A Thought for Manifestoists.

I came across this article, A Manifesto for ustainability in Design, at Worldchanging the other day. The first thing that grab my attention was what the author, Allan Chochinov from Core77, said about manifestos.

I don't like the word manifesto. It reeks of dogma and rules—two things I instinctively reject. I do love the way it puts things on the line, but I don't like lines, or groups. So a manifesto probably isn't for me. The other thing about manifestos is that they appear (or are written so as to appear) self-evident. This kind of a priori writing is easy, since you simply lay out what seems obviously—even tautologically—true.

Of course, this is the danger of manifestos, but also what makes them fun to read. And fun to write. So I'll write this manifesto. I just might not sign it.

It makes me think about my own manifesto writing, which was definitely a lot of fun to write. However, it makes sense to say that manifestos draw lines, which are problematic, and that we should consider carefully which, if any, lines we want to draw.