Lingamesh\u2019s series on logical fallacies<\/a> he highlights the appeal to authority. To be an authority, a person must meet certain criteria (like being an expert in the field they\u2019re offering an opinion on). But if there are multiple authorities in the same field debating the same question then an appeal to authority becomes a weak argument. In other words, if you\u2019ve got a bunch of cooks in the kitchen saying opposite things about prepping the chicken, you\u2019re going to have a tough time listening to any of them because they\u2019re all pros.<\/p>\nAnd that\u2019s how Power Tripping works. It\u2019s an appeal to authority making yourself the authority because you\u2019re the expert in the field, or the one with the higher position, or you\u2019ve been with the company longer\u2014whatever. To avoid that Power Tripping appeal to personal authority, you\u2019re going to have to tap into a source outside of yourself.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a college trained graphic designer with twelve consecutive years in the field. I\u2019ve worked in a design firm with clients like Playboy and Jeep, a prepress company with clients like Nickelodean and Goodtimes Video (where a buddy and I pitched a lot of the design work and won web and print clients), then in an advertising \/ direct mail company where I conceptualized, created, color-corrected, and completed loads of campaigns interspersed with high-end photoshoots and systems implementation across the board. I am, no bragging, an authority in my field.<\/p>\n
Now if I some designer shows me her piece and I tear it up because it\u2019s not my taste, I\u2019m Power Tripping. I have to back off and ask myself the three questions: 1) Does the design accomplish what the project requirements stipulate; 2) Does the design accomplish what the designer wishes to accomplish; 3) Am I focusing on my own tastes? If one and two are in the affirmative then query three is also likely in the affirmative\u2014I am in fact Power Tripping and being a jerk. I am appealing to my personal authority as the final arbiter instead of seeing those things that are outside of my taste.<\/p>\n
Honestly, some people used to find my help annoying because I wouldn\u2019t always give an answer if they asked me \u201cDo you like this?\u201d Sometimes I would just answer \u201cIt\u2019s fine\u201d or \u201cit\u2019s cool\u201d. When folk asked me for design help they would say something like \u201cI\u2019m trying to [accomplish X]. You got any pointers?\u201d Then I could offer some suggestions because I knew what they were looking to do. Sometimes they would take what I said as the answer and often times they would come up with another solution that was appealing to themselves while still addressing the problem.<\/p>\n
Now, maybe you\u2019ll have to come up with your own system for a surge protection on Power Tripping. Mine is one way that is useful even if it sometimes (often in my case) fails. Try it with writing, reading, movies, dating, design, color choices, painting, parenting, speaking, friends, hanging out, tv-shows, cooking, cleaning, music\u2014 the list goes on and on. The point is not appealing to personal authority as the final arbiter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes, our personal opinions surge and we bandy them about. Favorite colors, the perfect movie, the right book, the concept of what \u201cpops\u201d, the proper way to cook\u2014on and on. Opinions are a pretty common thing until one person has the power to enforce their opinion. For example: You pay me to paint rooms. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-rants","category-sweet-nothings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}