tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34011427.post8162448709965067235..comments2024-03-26T07:00:11.620-05:00Comments on Wisdom of the Hands: make local...Doug Stowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13003845322415622289noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34011427.post-37809717501193057002011-12-29T14:53:41.349-06:002011-12-29T14:53:41.349-06:00It has been common sense, I believe, for millenia....It has been common sense, I believe, for millenia. We need desperately to revive this understanding.<br /><br />If I can add one more point, the converse of civility depending on making is also true: we should not be surprised to see a decline in craft where the social well-being of community life has declined. Craft debased and abstracted from providing for others, from human need, inevitably deteriorates. Fundamentally, things made with actual use in mind -- especially by people the artisan knows -- are simply more likely to be made with greater care and workmanship. I'm not the only one who's observed that the main distinguishing characteristic of the so-called "international" (i.e., anti-vernacular, anti-local) style of architecture that took hold in the last century is that it just looks *cheap*.<br /><br />This is not abstract. You mention Whirlpool leaving Arkansas for Mexico. I recently went to Sears to buy a new washer and dryer. I told the salesman I wanted durable, reliable and efficient machines. His answer was honest: it seemed to him that a few years ago the manufacturers had gotten together and agreed not to make machines that will last more than a few years. The Sears salesman could look me in the eye and tell me this, but in a world where manufacturing was more local, would the factory owner I ran into in a cafe or coming to me for picture framing be able to bring himself to do so? Of course not, because he'd know he'd essentially mistreated me, his fellow citizen, and feel shame. (He'd also be afraid of getting just what he gives.) The remote manufacturer, too far from the user to care about his or her well-being, can be expected to be careless about workmanship.<br /><br />I'm with you -- this is all ancient knowledge and common sense that must be made common again.Tim Holtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07457178144089462255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34011427.post-88678990696963743882011-12-29T14:11:39.036-06:002011-12-29T14:11:39.036-06:00Tim, wonderful stuff. I m reminded by Ruskin's...Tim, wonderful stuff. I m reminded by Ruskin's comments of the saying about idle hands being the devil's workshop. When we are busy working together on the good, we are the good.<br /><br />I am glad today's post struck a positive note. There is truly nothing new here. I haven't discovered anything that wise men haven't known all along. So to see our salvation described by the ancient Greeks is no surprise. Thanks!Doug Stowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13003845322415622289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34011427.post-20649518058706213152011-12-29T14:00:59.749-06:002011-12-29T14:00:59.749-06:00Doug—
Glad to see you found the O'Connell sho...Doug—<br /><br />Glad to see you found the O'Connell shop class story hopeful.<br /><br />Pardon the long reply, but you really struck a chord with me here -- something I've thought a lot about. The question of "how the concepts of local and taking matters into our own hands" are related gets at nothing less than the very origin and foundation of civilization. It's embodied by the story of the ancient Greek god Hephaestus. Here's Hesiod:<br /><br />"TO HEPHAESTUS<br /><br />"Sing, clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaestus famed for inventions. With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world,—men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round.<br /><br />"Be gracious, Hephaestus, and grant me success and prosperity!"<br /><br />The very word "civilization," we have to remind ourselves, comes from the root civitas, or city — i.e., local community. The first civilizations were built where successful agriculture had generated surplus to support local markets for surplus to be sold, and so to support, in turn, the development of the other arts. Hence local communities bound together by people serving each other, providing for each other materially, primarily with the many building arts and their affiliate arts, but also arts associated with the other great necessary and foundational arts of food production and clothing. <br /><br />It's worth noting that in The Iliad, Hephaestus is married to Charis, the model of charity, reminding us that the arts are, in origin, wedded to the necessity of humans, at least in a civilized state, to provide for each others needs. Hence, the idea of *being civilized* inextricably binds together the ideas of both enjoying a certain level of material well-being and also social well-being through practicing civility -- essentially being charitable toward others (hence Hesiod links acquisition of crafts to people "living peaceful lives" housed in a state of civilization). Therefore we should not be surprised to see a decline in civility where there's a decline in making and providing materially for one another at the local level. Material, active provision and engagement with one another in common cause is the basis of getting along. The most profound explanation of this I've seen is by Ruskin in his great essay "The Mysteries of Life and Its Arts" claiming the foundational role of the arts in society:<br />"The greatest of all the mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for there is just one law, which obeyed, keeps all religions pure — forgotten, makes them all false. Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong, and in the devil's power. ... At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them; and the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, ...then do it; push at it together; you can't quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that even the best men stop pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and it's all over."<br /><br />This is a good point for me to shut up and get back to work!Tim Holtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07457178144089462255noreply@blogger.com