(((Having a nifty designer fit of textbook "dark euphoria" in the ICSID site.)))
http://www.icsid.org/feature/current/articles835.htm
(...)
"A quarter of a century has now elapsed and we once again find ourselves in a situation that could not be more dramatic. The age of petroleum is coming to a dramatic end and we can assume that all accompanying crises are directly or indirectly connected with this.
"The philosopher Peter Sloterdijk talks about a past decade of frivolity and intoxication. After repeated booms we are now experiencing to a massive extent what Sloterdijk calls the "resistance of the real."
(((He's a nice guy, Sloterdijk, but what we're about to get is best described to German philosophers as the thesis/antithesis "Resistance of the Real Frivolity and Intoxication.")))
"And this also applies to the automobile industry which finds itself, something that comes as more or less of a surprise, in the middle of the downward spiral caused by the financial crisis, climate crisis and energy crisis. Similarly to the banks, the automotive industry is losing its inviolability.
"As everybody knows, every seventh job is dependent on the car. (((I didn't know that, but, unlike the author of this essay, I'm not a German car designer.))) Over the past decades the car industry has grown massively, raking in very good profits. But making provisions for bad times was never an issue that was seriously addressed. In times when people have other problems than thinking about nice cars, the car companies are threatened with becoming victims of their own success.
"Looking back, it somehow comes as no surprise that things could not continue like this forever. But as everyone knows, it is easy to be wise after the event. Sales are tumbling dramatically and the sector's leaders are looking directly into the abyss. (((Dark euphoria: "it comes as no surprise that we are looking directly into the abyss." Why ISN'T that a "surprise," for heaven's sake? Exactly how thrilled are you about an unsurprising abyss? How long do you plan on euphorically floating in midair there? Or is that a plan, exactly? Got no plan? Bring on the corrugated tin and favela breeze blocks.)))
Various nations are putting together rescue packages that frequently only prolong the rot. ((("prolong the rot" = Gothic High Tech.))) In the final analysis, the market will consolidate itself into only a few survivors, as we have already witnessed in several other sectors.
"From all sides people are trying to shake the protagonists out of their drug-like torpor (((dark euphoria))) and even the German Automobile Club ADAC, as guardians of the Grail of unrestricted travel for free citizens is vehemently demanding a radical new approach. ((("Favela Chic.")))
"But what do designers have to do with this? Can they contribute anything positive or is it even the case that they are partially responsible for crimes such as the unbelievable waste of resources and global warming, something that now appears to be irreversible? (((I'd like to tot up the crimes us bloggers are partially responsible for, but it would take me until 2018, when "blogs" will be long dead.))) What really happens in the automotive industry's hermetically sealed, top-secret design studios? (((Hermetic Gothic High-Tech.))) How could designers here influence the development of new products? (...)
"Sergio Marchionne, the Fiat boss, (((I learn a lot from Fiat, seriously))) thinks there is only enough room on the global market for six corporations. Designers at the large motor corporations are slowly getting the unpleasant feeling that they have signed on the Titanic, a ship whose promised unsinkability throws up questions. (((Titanic = Gothic High Tech. Lifeboat on the Titanic = Favela Chic. Awesome techno dance-band laying down some hot tracks on the Titanic and shipping 'em globally through iTunes, "dark euphoria.")))
"Already, the first studios are being shut down as part of rigorous economies. The future will tell who has already rammed the iceberg. It is not the case that nobody saw the crisis coming, but as long as everything was going well criticism was frowned upon.
"This dream job could turn into a nightmare. As in the financial world, the politicians even promoted this fatal development in the car industry. In the final analysis, it was a wrong traffic policy that meant that the wrong products were developed for far too long.
"Just being able to show the others that you are capable of over-taking them on the highway cannot be a sustainable concept for contemporary automobile development. Our confidence in a perfect world, where prosperity, unrestricted mobility, status consciousness and unlimited resources are a matter of course has been shattered. Now, after the financial bubble, the automobile bubble is about to burst...."
