When society changes it alters a lot of previously established conceptions. A common thing to say is that ”Content is king” but this is something that belongs to the past and not for our fast-paced world. Content is still very important but it is no longer sovereign. In our society today it is more important with Context.

The problem is that there are no exact answers, only approximations and guesses according to the ruling paradigm at a certain instance of time. Many people ”project the world as a deterministic black box — linking preordained input parameters to a predictable output”. Management in organizations ”try to ‘manage change’ or ‘engineer knowledge’ with tidy quantitative methods” without coping with subjective subtlety, ambiguity and complexity. People most of the time try to fit the world into black-and-white instead of the many grey-zones that exist. It’s natural to want to categorize into different parts but doing that one also strips away essential parts that might change the meaning of the object in a different context. ”All facts are context sensitive. Contexts are personal.”

We try to control society by imposing ‘proper control procedures’ but according to Goodhart’s Law: ”Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed on it for control purposes.” ”Models can only [...] be a pale shade of what actually happens.” ”Each of us experiences a different world, albeit with ’similarities’”. This gets further complicated when we believe we use the same schema as someone else but since everyone experiences things differentially there might be an essential anomaly in the two schemas. When we agree upon some parts of the world a fact is created. ”A fact is merely an approved communal judgement, positioned within a context.”

”Is being forever wrong a problem? No! For ‘[a]ll models are wrong, [but] some models are useful’”. We need to recognize that everything constantly changes and leads to new opportunities; ”you can never step into the same river twice.” One needs to adjust the thoughts to the current context and profit from that status quo instead of looking for an ultimate solution.

[source: Solution is the Problem: A Story of Transitions and Opportunities]
[pic:  CC-BY-NC-SA, donut2d]

“That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing” – brilliantly said by Pliny the Younger, which wisdom acts as one of the cornerstones of Ethical Individualism. We believe that many people follow this principle to a degree in this world even though they are unaware of it themselves. These people are usually said to be forgetful, selfish, lazy, egocentric, greedy, and in more friendly words: laid-back and utterly enjoys fishing.

The Ethical Individualist tends to keep a positive attitude towards his own incompetency, especially when it comes to short-term memory. He is often considered to be street-smart, a scavenger, and a brute. In other-words, he is a survivor. He pillages the weak, trades with the strong; what he can’t remember, doesn’t exist; what he finds, is what he keeps. And of course, he likes to spend his days by the lake and fishing.

Most people mistake Ethical Individualism with Anarchy. Although similar, the statement is false. For example: an Ethical Individualist would never consider robbing a big bank. The bank is strong and therefore a true follower of Ethical Individualism would try to trade with the bank and rob the old lady coming out of the bank with her month’s pension in her purse instead.

If the Ethical Individualist doesn’t feel like going to school in the morning and instead wants to go fishing – he will. He will be considered selfish because now his lab partner will have to do without him and he will be considered a lazy and forgetful coward for not having done his English homework, skipping school and not facing the consequences of his actions. But to him, he is just enjoying life… and fishing.

Now one might also see Ethical Individualism as the ultimate ethical principle to follow. However it does have minor flaws. This is best demonstrated with another example: If our ideal Ethical Individualist wants to marry another person, he can no longer rely on Ethical Individualism for moral judgment. If the individual’s happiness depends on another individual, Ethical Individualism will not apply because according to the principle, it is oafish to depend on other people for your own happiness. This flaw is only minor because people “are dishonest and do not keep faith with [other people]” -Niccolo Machiavelli. These kind of foolish reliance will not occur often in this world, at least not by Ethical Individualists.

Another example would be using Ethical Individualism to judge the moral correctness of ”A Modest Proposal”. To those who are not familiar with this work by Jonathan Swift, here comes a brief summary:

“The author argues, by hard-edged economic reasoning as well as from a self-righteous moral stance, for a way to turn this problem into its own solution. His proposal, in effect, is to fatten up these undernourished children and feed them to Ireland’s rich land-owners. Children of the poor could be sold into a meat market at the age of one, he argues, thus combating overpopulation and unemployment, sparing families the expense of child-bearing while providing them with a little extra income, improving the culinary experience of the wealthy, and contributing to the overall economic well-being of the nation.”
-Jonathan Swift

To the Ethical Individualist this brilliant proposal by Jonathan Swift is arguably satirical. This way the poor people would transform their former financial burden into a profit, all for greed of money and every bit selfish. The rich would then have a delicacy on the dinner table for them to enjoy. This form of enjoyment would almost match fishing. According to Ethical Individualism, Jonathan Swift is quite ingenious in coming up with this proposal, making him the ideal Ethical Individualist. Eating babies might seem barbaric and inhuman, but it has to be taken account that just because something is judged to be morally correct doesn’t mean one has to actually perform these deeds for other reasons. One might not enjoy eating babies, therefore one might consider it to be morally incorrect because, in the end, one should enjoy life’s pleasantries.

Now.
Enjoy life, and remember:
your happiness is worth a thousand times the happiness from others.

[pic: CC-BY-ND, jaroslavd]

Ethics is very hard to define. The view of what is right and wrong differ from person to person. It depends on the environment one grows up in, the influence from friends, religion/atheism, parents, living situation and a lot more. There is no universal ethical law which fits everybody. There are general ethical rules applied by countries, called laws, to keep order in society and try to benefit everybody as much as possible. This laws are never perfect.They try to strive for what Jeremy Bentham once said:

”The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”

There are always objections to some laws and they never cover all the possible situations. General ethical rules are also applied by the religions. Some rules seem obvious at first thought but might not work in specific situations, for example one of the most common rules used is “thou shall not kill” but even though this law seems obvious there are situations where people are in such pain that they would rather be killed then to continue being tormented under the pain. Everybody needs their own ethics to follow and this shall come from ones heart, through experience. One shall do what one feels like but with respect to other people and their feelings.

I conclude this with Alfred North Whitehead’s words:

”What is morality in any given time or place?
It is what the majority then and there happen to like,
and immorality is what they dislike.”

[photo cred: rememberthrough, CC-BY-NC-SA]

This will be analyzed by applying our question, “are human beings born evil?”, to three different concepts of finding if the statement is true or not. The three ethical theories are: the pragmatic, the coherence and the correspondence theory of truth.

The Pragmatic theory of truth can be defined as “concepts or propositions, that are proved to be worthwhile or useful, are true. This is only known through subjective experience.” Applying it to the question “are human beings born evil” one can not find it true since there is no benefit to be made by it. This theory is all about subjectivity and totally depends on who looks at the question.

A good definition of the Coherence theory of truth is that “concepts or propositions are true if they are consistent with other established truths, which are accepted as truths, they cohere with them.” According to this theory church can be considered as a voice of truth and since they say that human beings are born evil one can establish that it is true. The problem with this is that one has to believe that the statement about the church being a voice of truth is true and some people, for example nihilists, might find it untruthful. It all comes down to what one believes was true before one saw the question.

Defining the Correspondence theory of truth: “Truth occurs when the concepts or proposition correspond to the objective reality which it describes.” Applying it we see that the question can not be established as a truth since one is incapable of knowing if human beings are born evil with the senses we have. This relies totally on your senses but some statements can not be determined by senses at all. All theories are very vague and none is perfect. It all comes to whether you think it’s true or not.

The different theories should be used but they should have limits on what they could be used as. Truth is a very subjective and individual concept. Stay true!

Been reading some on Organizational learning lately for an essay I’m writing. Very interesting to read about and makes you think a lot. Argyris is one of the main persons behind the concept and writes brilliantly on it. Sharing two great paragraphs with you from the book titled ”On organizational learning”.

”Learning is defined as occurring under two conditions. First, learning occurs when an organization achieves what it intended; that is, there is a match between its design for action and the actuality or outcome. Second, learning occurs when a mismatch between intentions and outcomes is identified and it is corrected; that is, a mismatch is turned into a match.
Organizations do not perform the actions that produce the learning. It is individuals acting as agents of organizations who produce the behavior that leads to learning. Organizations can create conditions that may significantly influence what individuals frame as the problem, design as a solution, and produce as action to solve a problem. Individuals, on the other hand, may also bring biases and constraints to the learning situation that are relatively independent of the organization’s requirements. An example of constraint is the human mind’s limited capability for information processing. An example of bias is the theories of action with which people are socialized and which they necessarily bring to the organization. These theories significantly influence how individuals and groups solve problems and make choices.”

(photo cred: Chicagogeek, cc-by-nd)

In Scandinavia we have an unofficial law that governs our behavior and is one of those norms that dictate our life.

The law of Jante

1. Thou shalt not believe thou art something.
2. Thou shalt not believe thou art as good as we.
3. Thou shalt not believe thou art more wise than we.
4. Thou shalt not fancy thyself better than we.
5. Thou shalt not believe thou knowest more than we.
6. Thou shalt not believe thou art greater than we.
7. Thou shalt not believe thou amountest to anything.
8. Thou shalt not laugh at us.
9. Thou shalt not believe that anyone is concerned with thee.
10. Thou shalt not believe thou canst teach us anything.

How long will this thought pattern govern the mind-set of the Scandinavian people in our ”global village”?

In Sweden we also have a word that ties in with the Law of Jante. It’s the word ”lagom” which means ”just enough”, ”optimal amount”, ”not too much, not too little”.  Using this word in our everyday discussions emphasizes the need to not stick out and be special but instead behave in a ”lagom” way.

In pictures models usually have a typical behavior.
Females avert her eyes and thereby shows modesty, patience and a lack of interest in anything else. Or stares straight at the viewer thereby becoming in the viewers ”control”
Males look off/up and thereby shows a suggestion of interest in something else than the viewer.
This is also show by statistics on profile pictures that Okcupid had done on their community.

”Stereotypical notions of masculinity are strongly oriented towards the active.” They avoid being feminine in not being portrayed as the passive object of an active gaze. They control and dominate the situation by making a choice of who to look out at from inside a picture.

Thus to change the objectification of women they need to start gazing more at men and thereby taking control, also when in a picture women need to focus on something outside the lens. The opposite applies to men: act mysterious but maintain the suggestion of interest in the viewer when portrayed in a picture.

So an inquiry to the females (for the sake of equality): GAZE MORE AT MEN;)

Source used: Notes on the Gaze – Daniel Chandler

I. Introduction and Method
II. Analysis (with help of Panofsky’s three levels of understanding)
III. Discussion and Conclusion

I. Introduction and Method
The visual object I chose for this ‘case study of contemporary visual culture’ was a picture of label for a Sierra tequila bottle. The reasoning behind the choice of this particular picture is an interest for branding and analyzing this from signs. Basically a sign is the result of the difference to other signs. This makes it interesting to analyze brands and see how they set themselves apart from their competition. In this analysis I will discuss and analyze how a brand of tequila chooses to depict themselves in their visual communication.

This analysis will work from the theoretical framework of Panofsky and his concepts about Iconology and Iconography.  The reason I chose to use Panofsky is that his way of understanding a picture is a way that coincides in many ways with my own understanding of pictures. The thought from the start was applying a few different ways of understanding a picture (Saussere, Barthes, Peirce) and comparing the results with each other but this essay will have to focus on Panofsky due to a limited amount of space. I will start off by applying Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to the picture.  After the analysis I will follow up the analysis with a discussion and conclusion about the results found.

II. Analysis
I will start to analyze the picture by using Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to find the meaning of the picture. The first level is ‘Pre-iconographical description’: seeing lines, shapes, colors and volumes representing something in the picture. The second level is ‘Iconographical analysis’: using themes, stories, allegories and concepts to understand the meaning of the picture. The third level Panofsky uses is ‘Iconological interpretation’: linking the analysis with people, nations and periods of time.

Pre-iconographical description
The image portrays a lone Mexican sitting by a large cactus in the middle of the desert while the sun goes down in the background. One can see that the person is Mexican since he has a big Sombrero and a distinct black mustache coupled with a vest, bandana and boots which is an attire often used in the image of Mexicans. Sierra Tequila is prominently displayed by words right above the Mexican and the cactus. The colors most used are red, green, white, yellow and silver. Other colors exist as well but only as minor details on the Mexican person displayed on the bottle. The text on the bottle is written in spanish and the word ‘Sierra’ has an ”old type” font whilst ‘Tequila’ uses a more straight and modern font mixing old and new. There’s a ”branding” in silver above the wording ‘Sierra’ that says ”Jalisco Mexico” with a symbol that looks like a crown in-between. There is a framing around the picture which is in red with a gold line in the middle.  The banner on the top of the frame is green, white and red and says ‘Mexico’ in the middle.

Iconographical analysis
This part requires a bit more understanding on underlying factors behind the picture. Tequila has become a product which is only allowed to be produced in the province of Jalisco in Mexico. This explains why this is displayed in such a visible part on the label. The theme of Mexico runs through the label with the words ”hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico),  Jalisco and the decision to keep the text in Spanish on the label even though it’s an exported bottle. The choice of colors also reinforce the theme of Mexico  by having red, white, green (flag of Mexico) in the banner and almost all objects in the picture (red frame, white text, green cactus). The cactus is displayed since Tequila is made out of the Agave cactus. Showing only one cactus in a big and hot desert on the label creates a higher value in the Tequila since it communicates a limited amount of cactus to make the tequila from in a hostile environment.

Iconological interpretation
When going another level down in the understanding and analyzing the ‘world-view of time and place’ we find the importance of Mexico again. The historical context of Tequila being produced in Mexico is reflected in the image. The tradition is communicated through the old font style used on ”Sierra” and contrasted by the silver letters in a more modern font used in ”Tequila”. This mix of styles is probably because they can’t communicate themselves with only the ”old image” as Cognac or others are able to. The characteristic Mexican is displayed in the picture and communicates a message that this is what Mexicans drink.

III. Discussion and Conclusion
Each level of understanding used to analyze the picture brings a deeper understanding on what the meaning behind the picture is. The first level is the easiest to analyze and describe. The deeper one goes in levels the harder it becomes to analyze. The lower levels  also requires more of the person trying to understand the picture in terms of knowledge needed to get out more meaning from the message. This knowledge can sometimes be seen in different ways and therefore some subjectivity is added to the picture when analyzed deeper.

The other thing about understanding a picture using Panofsky’s method of analysis is that you find more things about the picture when you study it harder. Panofsky does not mention anything about how much visual communication is passed on to a person only looking at a picture for a limited amount of time. The impact of finding more understanding of a picture the more time one spends on it implies that there might be an even deeper level of understanding, than the one I have achieved in this analysis, if  even more time had been spent on understanding this picture.

Sierra Tequila utilizes the theme and concept of Mexico on several levels to create consistency and emphasize the connotation between Mexico, Tequila and the Sierra brand.

Attention is the key to mind control. Focus enough and count the number of passes that the white team makes in the video.

Many have wondered what the secret to mind control is. The secret is there if you focus enough.

Mind control is basically an ability to hide messages in what is not consciously taken in by someone. This is a lot of what advertising tries to do with various results. An example of this hiding, is the use of signs and words that our subconscious might pick up.

virgin sex subliminal. Spelling S-E-X. Coincidence? perhaps. Other examples of hiding images in logos: the arrow in Fedex, the bear in Toblerone and a few more.

The concept behind subliminal ads and mind control is explained in a good way by McLuhan’s  Tetrad (Laws of Media). Basically what it says is that there is figure and ground. Figure is an area of attention and ground is the rest (”inattention”). Hold on, this gets complicated if you haven’t read McLuhan.

The effect that ground has changes our conception without us noticing it. Once the ground is pointed out it becomes figure and very easy to notice, e.g. the feeling of your seat at this instance. As we have noticed it’s very easy to spot the ground once it has been pointed out, but not before.

Everybody experiences far more then he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behaviour, especially in media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effect upon him.
-McLuhan (Understanding Media, p.318)

Derren Brown shows this very clearly in this movie where he manipulates two persons working for an ad agency to think what he wants them to think.

But how far can we take this “manipulation” of minds. Where does the limit between accepted manipulation and too much manipulation go? Many people think adding a single frame in a movie or changing the billboard in a sporting arena digitally to a commercial message is going to far but accepts music affecting and manipulating our mood in commercials.

I find mind control fascinating, especially since it’s very linked to advertisement. Comments?