Brave Soul Indeed...

For some reason I find it perversely amusing when some left wing nutter spouts some ridiculous comment about being "brave" while spouting off about Bush or some odd little conspiracy theory on prime time to some sympathizing interviewer. Now here's someone who's truly brave: Martyn Perks, is a design consultant who calls green design "anti-design" (via core77) in quite the smack-down:

What underpins the general shift towards green design is a widespread sense of guilt and self-doubt felt by many designers about blighting the world with too much stuff. The paradox is that the big idea they turn to for salvation - environmentalism - means that rather than endeavouring to produce something new to solve the problem, one that makes use of the best possible processes, ideas and resources, designers will attempt to regain a sense of purpose and credibility by preaching to the rest of us to lower our horizons. [...]

Every so often, moments do arise which push the boundaries a bit further, or if you are lucky, by a long way. That's called innovation. And when it occurs, it must be seized upon. However, the greening of design 'thinking' only seeks the opposite effect: the deliberate curtailment of that freedom to think. The designer makes a virtue out of doing less and thinking small. This is 'anti-design'. Holding back ideas inevitably means crap solutions. And that affects us all.

I can't say I disagree - I just hope he's prepared for all those villagers with their pitch forks who ironically are often the first to call for censorship of ideas they don't agree with.