Design as a Mean of Influencing
the Conception of Social and Political Realities

Design is a political profession as design objects, images, and spaces can dictate and influence people's conception of the social and political realities. Politics is defined as the set of activities between groups of individuals that has the power to exert influence in the process of decision making and the behavior of others. Through design, the motive of profit-driven corporations outcompetes the motive of the consumer who uses their products or services. Corporations and those of higher social power resort to design as means to effectively engage with and intervene in social and political realities to achieve their agenda rather than to serve those who embraced the design. Designed objects, images, and spaces, within this framework, act as a political means of influence for the motives of corporations to perpetuate into the citizens’ conception of the social and political realities.

“Products are vivid arguments about how we should lead our lives” (Buchanan, 2001). Design plays a role in influencing the behavior of the citizens, which accumulated to influence the social and political realities. By outlining the relationship between the designers who conceive the design and the consumers who live through the design, a clear top-down power structure between the designers and the consumers emerges. Similarly, by critically observing and reflecting on the social and political intention superimposed by the designed objects, images, and space, the underlying social structures are revealed. According to the Marxist philosopher and sociologist, Henri Lefebvre, the intention behind the design or the conceived space, is “a place for the practices of social and political power; in essence, it is ... designed to manipulate those who exist within them"(Wursten, 2012). The conceived domain of reality which has been opened by design serves as a tool of thought and of action to assert control and domination of power. The reality resides within the world that is made up of matter in constant motion in complex social and political structures with contradicting forces that inhabit within them. According to the philosophical worldview of dialectical materialism, it is through debates and arguments that society can find a common ground for the conception of reality (dialectical materialism, 2008). However, it is important to note that this conception is historical, meaning that it could currently be considered correct but might not be so in the future as the conception of social and political reality is constantly changing; with contradicting forces that seek to dominate. By having the dominant access to the resource of social and political influence, the designer and the corporate agenda that it supports can dominate and influence the conception of social and political reality through argument using designed objects, images, and space.“

In a consumer society like ours, it is through buying goods that reality takes shape. The moment money is exchanged, a possible future becomes real. If it did not sell it would be sent back, becoming a rejected reality. In a consumer society, the moment we part with our money is the moment a little bit of reality is created. Not just physical reality or cultural but psychological, ethical, and behavioral” (Dunne and Raby, 2013). The introduction of an automobile in Bangkok is a prime example of how the corporate agenda behind the design can effectively permeate into the fabric of Bangkok's society and how the individuals that reside within it think, judge, and behave. The automobile is the most prominent mode of transportation in Bangkok. The UN estimated the number of automobile ownership to be over 5 million in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region (Hollmann, 2020). The embracement of the design of the automobile by half of Bangkok’s population has superimposed certain observable social and political realities among the citizens of Bangkok even onto those who do not currently hold ownership of the automobile. The automobile as an object has allowed Bangkokians of higher economic status who have the purchasing power the ability to safely commute at a greater range than those who rely on a traditional mode of transportation such as buses, motorcycles, and walking. The far-range mobility of the automobile has allowed its owner to live outside of the city as car owners do not need to live in proximity to their workplace (Misra, 2020). Subsequently, the automobile is responsible for the rise of the private sphere in Bangkok; a sector of social life in which an individual can have greater autonomy, free from interventions from governmental or other external factors. An example of the private sphere is family and home which, for Bangkokian’s, have seen a shift from the extended family of the past to the nuclear family of the present (Peek et al., 2015). This shift can be observed through the private sphere in its physicality; the low-density, single-family homes. The Bangkokian family’s modern way of living is one example of the many social realities that the design of the automobile has brought onto the Bangkokians’ everyday lives.

The conceived reality brought on by the design of the automobile can extend its sphere of influence beyond the owners of the automobile onto those who do not hold ownership of the automobile. The social reality which has been intervened by design also affects the political reality of Bangkok. The home within the social reality conceived by the design of the automobile, as well as the automobile itself are contributing factors for the rise of the private sphere and, consequently, the decline of the public sphere; a virtual place in society in which individuals can collectively influence political decisions by freely discussing and identifying social problems. The virtual place of the public sphere is intertwined with its physical counterpart; the public space and the communal space. “Parks are our last remaining truly democratic public spaces, and that should continue. A lot of our great protest and reformist movements started in parks because they were natural gathering places. These spaces are a representation of our freedom in society, which is little by little being eroded.” said Tony Leach, chief executive of Parks for London (Shenker, 2020). Similarly, many lower-incomes and communal neighborhoods in Bangkok including extended family homes and public parks have been demolished to pave way for new roads and expressways (Wancharoen, 2017) as well as the physical parking space needed to accommodate the design of the automobile itself. The decline of public and communal space within the Bangkok urban core as a result of the introduction of the automobile has partly contributed to the shortcoming of Thailand's many attempts to democratize as there is no physical space for the “public” to collectively discuss and identify social problems. Within the philosophical worldview of dialectical materialism, the argument brought by the design of the automobile has dominated and seized the physical space that fosters Bangkokians’ debates and argument in an attempt to find a common ground for the conception of its political realities.

The ability to conceive the people’s conception of social and political realities through designed objects, images, and spaces are what makes design a political profession. Through design, those with access to social and political power, such as corporations and governmental bodies, can effectively assert their agendas and superimpose them onto the social and political realities of others the very same way that a debate or an argument can. How design differs from the two dialectical methods, however, is its ability to subtly influence the way people think, judge, and behave, in part due to the nature of design that does not require the mental effort from those who embrace it. The subtlety of design contributes to it being an effective means of engaging with and intervening in social and political realities.