The Archive of Free Thinking

think – act – grow

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  • Do you know your place?

    ​​There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

    Ernest Hemingway

    Hemingway’s perspective that there is ‘nothing noble in being superior’ challenges our devotion to hierarchy. He does not argue that there are no differences between men, but rather that the enforcement of these differences over others is not ‘noble’. There is something more true, more practical about the man who seeks his own development compared to the false idol of personal superiority. There is a human tendency towards hierarchy, apparent in the dangers of nationalism to the layers of superiority found even in small, niche groups. Sharon Traweek found hierarchies even in the culture of high-energy physicists, with theoretical physicists viewing themselves as more senior than experimental physicists, who in turn considered themselves more senior than data analytical scientists. This article argues that the existence of hierarchies in communities and groups can be harmful, resulting in judgmental behaviour, failure to listen and understand and a tendency to impose views. These issues of hierarchy are particularly damaging in social policy, including healthcare, housing and immigration, where they can result in ineffective programmes and the allocation of people to defined roles in society of either ‘giver’ or ‘recipient.’ The ‘givers’, the state, charities and ‘recipients’, groups or individuals, then become separated and stuck, repeating the same roles, with increasing dependence, loss of agency and disappointing outcomes. To address the issues resulting from these hierarchies, this article proposes a new approach, a ‘switching of hats’, whereby people deliberately and visibly move positions within the hierarchy, from ‘recipient’ to ‘giver’ or from ‘giver’ to ‘recipient’, to create greater empathy and understanding. This approach, over time, can break down the idea of hierarchy, superiority and separation. It offers the opportunity to transform the impact of social policies, the efficiency of government, the effectiveness of charities and the livelihood, the sense of worth and the ‘nobility’ of individuals. 

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  • The value of stories

    “Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

    G.K. Chesterton

    Chesterton’s quote can be interpreted in four distinct ways. It is a criticism of intellectual elitism, a clarification of the distinctions between fiction and literature: between entertainment and insight, and between freedom of imagination and the prescribing of cultural values. It describes how Chesterton wrote his detective novels by combining fictional stories and moral purpose (the detective uncovering truth and ensuring justice). In another sense, it is also a heartfelt expression of the real human need for stories.

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  • The importance of understanding video games

    “They assimilate games into some other, more respectable category of human practice.” 

    C. Thi Nguyen

    Nguyen argues that comparing games to other art forms, rather than establishing and examining games within their own category, leads to an underestimation of their distinctiveness and importance. An importance which lies in a game’s unique quality as a medium; unlike films or theatre, a game is physiologically immersive, and only complete when played. Using the same analytical approaches as with film or theatre, because they involve moving images, is partial and inadequate. This article argues that the genre deserves more respect and a closer analysis of the relationship between the player and the game. Without specific analysis of how games work, they will not be understood, and the medium’s strengths and potential risks will not be appreciated or mitigated.

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  • The secret to better parks – a visual essay

    “Parks are not automatically anything”

    Jane Jacobs

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  • Are we drowning in data?

    “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”

    Mark Twain

    The conventional view on data and garbage is “garbage in, garbage out.” But Mark Twain raises a more fundamental point, that data is only as useful as its potential applications, and these must be thoroughly investigated before the collection begins. This is important because collecting data for the sake of having more data is wasteful of both time and money. Furthermore, focusing on data can distort behaviour, limit the development of new questions and challenging insights and also delay action. Twain’s warning is even more relevant today with our continuous focus on data collection, our increased ability to acquire data and AI generating new data. As a result, we need a new approach that redefines the relationship between data collection, measurement, insight and action, which is more focused on effectiveness and impact. Without such a transition, our ability to respond to social, economic and climate challenges will be constrained and will eventually stall.

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  • How to ‘energise’ politics

    “Agitation and mutability are inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just as stagnation and sleepiness are the law of absolute monarchies.”

    Alexis de Tocqueville

    Tocqueville observed that ‘agitation and mutability’ are features of societies responsive to the political needs of their people. This essay examines the fundamental forces that drive this change: injustice, knowledge and hope. It also argues that on their own, these forces are insufficient because the energy required to create change is often dissipated over time or lost through factional disagreements. As a result, there is a need for organising frameworks which maximise energy to ensure a functional democracy. They need to encourage collective action, reward involvement, drive focused effort and ensure continuous action. The analysis also reminds us that preserving democracy is an ongoing and demanding process, as Dwight Eisenhower stated, “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” 

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  • Artificial Intelligence; artificial results

    “Set yourself to becoming the best-informed person… on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read books on oil geology and the production of petroleum products. Read the trade journals in the field. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories.”

    David Ogilvy (1983)

    In this quotation, marketing icon David Ogilvy highlights the need for a deep and direct understanding of a problem in order to develop an effective solution. He emphasises the importance of immersion, attention to detail and engaged passion. This edition examines why his approach to problem-solving was so successful, and why it has been in decline over the last twenty years. It highlights how the search for ‘real world’ understanding has been replaced by ‘artificial’ and ‘constructed’ views of the world, simulacra. It identifies that the problem of artificiality is becoming more acute with the growth of AI, with its introspective forms of learning. Finally, it explores the adverse consequences of this change on how we view the world and shares some ideas to reverse the trend. 

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  • How to pick the right medium

    “If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.”

    Stanley Kubrick

    While Stanley Kubrick’s words could be an observation on the intrinsic flexibility of film (or a somewhat arrogant assessment of his own skill as a director), it is more fundamentally a comment on the flow of ideas across mediums. This edition explores this process of adaptation as ideas move from one medium to another, how a play can become a film and then a stage musical (as with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story). Many factors drive the adaptation of ideas into different mediums: a writer or director’s interest in a new interpretation, new technologies and materials, as well as commercial opportunities. This edition of the archive examines why some adaptations can be straightforward, while others are more difficult. It highlights that adaptation is often a source of inspiration in the emergence of new art forms and representations. It also explores how certain forms of representation become established across mediums. Over time, multiple acts of adaptation force both the artist and the viewer to reexamine the work and how it relates to the moment of its creation, reemphasising the importance of understanding the specific meaning of ideas and the qualities of mediums when moving an idea from medium to medium. 

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  • You should be listening to buildings

    “Interiors (of buildings) are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere.”

    Peter Zumthor

    Sound, like colour, offers architects a material with a wide spectrum of potential applications.  Sound in buildings can create atmosphere, rekindle memories and generate emotions. It can repurpose and refine private and public space, and it can be efficient, requiring minimal construction, environmental and economic costs. By looking at sound as a design tool, we can ‘amplify’ the emotional capacity of spaces, to profound effect.

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  • Don’t forget about textile art

    “The act of sewing is a process of emotional repair.”

    Louise Bourgeois

    Sewing, in all its forms: weaving, knitting, crochet and embroidery, has a unique quality and meaning derived from the range of materials used in the structured process of creation. The medium informs the works created, but so does the process of creation. This is particularly clear in textiles because the marks of labour are so physically apparent. These characteristics make ‘sewing’, and other (handmade) textile art forms especially valuable as mnemonic objects that carry ideas, identities, and histories.

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