Aesthetics

 

 

"What's in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet..."

William Shakespeare

 

 

  

The word ideologie ("the science of ideas") was coined by the French philosopher Count Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century.  Thomas Jefferson was counted as one of his many admirers.  It was only after he fell out of favor with Napoleon Bonaparte–he called his anti-monarchical and pro-democratic views the work of an "ideologue"–that the word succumbed to the value-neutral connotation we still know of today.

 

Two hundred years later,  the possibility of a real universal exchange of ideas is emerging:  one in which the multitude of cooperative and competitive ideologies existing throughout human consciousness could be merged into an integral whole.  What better name could be used to identify a new class of distributed collaborative methodologies?  By slightly abbreviating its native-language spelling to emphasize the underlying symmetry of the phenomenon it would represent, the name (and registered trademark) ideologi was born.

The type font used for ideologi's title logo (top) is based on the lettering style of Dutch artist M.C. Escher.  He was famous for his geometrically surrealist artwork, especially that of physically impossible landscapes -- a perfect metaphor for a collaborative method that only exists through the radically-mediated interaction of its participants.  This combined with the use of a lowercase title is designed to emphasize the humility and the integrity of its stewardship; its outline form represents the fact that fate of ideologi will be determined by the transparent efforts of its participants and not a secretive cadre of private interests.

 

The icon (shown above) encapsulates a myriad of meanings, including the following..

• A playful twist on the recognizable "gains and losses" symbols of electronic marketplaces, including the hope that the number of positive sum outcomes (green) created through ideologi will far outweigh any of the inevitable negative ones (red).

• The relationship between top-down, initiator-generated objectives and bottom-up, participant-generated directives communicated in Ideologi exchanges.

• The abstract image of a rose, a longer green "stem" and a shorter red "bulb," tilted toward the beholder as an offering of peace and love.  According to J. E. Cirlot's A Dictionary of Symbols, "…a single rose is, in essence, a symbol of completion, of consummate achievement and perfection.  Hence, accruing to it are all those ideas associated with these qualities: the mystic Centre, the heart, the garden of Eros, the paradise of Dante, the Beloved, the emblem of Venus and so on."

  

Ideologi Foundation's Motto:

Libertes philosophica, “Freedom of Thought.” -- a phrase originally coined by the iconoclastic 16th century philosopher, Giordano Bruno, who challenged the authorities by making people think beyond the mandated dogmas of his age.  He was burned at the stake in 1600.