Design Strategy for Conscious Cultural Evolution
Independent Research: An Incomplete List of Ongoing Topics of Inquiry
Consumerism + Identity Projects
Cultural Strategy
Space/ Place
Economics - Gift Culture
Plant Intelligence
Ways of Knowing
Trauma + Healing
The Senses
Frontier Culture
Regenerative Design
Systems Thinking
Role of Art & Creativity
Language
Time
Pattern Languages & Archetypes
Material/ Physical World
Alternative Epistomologies
Curation
Belonging & Gathering
Value & Value Creation
Slow Culture
Emergence
Local Futures
Cultural Strategy
Space/ Place
Economics - Gift Culture
Plant Intelligence
Ways of Knowing
Trauma + Healing
The Senses
Frontier Culture
Regenerative Design
Systems Thinking
Role of Art & Creativity
Language
Time
Pattern Languages & Archetypes
Material/ Physical World
Alternative Epistomologies
Curation
Belonging & Gathering
Value & Value Creation
Slow Culture
Emergence
Local Futures
Independent Research, 2013*
*though exploration of this topic is not closed, active research paused shortly after I arrived in Hawaii in 2017. focus shifted to exploring traditional understandings and culture of place - non-western cultural systems, values and understandings.
*though exploration of this topic is not closed, active research paused shortly after I arrived in Hawaii in 2017. focus shifted to exploring traditional understandings and culture of place - non-western cultural systems, values and understandings.
The Quest for Authenticity in Consumer Behavior and the Western Heart
Initially driven by the question “Why does beauty motivate us to desire and to consume, and how do organizations use this to their advantage?,” I dove into consumer behavior theory for answers.
The Quest for Authenticity surfaced as a key theme across my discoveries, which also explored themes of cultural capital, consumer identity projects, and taste-regimes, among other brand/market phenomena and consumption sub-topics. I discovered the conditions of psychological striving among American consumers - the seeming unending quest for “Authenticity” - buttressed by historical awareness of Edward Bernay’s work and impact on the development of the capitalistic marketing/ propaganda mechanism.
It is clear that our system of modern capitalism was designed to redirect our natural drive for beauty and connection into patterns of consumption and behavior that served economic interests of the controlling order. The nuance of how this still operates in individual psychology and group (subculture) dynamics is pervasive and upheld by conditioning of the Western “Modern” worldview. This touches and informs every aspect of modern American life, as well as wherever the global western-economic-colonial agenda has expanded. At the heart of this worldview lies the ‘Story of Separation,’ which traditional wisdom and modern advances in science demonstrate is a fundamentally flawed view of reality.
The Quest for Authenticity extends far beyond market and consumption patterns. It lives at the edge of the modern understanding of life and humanity’s role in it. But we can continue to look at consumption patterns, entertainment narratives, local events and cultural trends to observe the current, and actively divergent, pulse of western collective consciousness, and triangulate the zeitgeist’s dominant location within the territory of Authenticity. The closer it navigates to the “truth” (which I hypothesize can be felt at the border between indigenous and western ways), the more imperative it will be that the market systems shift so that they are capable of “supplying” and “sustaining” it.
Will complete system collapse comes first? Will complete system collapse be necessary? What, if any, institutions and organizations will evolve? What [entities, systems, stories, practices, cultural elements, etc.] can and are supporting the move closer to this nucleus of truth and authenticity, now? These are some central questions of our time.
Initially driven by the question “Why does beauty motivate us to desire and to consume, and how do organizations use this to their advantage?,” I dove into consumer behavior theory for answers.
The Quest for Authenticity surfaced as a key theme across my discoveries, which also explored themes of cultural capital, consumer identity projects, and taste-regimes, among other brand/market phenomena and consumption sub-topics. I discovered the conditions of psychological striving among American consumers - the seeming unending quest for “Authenticity” - buttressed by historical awareness of Edward Bernay’s work and impact on the development of the capitalistic marketing/ propaganda mechanism.
It is clear that our system of modern capitalism was designed to redirect our natural drive for beauty and connection into patterns of consumption and behavior that served economic interests of the controlling order. The nuance of how this still operates in individual psychology and group (subculture) dynamics is pervasive and upheld by conditioning of the Western “Modern” worldview. This touches and informs every aspect of modern American life, as well as wherever the global western-economic-colonial agenda has expanded. At the heart of this worldview lies the ‘Story of Separation,’ which traditional wisdom and modern advances in science demonstrate is a fundamentally flawed view of reality.
The Quest for Authenticity extends far beyond market and consumption patterns. It lives at the edge of the modern understanding of life and humanity’s role in it. But we can continue to look at consumption patterns, entertainment narratives, local events and cultural trends to observe the current, and actively divergent, pulse of western collective consciousness, and triangulate the zeitgeist’s dominant location within the territory of Authenticity. The closer it navigates to the “truth” (which I hypothesize can be felt at the border between indigenous and western ways), the more imperative it will be that the market systems shift so that they are capable of “supplying” and “sustaining” it.
Will complete system collapse comes first? Will complete system collapse be necessary? What, if any, institutions and organizations will evolve? What [entities, systems, stories, practices, cultural elements, etc.] can and are supporting the move closer to this nucleus of truth and authenticity, now? These are some central questions of our time.
Independent Query, 2022-Ongoing
Influence and Insights from Frontier Culture for the American Now
“The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts im in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin.” - Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893
What may we come to understand freshly about the American essence, by looking closer at the process of expansion into territory unknown. How might we learn from the mistakes and successes of colonial settlement, to inform a wise approach to our current unknown territories of Articifial Intelligence, technology and evolving consciousness?
“The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts im in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin.” - Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893
What may we come to understand freshly about the American essence, by looking closer at the process of expansion into territory unknown. How might we learn from the mistakes and successes of colonial settlement, to inform a wise approach to our current unknown territories of Articifial Intelligence, technology and evolving consciousness?