And how it affects our designs
I've spent of good deal of time on the HRCs in Our Changing Landscape. As an antidote, I posted on another type of legacy, a positive and constructive one (in the literal sense, in that it builds rather than destroys), on an immigrant Danish textile designer.
Design suffers under the stifling climate of the HRCs, which I maintain are fueled by the multicultural society that immigration fosters. I posted an earlier blog titled, "How Multiculturalism Infantilizes Design", relating to Diana West's book Death of the Grown Up, and a lecture where she equated multiculturalism with the infantilization of our society. Here is the quote from the lecture:
During one lecture on The Death of the Grown-Up, I took a question from a man who wondered, in a rather agitated way, if I were actually saying that multiculturalism is juvenile. I hadn’t phrased things that way, but, on quick reflection, I told him that, yes, that was indeed what I was saying. The fact is, buying into multiculturalism — the outlook that sees all cultures as being of equal value (except the West, which is essentially vile) — requires us to repress our faculties of logic, and this in itself is an infantilizing act.On more practical terms, if someone (a Muslim, say), doesn't like the kind of design you put up for your company or business, he can go to the HRCs and complain that his feelings have been hurt, and the sign has got to go.
So, out of fear of insulting, offending or hurting the feelings of the myriad of groups, whose cultures genuinely may not accept the kinds of imagery and logos you design, you are forced to take the true character out of your creations, and come up with atrocities like these instead.
Diana West's multicultural infantalization is a direct result of our immigration policies.
To regain our mature and truly vibrant styles, (and to dismantle the HRCs), it appears more and more necessary that we pay attention to immigration, which lets this juvenile multicultural world to escalate, while diminishing our own complex world.