ID and Crime. Interesting thread!
If you design an object of desire, some people will exercise their free will to try to steal it. Does that make objects of desire inherently bad? I don’t think so. People would still steal things if everything were ugly. Theft is for the lazy, dishonest, or desperate.
A desireable object can also prolong its lifespan and be relatively more sustainable for society. We are currently seeing lots of longing for ‘old’ stuff, even by generations who have never even experienced it before. As design tools get more powerful, it is easier to make things very over-designed and maximalist. Lots of people are gravitating back toward the tactile, the analog, the simple.
Of course, in a world of outsourced manufacturing, there is rarely any substantive link between good design and durability, especially with CE products, no matter how much stateside engineers and designers want it. I’d love to design things that last for decades, but tech has tainted our view of stuff and now we think everythings disposable and don’t really care that we think that.
Does design contribute to commercialism and irresponsible spending, including our current financial situation? I love design as much as any designer, but I think our capability for emotional manipulation is great. The only counterweight to this is families and schools promoting healthy financial behavior and an understanding of how your brain processes visual information. Our visual literacy must improve from the inside out, a mandate won’t improve anything. This is a tier or two beyond K-12 art classes. This should be part of the home-ec of the future.
In school, I minored in French. In one French lit class, I read a book called ‘La Goutte D’Or’ or ‘The Golden Droplet.’ Very fascinating book about the potency of visuals. The author’s thesis at the end was that literacy (in this case, the uneducated, desert-dwelling main character’s exposure to calligraphy and language) was the key to balancing visual signals. However, I disagree in part. We have tons of educated people in America and we’re as materialistic as any society in the history of Earth. It is not bad to want beautiful, useful objects. But we need a healthy materialism - one that sees each purchase as an investment, one that can be managed over long periods of time. Until we are willing to attempt, practice, and preach self-control, the delicate ethical balance between design lust and moral frugality will largely stay lopsided on side of consumerism.