Orientation

We place civic ignorance at the top of our anti-patterns collection because civic ignorance is at the core of everything that human beings do to each other that is harmful.

Civic ignorance takes different forms; it is their sum total and the perfidious interaction among the various forms that creates the Agnosphere, the ubiquitous shroud that fights civic intelligence on all fronts.

It is often quite “natural” and occurs in all of us to some degree. It is most menacing in its professional varieties, when well-resourced and self-serving elites intentionally cultivate ignorance. Historically, in the United States, the tobacco companies were the most treacherous and whose campaigns can be credited with thousands if not millions of unnecessary deaths. Currently the climate change denial campaign is the most prominent and much of the intentionally spread misinformation can be traced back to a handful of dedicated billionaires.

How it Works

Civic ignorance is assured in many ways — in general, that's what we're trying to show with our project. Fixating on certain hard-and-fast "truisms" is important. Blaming the other person is important. On an individual level, not even listening to a argument that runs counter to your own is effective since that avoids any real consideration of the issue. From an institutional level, access to information and communication should be controlled by elites. The items on the public agenda should be restricted — but it should not seem like this is the case. Finally, critics of the system should be marginalized or ignored.

Evidence

Links

All of the anti-patterns are related to this!

References

Agnotology book

Suggestions by Gerald Dillenbeck: I imagine living in a U.S. culture that celebrates "Vocation Day," inclusive of Labor; "Nurturance Day," inclusive of Mothers; "Interdependence Day," inclusive of Independence and Freedom and Security; "Creativity Day," inclusive of Christmas, "Regeneration Day," inclusive of Easter, "New Seasons Day," inclusive of New Years, "Visioning Day," inclusive of Memorial, "Gratitude Day," inclusive of Thanksgiving, "Mentors Day," inclusive of Presidents, and maybe even the perennial kids' favorite "Enlightenment Day," inclusive of Halloween.

There is a song written by a group called "The Rapture." The lyrics are as such: "...gonna get myself into, wanna help me do it?"

There is a potential problem, that may arise from framing ideas within a pattern. Take the #3 - The Good Life for instance; it can be taken many different ways-- this is the point, yes, but other patterns are not as easily defined.  Others may have a harder time personalizing a pattern to what it is that they are wanting to use. One may find themselves adhering too closely to the description of the cards.The idea is to use the structure of the patterns and expand them.

The patterns are inclusive, but are without us unless we put ourselves into it. First and foremost it important to assess the self before engaging a project that involves and affects others-- this should be the same when approaching Pattern Language. This will allow for better use and quality of a collective outcome.

More later....

(note that the Discussion is still in work.....)

Street Music blurs the distinction between producer and consumer of music as well as the distinction between formal and informal venues for music production and consumption. 

Although street bands, including many of those found at Honk Fests, can be found at protests (including the Infernal Noise Machine (image below) that supported the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999), their actions are often political to a large degree by virtue of their publicness in an era of electronic or other formalized or mediated forms of music consumption. 

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-MLvzLlou4 for Environmental Encroachment's performance of Hashia.

Thanks to a member of the Bucharest Drinking Team and to Bob of Environmental Encroachment for their thoughts on the current breed of "new street bands" including their history and motivation.