March 9, 2015

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche on BYU Humanities

Kierkegaard preached loving condescension: getting down on someone's level in order to lift them up. He discussed authenticity and the fight against despair and resignation. Finally, he outlined three different levels of being: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. With that in mind, let us see how these principles can be applied to the BYU Humanities website.

To my mind, "loving condescension" in a website translates to a welcoming and robust interface. A Kierkegaardian website should introduce its purpose and content in a way that is easy to understand, even if its visitor has no prior knowledge of its subject. The BYU Humanities website does not do so. It fails to include an obvious mission statement or text box that outlines the goals of the website, or even "humanities" in general. Perhaps, one might argue, it would be insulting to the intelligence of most visitors to define "humanities." I doubt that. Most people would appreciate the gesture, even if they might not consider it necessary. Erring on the side of caution is essential for a website to be accessible to everyone. This idea of accessibility relates back to Plato and Aristotle, as a matter of fact.

Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, championed the powerful individual, or the Übermensch. He emphasized the will to create values and the will to power. He believed that those who create should do so with respect for their audience, as if their audience were creators themselves. To inspire, to exemplify, to strive to break free of moral and societal restraints, these are Nietzschean values. Can they be applied to the BYU Humanities website? Perhaps, in a (grossly) simplified way, they can.

To be quite honest, Nietzsche is not a philosopher who can be simplified coherently. It is difficult to quantify the degree to which a website was created with the idea of the will to power in mind, for example. Perhaps, then, a website which defies the norm, whose creator took pride in his work and could be critiqued as such, could be considered Nietzschean. I honestly don't know. I hesitate to apply the term here. Regardless, let's look at the BYU Humanities website anyway. It has what you might call a "slick" interface, and clearly attempts to follow the minimalist and modern schools of thought. From a technical design standpoint, however, there is room for improvement. Margins could be matched up, dividing lines could be thinned, and fonts could be changed to agree with each other. For example, mixing serif and sans serif fonts in content boxes is a major no-no, and one which I am frankly surprised to see. The website as a whole is on the right track, but definitely needs work to be considered a website which other creators could draw inspiration from.

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