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The construction of this method further illustrates the nature of the academic work that may be founded upon design epistemology. Science acquired the key social role of truth and worldview provider for historical reasons, or as we might say “by tradition”. The described methodology prototype illustrates that a drastically more suitable truth and worldview creation may be designed by preserving the advantages of the traditional approach, while correcting its limitations. The real-world methodology design, of course, must be through a legitimate social process, as explained below.
An example—the power structure model of the traditional notions “power holder” and “political enemy” —will help us illustrate meaning design.
A power structure is generally not a clique of conspirators (although as a special case it may be), but a spontaneously evolving structure. What binds people into a power structure is not only power interests, but also their beliefs and values.
Technically, the power structure is a pattern. It specifies not only how things in experience are related, but also how their relationship may evolve. As one might proceed in mathematics—explain the meaning of, say, the exponential function by giving examples of exponential growth in various practical situations—the dynamics that leads to the evolution of the power structure is explained by pointing at basic insights from several fields including combinatorial optimization, physics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence and artificial life, and showing that they all point at a single general insight.
The key insight (gestalt) conveyed by the power structure model is that our societal systems (institutions, professions, practices, beliefs, ...) often don’t evolve as its suits their function in a larger whole, but according to more local power interests. It is as if those interests formed a complex magnetic field, which can subtly orient and organize people. This conclusion is verified by pointing at research results of leading sociologists.
The following consequences of the power structure model are relevant to our discussion:
(1) Various contemporary issues including “global problems” are reduced to a single one—pathological evolution of societal structures. This new gestalt points at design as the course of action that needs to be taken (we must consciously take charge of systemic evolution);
(2) Traditional ways of making sense, already removed from the “objective reality” pedestal, are seen as potentially part of the power structure. Meaning design is shown to be a necessary element of the “societal immune system”;
(3) Specific design decisions taken in the construction of Polyscopic Modeling, such as scope design, are seen as necessary. It would obviously be wrong to claim, for example, that healthcare “really is” a power structure; it is at the same time essential to be able to “project” healthcare “on the power structure plane”, and see to what degree it has developed the power structure tendencies . Similarly, the corporate organization in business, the monetary system, the disciplinary organization in academia, our public informing, and indeed any other core social system can be “projected on the power structure plane” to reveal power structure aberrations.Notice that there is nothing “subjective” about choosing a way of looking to see the things in a specific way: Our chosen task being to maintain societal or systemic wholeness, we acknowledge that something that truly is whole must look whole from all sides.
6. Conclusions
We are living in a precarious moment of human history, where the old way of evolving socially and culturally—tradition—can no longer be relied on, while its alternative—design—is not yet in place.