change thanks to challenges to standards which in turn become
codified and need to be once again challenged.

You can't have one without the other.

Beyond this basic observation, the first line of this post is particularly
offensive. It's one thing to battle over ideas, and another to make it
personal. Paula is right when she says:

> We, of all disciplines should appreciate the value of working through
> differences of perspectives ...

I cherish the debate, but does anyone on this list deserve to be referred to
as "I'm With Stupid"? Please.

Betsy Martens

.......................................
   Betsy Martens
   Big Shoulders Information Design
   bigshoulders at mindspring.com

   Content & the space it occupies
.......................................


on 5/24/02 3:41 PM, Derek R at derek at derekrogerson.com wrote:


> I'm With Stupid wrote:
>
>> To claim that HTML (because it is a standard)
>> has hampered creativity is not seeing the forest
>> for the trees.
> 
> 
> First of all, 'standardization' happens due to mass production, and it
> is this standardization which discourages further experimentation. [i.e.
> Why bother with a better product if you can sell what is already in
> production? -- Think of the internal-combustion engine, or the
> 'Hollywood film' (just above the 'sitcom') -- all lovely standards.]
> 
> Why experiment ? Indeed. "What has made money will make money," is an
> Hollywood axiom.
> 
> Anything new is a gamble. Inventiveness, to use B. F. Skinner's phrase,
> is not something viewed favorable by commercial design studios.
> 
> In the Middle Ages, people living on the seacoast probably knew the
> world was round, but they said that they believed the world was flat. To
> be so creative or scientific as to suggest the earth was round at would
> have resulted in the most drastic penalties, due to the ruling
> 'standard' (the Church). At early exhibitions of abstract art, the
> viewers would sometimes attack the canvases with umbrellas. They were so
> annoyed at having abstract paintings presented as art when they were
> used to pictures of cows in the grass.
> 
> It is precisely the function of art (aka. 'creativity'), to jar the
> audience into awareness of what they are already aware of on some level,
> no matter how uncomfortable (i.e. upsetting to 'the standard') the
> revelation may be.
> 
> It is an evolutionary function. Its purpose being *to objectify* some
> implicit process of perception (in the form of a Web site, book,
> brochure, etc..) so that we see something that we have always been
> seeing without knowing it; that is, when it's put in front of us, we
> realize, 'Well, I have been seeing this without knowing it.'
> 
> Science acts in concert with art here, since the function of both is to
> make people more aware of their own perceptions.
> 
> Because of mass-produced 'standards,' the surface has barely been
> scratched with regard to experimentation (creativity).
>