Design, McDonaldization, and the Disenchantment of Society

March 28, 2016 — Documented by Kaylee White and Alison Huang

The dominate mechanistic world view has dominated since the dawn of the 21st century. We are coming to a point in human history (the anthropocene) where new ideas are coming about. Complexity theory has proven that everything is interconnected, which encourages us to look at the world in a new way.

How can designers design to usher in this transition? Designers need to use rigorous critical thinking. For example, they need to ask questions like, “What about that works? What about that doesn’t work so well?” They need to think about how we meet our needs in place-based ways. How do we improve the quality of life for everyone?

McDonaldization

McDonalds made a paradigm for efficiency. Most social technical systems have been affected by this efficient way of functioning. The process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are dominating is affecting more and more factors of society.

The goal of design: The shaping of flows of energy and matter to meet human concerns (without impeding the ability of other species to meet theirs).

If design is a ubiquitous human activity, what is the role of the professional designer? McDonaldization effects not only the restaurant business but also education work, the criminal justice system, health care, travel, leisure, dieting, politics, the family, religion…

“Our goal: to totally dominate the quick serve restaurant industry worldwide… I want McDonald’s to be more than a leader. I want McDonald’s to dominate.”

—McDonald’s company chairman

Dimensions of McDonaldization

Efficiency

Offers the best way possible to get from bing hungry to being full. Workers follow steps in a predesigned process and are watched over closely by managers

Calculability

Quanitity = quality. A lot of something and the quick delivery of it means it must be good: Big Mac, large fries, quarter pounder.

Predictability

Assurance that products & services will be the same over time, in all locales. Workers behave in predictable ways, following scripted behaviors which leads to extreme standardization. Assumption is that people want as few purposes as possible.

Control

Control is exerted over the people who enter the McDonaldized system. Lines, limited/set menu, few options & uncomfortable seats has people eat & leave quickly. Workers are trained to do a limited number of things in precisely the same way.

The Homogenization of Form

Birth as well as death are McDonaldized in society. Old cemeteries have diverse types of tombstones, today however, most of the modern tombstones are homogenized in form. They look the same.

World View

Descriptive—Tells us what is. Normative—Tells us what ought to be. It is a both a sketch of and blueprint for — reality.

What is the alternative?

Holistic Science and Other Ways of knowing. Nature designs for local conditions. Centralized, templatized solutions simply wont work. The waste from one entity is the food for another.

Chaos refers to the underlying interconnectedness that exists between seemingly random events.

Disenchantment

Disenchantment of the world, involves sorting its behavior into mundane and magical categories and stigmatizing the latter, making it a disreputable object of inquiry. We become disenchanted only when this invidious distinction is developed, and remains so only while it lasts. In its absence, by contrast, the magical and the mundane appear to us largely indistinguishable.

Disenchantment affects how we think about design, what we choose to design, and how we go about designing it. Is the ‘reenchantment of design’ a necessary ingredient in sustainable design?

Exercise

Find newspaper articles that are connected to one or more McDonaldized systems. Look for connections between them. How are they connected to wicked problems? Look for phrases or concepts in the articles and the McDonaldized systems that are connected either a mechanistic/reductionist or holistic/ecological worldview.