Significance of the contribution by Steve Jobs (SJ for the remainder of the article) towards IT industry is unarguable. He was a rare visionary who changed the way many people live. He is remembered particularly for his unconventional way of living and thinking. After his recent demise there was a hype to read and talk about him, resulting in many specters of SJ. Since a lot of people have already talked about SJ, I will limit my discussion mostly for placing him historically with respect to today's world.
The stubborn capitalist
One way to start is to praise him for being a true capitalist. SJ did not give lot of money away for charity. In fact, it is said that he did cut down Apple's expenses on charity when he joined the company for second time. This is one point where he is being criticized, but I insist that this is the right attitude. The system under which we live is none other than capitalism. The backbone of capitalism, as the name itself suggests, is capital, which has the amazing capability of growing itself. In order to grow, one needs to invest it. Charity sounds against this basic rule of capitalism. When someone becomes the owner of a big company, and thereby a billionaire, he is a successful man under the existing system. Therefore it is inevitable that he becomes a great protector of the existing system. All the billionaires are great protectors of capitalism, so was SJ. On the other hand, capitalism is a system, through its very mechanism, throws hundreds of millions of people into utter poverty while creating few billionaires. It is only a utopia to imagine a capitalism without poverty. Now, logically it sounds ridiculous to be a great protector of a system which makes millions of poor and then give a part of your money away to make the lives of few hundreds of them somewhat better to make up your mind. I call this "Romantic Capitalism". That's why I say that SJ was correct when he invested all his capital to fuel the realization of his great vision rather than spending a part of it to feed African children. He was a straight man compared to the contemporary romantic capitalists like Bill gates and Warren Buffett. SJ was also the first guy to prove, in the domain of software products, that exchange value is more effective than the use value. One buys an iPhone because he wants to become an iPhone user, not because he wants to use an iPhone. Exchange value is what embodies a product in psychological space. This is what keeps Apple admirers dwell in the Apple world, not the mere use value.
SJ lived a life on his own principles and was never reluctant to experiment with things that were deemed to be absurd. He was a prominent out-of-the-box thinker. This is one department that intrigues most people. Both people and organizations love to project them as out-of-the-box thinkers. "Thinking outside the frame", "Doing things differently", "brand-new concept" are popular terms in each one's vocabulary. It is not at all rare to see people claiming that they have come up with a radically different concept or a game changing product. However, once analyzed, one can see that most of them are well inside the box. I think what goes on here is that people talk about thinking differently during meetings but resume the same old traditional thinking after that. Out-of-the-box thinking, apparently, is way easier said than done. Radically deviating from the existing thing does not mean to create the exact opposite of it, because the opposite is well defined by the existing thing. So to speak, if A is inside the box, so is NOT(A). I think that out-of-the-box thinking is more pertinent to playing with the undefined thing. That being said, it is also not about wasting time on meaningless questions such as "What if the sun will not rise tomorrow?". In order to meaningfully deviate from the existing thing, one first needs to understand it to the core. Then only, one gets insight into its root elements, structure and dynamics. After this point he can attempt to alter these components in a radically new way. Derrida says that there is a center for every system. Center is fundamental to the system so that every other component in the system revolves around it. At the same time, center is not directly visible and cannot be defined with the concepts in the system because it is so fundamental. For example, scientific method can be the center of science. As we know, scientific method cannot be rigorously defined in scientific terms. It is only "sensed" by the people who delve into scientific theories and engage in science by heart. New scientific inventions were done by people who had this "uncommon sense". One cannot become an out-of-the-box thinker over night. An out-of-the-box thinker must have the courage to endure fear of being ridiculed as well as the commitment to dissolve a significant part of his life on a new endeavor. Therefore it makes sense to assert that just talking about or surface-following SJ is not going to help anyone in becoming an out-of-the-box thinker. In fact this can end up with the syndrome which is compiled into the following beautiful sentence by Slavoj Zizek. "Let's keep on talking about change to make sure that nothing is actually changed in the real world".
SJ's way of changing the world
Let me switch the channel and direct the discussion towards the strategy that SJ had for changing the world, in view of evaluating its applicability in today's world. SJ's strategy was more or less the strategy of US when trying to change the world according to its interests. It's the direct invasive way of influence. In his time it was very much possible for SJ to create a big brand name which depended on big names like him. Products had a long lasting value which resulted in long lasting responsibilities for both the producer and the consumer. Engineers decided what the users want. A huge legacy was built on top of the imagination of a single visionary. In other words it was a "Single God Model" which went in parallel to Christianity. In contrast, the new generations refuse having the burden of any kind of long lasting responsibility. In the same time the technology has taken a radical new path to match the new requirements (I have discussed this in detail here: http://dileepaj.blogspot.com/2011/10/toilet-model-of-life.html). What we see today are many "Gods of Small Things". Let's take the entertainment industry as an example. We are no more seeing stars who remain in people's hearts for decades. Instead, there are stars who emerge in the speed of light and fade out in few months. Many years back Jean Baudrillard said, "In future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes (so will be every product)", and that future is the present we are living in.
An example from world politics would make it clearer that direct invasive model is becoming invalid in the modern world. Has US been successful in its direct invasions of other countries? They have definitely failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even in Sri Lanka it is not rare to see protests against US influence. They have created enemies for them all around the world. China, on the other hand, has been monumentally successful in intruding economic and political bodies of countries without direct invasion. Leaders of Latin American countries have guts to openly criticize US because they are backed by China. Even in Sri Lanka, the Chinese influence on political economy is much stronger than that by US. However, we have not seen any protest against Chinese interventions. This is because the Chinese are based on Taoism, which, as a philosophy, is entirely different from Christianity upon which US culture is built. One prominent advice of Taoism is that a ruler should not let the people know or feel that they are being ruled. One should try to be like water which acquires the shape of its surroundings. Before changing something one must change himself according to his subject of change. One must "be there like he is not being there", so to speak. This is the new model of ruling the world and changing things, which is repetitively proven to be successful. SJ's model is nothing but history. (I'm indebted to "Thrimana" Sinhala magazine for this political example).
Does SJ'ism still sound radical?
Illegal drug usage was a radical thing in SJ's time, but it has become more of a fashion now. Wearing denims to office has been adopted as the norm in software companies. This is no surprise because one time radical practice in history can transform into the tradition in the next era. Essence of SJ is now absorbed into the mainstream and what he did is no more radical. One needs to find his own way of being radical under the new world conditions.
What does it really mean to be different?
Derrida said that there are two components to the future. How the world economy will be in 1 year can be predicted with a certain degree of accuracy today. The weather too can be predicted within a short time span. This is the first component; the imaginable / predictable part of the future. However, the fascinating part is the future that cannot be predicted or imagined. This is what Derrida calls the "real" future. The real future man is the one I cannot define with the existing concepts. If you want to be him, you have to forget SJ and find that future man from within you.
