"Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, critique." That's how the saying goes, right? Well, my name is Dallin and I'm a senior at BYU. Admittedly, I know very little about the technicalities of web design. So the idea of me critiquing the BYU Humanities website might seem like a job best left to a graphic designer. However, my professor felt that the Humanities webpage could use a fresh set of eyes, as the saying goes, and so he recommended I take a look at it. My critique, as you, the reader, have probably already gathered from this site, is a philosophical one. I have written a textbook with my professor on the philosophy of aesthetics applied to filmmaking, which we teach out of in our Intro to the Philosophy of Art class. I will apply many of the same principles to my critique of the Humanities website. Aesthetics is, after all, just a presentation, in one form or another, meant to evoke a certain response in the viewer, or, writ large, a general truth of human understanding. This idea is implicitly ingrained in the mind of everyone who creates: the desire to be part of the "great conversation," which, incidentally, is a name used to refer to the study of philosophy.
Alright, enough preamble. Let's start with Plato, as per the usual.
PLATO
Plato's Theory of Forms states that non-material abstract Forms or Ideas, and not the material world that we can sense, possess the highest level of reality. He suggests that these Forms are the only objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge. However, they cannot be fully articulated. Plato did not believe that words could fully communicate ideas. He stated that words can deceive us into thinking we understand when we actually do not. On the other hand, Forms can give an artist a way to find organic unity, and therefore, beauty. A good social website would attract us not only to itself, but to the idea of beauty itself. It must have a unified theme towards which all of its parts strive.
Plato wrote in dialogues to facilitate discussion. In a similar manner, social media facilitates discussion in the modern age. It should make it easier for people of similar interests to meet and discuss ideas. A good form of social media should not posit itself as a final answer, as the be-all, end-all, but rather as a way to raise questions and open possibilities. Facebook is an excellent example of this. When it first came out, it was a simple way to connect with other people, but as different demands were raised, it added functions such as pages, games, groups, and other services to appease consumer demand. Facebook adapted because it had to in order to stay relevant. Today, it's behind the curve, and now is desperately trying to continue to adapt in order to attempt to stay relevant. I believe that its time has come and gone, however, there are still many lessons we can learn from it as to what makes an ideal social website.
A good social website, then, must have a unified theme. All its parts must work together towards a cohesive whole. It must include everyone. It must be easy to sign up for and should provide a user-friendly experience with detailed guides and an intuitive interface. And it should invite discussion, providing a forum where people can easily share ideas. Facebook satisfied all of these requirements, and thus, when it first came out, it was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
The BYU Humanities website suffers because it is not immediately obvious what its theme or its purpose is. Does it seek to inform? To recruit? To impress? It seems as if it's trying to go in multiple directions, because it's not at all obvious how the
various parts of the site fit together. I feel like this could be remedied fairly easily if drop-down boxes were introduced for the various links at the top of the page, e.g., "Students", "Faculty", etc., showing each different kind of visitor what they can expect upon visiting the site. The potential is there. The content exists. It just needs to be presented in a less confusing way.
ARISTOTLE
Aristotle was all about action (phronesis), or practical wisdom. According to him, a good social website would invite and attract people who wanted to act and would show them and give them potential ways to act. In each moment, the potentialities of a thing are developed given the situation it is in. As human beings, we act by actualizing potentialities of ourselves in the situation we find ourselves in. That selection of potentialities to actualize Aristotle calls mind. Given how we act and others and things respond, we find ourselves with a new set of potentialities to act from--a new character. Character is the potentialities we have to act from, and thus our characters, or disposition, develop through our actions. Through this actualization of potentialities, humans can find happiness.
Action is necessary to actualize potential. A good social website would actualize its potential by helping users to actualize their potential. It would seek to understand its potential market by understanding its market’s potential, who or what they are seeking to become. It would also allow users to contribute to the potentialities of the website. That’s what makes it a good social website and not just a good website in general. The users, by their participating in the social aspects of the site, are the dynamic that makes the site able to actualize its potential. Thus, there is an interdependence between the website itself and the users, in that the users help to make it (the website) what it is and it (the website) helps to make them (the users) what they are.
Aristotle’s ideas of an adult’s education as opposed to a child’s education can be applied to social media. A “child” or beginner website is one that you create for your purposes and expect people to participate in. An “adult” or advanced one would be one that becomes the users, who dictate and manipulate it for their purposes. Aristotle teaches that we should provide opportunities to interpret and interact as this leads to a more advanced form of learning than just sharing or repetition.Ethos (author credibility), pathos (passionate argument), and logos (logical reasoning) all should be present to one degree or another.
The most important part of a social media website, according to Aristotle, would be the beginning, or the first thing a viewer sees. Just as a good movie should start in the action, a good website should immediately make its purpose apparent. It should tell a viewer what it is good for, what it can help them do, and should bring out a sort of theme at the same time. Additionally, a good website should encourage discussion; a marketplace of ideas, in essence. Therefore, it must also be easily shareable. The purpose of this discussion is so that the website can continue to better itself to service the needs of its users.
With this in mind, let's turn to the BYU Humanities website. This is the first thing a viewer sees:
I understand that the website designer has probably gone for a minimalism theme. But there is a difference between minimalism and wasting space. Additionally, the sidebar on the left is cut off, forcing the viewer to scroll down if they would like to read the rest. Perhaps the idea of the page is something like a Facebook news feed. But that should be addressed with all the blank space at the top of the page that is currently only occupied with a picture of the outside grounds of the JFSB. That space is what should be utilized to inform visitors of the purpose of the site and encourage discussion at the same time. Until that is accomplished, this website will be clunky and confusing.
HUME
KANT
HEGEL
Hegel’s philosophy of aesthetics portrayed art as having one particular purpose: to allow us to contemplate and enjoy images of our own spiritual freedom—which images are beautiful precisely
because they give expression to our freedom. In other words, art’s purpose is to enable us to bring to mind the truth about ourselves, to enable us to become aware of who we truly are as free human beings. Art is there not just for art's sake, but for beauty's sake, that is, for the sake of a distinctively sensuous form of free human self-expression and self-understanding. Furthermore, art is not only just a matter of form, but of content. Art must contain within itself the freedom and richness of spirit embodied and living in the world.
So what does this mean for the BYU Humanities site? Well, it presents a surprisingly optimistic viewpoint. Due to the theme of progression through the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the only way it could be considered “bad” is if it fails to be inspired and to, in turn, inspire. Keep in mind that this isn’t an explicit goal, but rather, a by-product of a marriage of form and content into beauty. That beauty will, in turn, inspire each viewer to privately ponder their own freedom and their place in the divine.
MARX
KIERKEGAARD
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
Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, championed the powerful individual, or the overman; 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 coherently simplified. 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.
DEWEY
Dewey was a pragmatist who sought to reform the American educational system by finding a consensus between the two extremes of rationalism and empiricism. Empiricists thought that experience starts with what is given to our senses. Rationalism, on the other hand, is based on thought and gives little to no credit to experience. But real experience, according to Dewey, is an interaction between a thinking being and the world. Dewey valued change, and progress over time. To him, intelligence is not simply the gathering of information, but the process of solving a problem. Because he was so concerned with practical results, he is known as one of the founders of pragmatism.
A good social website, then, should seek to solve a problem its visitors may have. It should invite participation, giving its visitors the opportunity to test out the standards it presents. Finally, because it can only be good if it is consistently successful, it should seek for feedback and always look to update and improve itself.
Going back to Plato: the BYU Humanities website falls short because it either tries to solve too many problems at once or it doesn't effectively communicate to its visitors how it can solve their problems. A more cohesive interface, driven by a unified theme (as discussed above), would work wonders for the presentation and effectiveness of the site as a whole.
HEIDEGGER
Similar to Dewey, Heidegger was interested in how the individual can find his place in the context of society. Heidegger referred to this as "Being-in-the-world," and spends a great portion of his masterwork,
Being and Time, discussing exactly what this entails. To summarize him within the scope of this page, I'm going to list his basic ideas; keep in mind that there are many others, and do not necessarily sequentially follow from each other, regardless of how they are presented.
Heidegger asked, "what does it mean to be?", a question from which sprung the rest of his philosophy. His answer, in part, is that to be is to care. Humans are the being for whom things matter, and that care is exhibited, among other ways, in art. Art is truth's "setting-itself-to-work," and enables the observer to reach a place whereby they can discover truth for themselves. Note that art does not purport to
be truth, only that it enables one to find it.
On a different, yet related topic: We are responsible for the state of things in the world. There is no other nebulous world, like Kant believed. Our actions change the potentialities of things around us. We seek to find conscience (an echo of Kierkegaard's authenticity), and must fight to avoid "falling-in-with-the-One."
With this in mind, a good social website, then, unifies its users by inspiring them to draw on their common potentialities in discussion and action, and then exploring the new possibilities thereby achieved. We are all individuals, concerned with others, seeking to take authentic action; if a social website can present a means to that end, then it will be successful.
The full scope of a Heideggerian approach is probably beyond the scope of the BYU Humanities website. It's not Facebook; it's going to be difficult for it to incite conversation between its users. The closest it can get to that isa probably through the presentation of events where visitors of the site would be interested in going to and welcomed upon their arrival. In this, it succeeds: it has no shortage of events and announcements on its front page. My only concern, again, is that it may be difficult to tell who a particular event is aimed at, which is why I suggested drop down menus for the different categories of visitors to the site. Giving each category their own page, i.e., "Students," "Faculty," etc., is a step in the right direction, but that needs to somehow be implemented into the homepage for it to truly be effective. As an example why, ask yourself the last time you ever went onto the second page of Google results. We have especially short attention spans in this day and age, and unfortunately, the BYU Humanities website fails to cater to that. Yes, it's unfortunate that it's become necessary to present information in this way, but the fact of the matter is that there are rules a website has to follow if it wants to be successful, and effective communication is a major one.
