Hybrid Assignment 10

According to Fuller, the “Comprehensive Designer” would stand outside of industry and science, and would process information they produced, observing technologies and translating it into tools for happiness. This “Comprehensive Designer” was meant to restore what bureaucracy took away from society, i.e. equality. Fuller came to believe in this designer when he noticed how the world’s resources had been unevenly distributed during the Second World War. While some nations were prospering, others were stricken with poverty and Fuller believed that this “Comprehensive Designer” would be the solution to the world’s problems due to his objectivity. While corporations would always seek their interest, the “Comprehensive Designer” would seek the interest of all.

This was appealing to Brand because he too believed in a society of equality, one in which resources could be distributed equally and all people could benefit. He viewed the Native Americans as people that society should strive to be like, stating “If the White collar man of the 1950’s had become detached from the land and from his own emotions, the Native American could show him how to be home again, physically and psychologically. If the large corporations and governments of the twentieth century were organized in psychologically and socially divisive hierarchies, the world of the Native American was organized into tribes.” Brand believed that Native Americans held the key to a non-hierarchal world and he admired the way that they held a deep sense of community living. Brand’s use of psychedelic drugs mirrored the Native American way of life, where they often took various substances to achieve an altered state of mind.

I think that Brand overlooked the fact that even within the Native American community, there was still a hierarchal system in place. Tribal chiefs were often given the final say in matters affecting the community, however, they did not profit off of the community in the way that bureaucratic organizations profit off of those beneath them. In every community and society, there is usually a leader because it would be almost impossible to have a successful structure-less society. Brand came to love the idea of the “Comprehensive Designer” because he believed this person would be objective and would get rid of hierarchies. To him, the Native Americans were the closest he had come to a non-hierarchal society

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