“There is more than one way to burn a book.” -Ray Bradbury
In his book, Notes of the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander describes the problem of the “architect” as a role in form making. The designer developed as a progression from the act of addressing micro-problems as subsets of cultural tradition, to the modern designer tackling macro-problems through “conceptual habits.” The fact is that the cognitive abilities of humans do not have the breadth necessary to capture all micro-problems involved in form making. Concepts are used as a crutch to help group micro-problems into manageable subsets of the macro-problem. This is analogous to how a book’s index is divided, arranged and grouped to provide the reader with a method of navigation. We would not, however, presume to understand the book through a glance at the chapter organization.
Ray Bradbury presents an extreme, but parallel scenario in Fahrenheit 451. The novel is essentially about how censorship removes facts and even understanding of life. All of the books and words that are being burnt in the story are representations of micro-level understandings. Once these are removed and replaced with broad concepts like the “parlor walls” or “firemen”, basic understandings of the human experience slowly fade.
In the coda Bradbury recalls the ridiculous attempt of some editors to put together an anthology for a school reader that stuffed an appalling 400 short stories into one volume. How did they do it?
“Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito – out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch – gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer – lost! Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like – in the finale – Edgar Guest.”
I am not arguing against the functionality of the index or a summary. They have a very specific role, but too often they are used as a substitute for understanding. A chapter heading represents a boundary, rule or principle. In practice, a principle is often created as a summary of biases, and therefor cannot be trusted as fact.
This is simply a word of caution. In the creative process, don’t rely on a concept to drive a solution. Look first to the micro-problems. That is where the most uncommon solutions are found.
Tags: alexander, bradbury, christopher, fahrenheit, MashUps, notes, ray
