Solutionism: Difference between revisions

<blockquote>The term is explained further in the book:<br/> <br/> ''"All these efforts to ease the torments of existence might sound like paradise to Silicon Valley. But for the rest of us, they will be hell. They are driven by a pervasive and dangerous ideology that I call “solutionism”: an intellectual pathology that recognizes problems as problems based on just one criterion: whether they are “solvable” with a nice and clean technological solution at our disposal."''</blockquote> <blockquote>''"This never-ending quest to ameliorate...recasting all complex social situations either as neat problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can be optimized...I call the ideology that legitimizes and sanctions such aspirations 'solutionism.' I borrow this unabashedly pejorative term from the world of architecture and urban planning, where it has come to refer to an unhealthy preoccupation with sexy, monumental, and narrow-minded solutions...to problems that are extremely complex, fluid, and contentious."&nbsp;''</blockquote>

<blockquote>''"In his brilliant essay “In Praise of Inconsistency,” published in Dissent in 1964, the Polish philosopher '''Leszek Kolakowsk'''i argued that, given that we are regularly confronted with equally valid choices where painful ethical reflection is in order, being inconsistent is the only way to avoid becoming a doctrinaire ideologue who sticks to an algorithm. For Kolakowski, absolute consistency is identical to fanaticism."'' &nbsp;</blockquote> <blockquote>''"Design theorist '''Michael Dobbins''' has it right: solutionism presumes rather than investigates the problems that it is trying to solve."&nbsp;''</blockquote> <blockquote>''"Many of the antisolutionist jibes throughout this book fit into the tripartite taxonomy of reactionary social change so skillfully outlined by the social theorist '''Albert Hirshman'''..in his influential book The Rhetoric of Reaction.''</blockquote> <blockquote>''"My critique of solutionism bears some resemlanceresemblance to several critiques of the numerous eaerlier efforts to put humanity into too tight a straitjacket...I'm thinking, in particular, of '''Ivan Illich''''s protestations against the highly efficient but dehumanizing systems of professional schooling and medicine, '''Jane Jacobs'''' attacks on the arrogance of urban plans...'''James Scott''''s concern with how states have forced what he calls 'legibility' on their subjects. Some might add '''Friedrich Hayek''''s opposition to central planners, with their inherent deficiency, to this list."&nbsp;''</blockquote>