Reading Julius Evola, the articulate epitome of a certain species of radical conservative, this passage from Beyond Good and Evil came to mind:

These words are so totally antipodal to my ears and habits that when I discovered them my immediate anger wrote beside them “the height of religious nonsense!” — until my subsequent anger actually began to like them, these words with their upside-down-truth! It is so pleasant, so distinguishing, to possess one’s own antipodes!

The funny thing is that I really do like Evola. I like him because, unlike so many of his type, he is very bold, unequivocal and clear, and that allows me to view in a glance all 360° of his cloudless horizon, as well as the moral kernel at the center that makes him turn about in such a hot little orbit.

The passage that inspired this post belongs in my wiki.

The passage below from the Gay Science is a declaration of concrete pluralism, and it encapsulates precisely what I care about in designing brand experiences: the discovery of a unique worldview ideally suited to the flourishing of a group (brand strategy), and its interpretation into a concrete participatory lifeworld (experience strategy) equipped with unique ways of conceiving, perceiving, feeling, acting and making — two thirds of which ought to be tacit tradition, animated by an intuited rightness (experience design).

Get on the ships! — how every individual is affected by an overall philosophical justification of his way of living and thinking — he experiences it as a sun that shines especially for him and bestows warmth, blessings, and fertility on him, it makes him independent of praise and blame, self-sufficient, rich, liberal with happiness and good will; incessantly it fashions evil into good, leads all energies to bloom and ripen, and does not permit the petty weeds of grief and chagrin to come up at all. In the end then one exclaims: Oh how I wish that many such new suns were yet to be created! Those who are evil or unhappy and the exceptional human being — all these should also have their philosophy, their good right, their sunshine! What is needful is not pity for them! — we must learn to abandon this arrogant fancy, however long humanity has hitherto spent learning and practicing it — what these people need is not confession, conjuring of souls, and forgiveness of sins! What is needful is a new justice! And a new watchword! And new philosophers! The moral earth, too, is round! The moral earth, too, has its antipodes! The antipodes, too, have the right to exist! There is yet another world to be discovered — and more than one! Embark, philosophers!

Simply coming up with declarations of who an organization essentially is, what it is essentially like, and outfitting it with a nice stylized look-n’-feel-n’-voice-n’-tone is no longer enough. For a brand to have teeth, the scope of the brand experience design must extend fully into the design of an organization’s offerings — their services and their products — and into the design of the business model itself. Brand is actualized when the “subjective” values of an organization first manifest as a different way of seeing, feeling and acting… then consequently as a different way of looking, sounding and serving… and lastly — very lastly — the way the organization talks about itself and stylizes itself.

We’ve been doing it backwards.

Subject: Conflicts
Date: Thursday 10/12/06 7:54:00 AM

A conflict divides the world into four halves.

An ideal “what” is realized; an ideal “how” is actualized; an ideal “why” is manifested. A brand is an organization’s simultaneous realization, actualization and manifestation of its own ideal.

From Being and Time:

Every science is constituted primarily by thematizing. That which is familiar pre-scientifically in Dasein as disclosed Being-in-the-world, gets projected upon the Being which is specific to it. With this projection, the realm of entities is bounded off. The ways of access to them get ‘managed’ methodologically, and the conceptual structure for interpreting them is outlined.

 

…the Objectivity of a science is regulated primarily in terms of whether that science can confront us with the entity which belongs to it as its theme, and can bring it, uncovered in the primordiality of its Being, to our understanding.

To understand a subject is to understand  objects as the subject understands them, according to that subject’s thematization, which means accessing the subject’s entities by that subject’s methods, and understanding according to that subject’s conceptual structure. This holds true equally for an academic subject as it does for an entity possessing subjectivity.

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“Theme”, “thesis” and the root -thesis are etymologically descended from the Greek word tithenai “to set or place.” Synthesis means “place together”.

The root -ject comes from the Greek work jacere “throw.” A project is “thrown ahead”. An object is “thrown in the way of”. A subject is “thrown under”.

Method is made up of meta- “above” and -hod “way”. (I like thinking of method as a meta-way.)

Concept is made up of con- “together” and –capere “take”. (Consider the contrasting meanings of concept and synthesis.)

According to Online Etymology Dictionary the etymology of “interpret” is inter- “between” and some other root of unknown origin. Maybe interpreting is a generic mediating of any two separated entities.

Speaking of “mediating” — “mediate”, “medium” and “media” all come from medius “middle”.

“Regulate” comes from regula “rule” – to “control by rules”. Something that is regular is behaves according to rules.

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When we understand a subject, we throw something under a situation upon which the entities thrown before us can stand and be placed together in such a way that we can take it together as a whole.

We do not say: “He really knows about what he is talking about.”

We say “He really knows what he is talking about.” And when we say this, we are making a tacit distinction between knowing and knowing about.

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If a person has been in a situation, wrestled with the concrete realities of that situation, particularly those that have resisted conceptualization and explicit language, and then subsequently reflected upon these realities and found ways to conceptualize this experience, this person knows what he is talking about.

And even if such a person is unable to conceptualize or articulate fully what he has experienced, he will be able to identify people who do or do not know what they’re talking about.

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Until a student of some topic has been in a situation and wrestled with the concrete realities of that situation and attempted to apply his acquired knowledge to act within the situation, he does not know to what degree he knows what he is talking about.

My own experience has shown me again and again that preparatory study of any area I am preparing to research in the field is merely preparatory, and that this knowledge will inevitably undergo deep and unpredictable developments. Only when I return from the field do I really know what I am talking about. This has happened to me again and again — I know what I am talking about.

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Were it not for the interpretive gap – that deep gulf between theory and practice that dogs the inexperienced – we would have no need to say “He knows what he is talking about.” The ability to talk about some topic would establish the fact that what needs knowing is known.

Maybe some people who say “he knows what he is talking about” are making a different distinction: that this person is relating facts that he really has learned by studying credible sources, as opposed to “making up what he is talking about.” But then we should ask: what makes a source credible? And we should also ask whether we would still say this masterful student knows what he is talking about if he is unable to apply this knowledge practically. He would be promptly re-classified as merely “book smart” or “academic”.

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There’s a huge difference between studying a subject prior to having experienced the realities it attempts to conceptualize and studying it after one has experienced them.

Reading is far more rewarding when you know you are reading an author who really knows what he’s talking about. It is not a matter of trusting the author and feeling confident that the author is both honest and well-informed. It is a matter of experiencing the truth of what is being said. This is true of all subjects, especially philosophy.

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People who know what they are talking about in one subject gain a certain kind of meta-knowledge about experience and expertise. Or, to put it more succinctly, they acquire bullshit detectors.

The expression “make a living” seems to me to signify more than just earning money to live. “Making a living” can be seen as a creative project of designing a productive, sustainable social existence.

Putting entrepreneurship within the reach of all Americans — which means more than maximizing availability of investment funds, but also to remove artificial amplification of risk (I’m thinking specifically about healthcare), and also to educate citizens in a way that stimulates rather than suppresses the entrepreneurial drive (which means helping students connect their own talents with the existing or potential needs of the community, and perhaps prioritizing specialization over standardization) — is perhaps the highest (reasonable) goal of politics.

It is good to have amazing ideas, but better than that is to induce others to have have amazing ideas — and best of all is to collaborate in groups in such a way that amazing ideas happen.

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If the creative community were to internalize this ideal, the world would be a better place, partly due to the abundance of ideas, partly to the experience of ideation — but most of all because of the relationships that form in creative gatherings.

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In most dramatic examples of group ideation (which is the very opposite of “group think”), nobody can pinpoint where the ideas originated. Individualists are disturbed and cannot stop wondering: “Didn’t I have something to do with what just happened? I think I did, but I cannot say what…”

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We do not normally tolerate the kind of distress required to arrive at a real creative gathering. There’s a moat of anxiety encircling it, which each person must cross in order to participate.

Nobody does this voluntarily. There’s got to be high stakes, considerable pressure and no easy escape route.

Creative gathering requires specific conditions. These conditions are more likely to be found in your professional environment than anywhere else. Except maybe marriage.

In the course of my career I’ve found that some people value conceptual frameworks and know how to use them to direct both their thinking and their practice.

Others, however, have no use for conceptual frameworks, and value only momentary sparks of inspiration which arise in the moment and which are realized in a concrete idea for something which can be done — or they vanish in a tiny puff of ions. (If don’t mind being scorned by people with scientific scruples, you can call this a radically “right brained” culture.)

There are also many professionals who have limited use for conceptual frameworks and who do not experience the full infectious effects of inspiration, and who (consequently?) think primarily in terms of factual combinations (sometimes fastidiously glued together logically, or found embedded together in concrete chunks of experience), and who tend to work algorithmically according to explicit plans, composed of sequenced techniques. (This would be a radically “left brained” culture.)

Here’s the thing to remember: all of these cognitive styles ultimately converge on any successful endeavor. The question is one of sequence. Which lead and which follow? This will practically determine the way an organization works and the type of brand relationship it offers its employees and customers.

To be frankly partial, my belief is that the evolution of brand has moved it from a stage where “left-brained” organizations hire “right-brained” organizations to clothe their carefully constructed offerings in sparkling campaigns that change customer perceptions, to a stage where an organization itself is designed to holistically produce conceptual coherence between product, service, message and presentation, because its entire activity system is guided by a conceptual framework, which does not spell out all the details of how an organization runs, but rather provides generative insights which compel details to unfold in organic compatibility with its surroundings.

But obviously, I’m a conceptual framework guy, so decide for yourself.

According to Luc Boltanski, Adam Smith envisioned a market economy that was essentially empathic.

It is important to remember that the Wealth of Nations was written prior to the Industrial Revolution. Smith did not build his understanding of the market on the metaphor of machines or factories. He did not take self-interest to be some kind of natural and mindless force like pressurized steam, with one man driving a price as low as possible against another man driving it as high as possible, stabilizing as the forces equalize against one another. That mechanistic vision of the market was an industrial revision manufactured to the specifications of a mechanic’s imagination.

Adam’s market was a deeply pluralistic social network of human beings seeking mutually satisfactory deals with other people in a community of shared interest.

This makes experience design less a revolution than a reformation movement. Assuming we change anything long-term…

Experience design is the methodical concrete application of existentialism to everyday life.

Concrete application is how an idea develops from theory to methodology to second-nature to reality itself.

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The ultimate ambition of a philosophy is to disappear into reality.

Maybe this explains why the United States, the first nation to be explicitly founded on philosophical principles, is famously unphilosophical: to live our way of life we need to our philosophy to be reality itself. To treat our foundation as subject to question is to dissolve the solid ground upon which we stand into liquid.

It is significant that the further one goes in ontology, the more our sturdy nouns break down into gerunds: processes that sustain semblances of stability.

Another reason I keep talking about creative anxiety is I’m rereading Being and Time, which situates anxiety at the very center of authentic existence. But then, the whole reason I am returning to this book after six years was to read about anxiety, and to see how Heidegger’s views on anxiety strike me now that I’ve had six years of experience applying the concept of anxiety to my life, and most of all to my work.

My main modification to Heidegger’s concept of anxiety is this: Dasein (the existential self) can potentially experience something like an existential death and existential rebirth (apart from biological death) by shifting perspectives, re-conceiving life, and subsequently re-perceiving it in a weirdly spontaneous non-interpretive way — and that each instance of “rebirth” (even a relatively trivial instance) induces the same anxiety (though at a lower intensity) as relating ourselves to our impending ultimate death.

The richest source of this anxiety is listening to other people who conceive and live differently from ourselves. As Sartre said “Hell is other people”, except I’d modify it to say “Limbo is other people” — because there is something on the other side of the anxiety that makes it completely worthwhile to navigate it all the way to the other side, never turning back.

This is why experience strategy is — and should be — an anxious process! If we are doing our job, we are actively seeing anxiety by seeking to understand other worldviews.

The job of an experience researcher/strategist is to wrestle with wicked soft-systems problems and to cross over anxiety to unique and superior worldviews created by finding syntheses of conflicting worldviews manifested as kick-ass products that afford kick-ass experiences that make people fall in love with a brand. The reason this happens so rarely is because it freaking hurts to get there.

But I’m digressing. Back to Heidegger.

In this rereading of Being and Time, I have seen nearly no evidence that Heidegger takes anxiety in the face of existential change seriously.

I have also seen ample evidence that Heidegger was in many ways allergic to alterity, especially any form of collective alterity (the They), which is hardly surprising, considering his time and place. (Perhaps he should have been much, much more allergic.) But I do believe in the legitimate existence of collective Dasein in which each Dasein participates, compliantly, activistically, rebelliously, alienatedly, etc.

That being said, this book still blows my mind. And the whole reason I started writing this rambling post was to share a quote, which isn’t even related to what I’ve been talking about, except that it is pure experience strategy gold. Here it is, anyway, and please forgive my complete absence of discipline this morning:

Dasein is authentically itself in the primordial individualization of the reticent resoluteness which exacts anxiety of itself. As something that keeps silent, authentic Being-one’s-Self is just the sort of thing that does not keep on saying ‘I’; but in its reticence it ‘is’ that thrown entity as which it can authentically be. The Self which the reticence of resolute existence unveils is the primordial phenomenal basis for the question as to the Being of the ‘I’. Only if we are oriented phenomenally by the meaning of the Being of the authentic potentiality-for-Being-one’s-Self are we put in a position to discuss what ontological justification there is for treating substantiality, simplicity, and personality as characteristics of Selfhood. In the prevalent way of saying “I”, it is constantly suggested that what we have in advance is a Self-Thing, persistently present-at-hand; the ontological question of the Being of the Self must turn away from any such suggestion.

Care does not need to be founded in a Self. But existentiality, as constitutive for care, provides the ontological constitution of Dasein’s Self-constancy, to which there belongs, in accordance with the full structural content of care, its Being-fallen factually into non-Self-constancy. When fully conceived, the care-structure includes the phenomenon of Selfhood. This phenomenon is clarified by Interpreting the meaning of care; and it is as care that Dasein’s totality of Being has been defined.

(For personality type geeks, this is the serum to cure Enneatype Four.)