All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view of action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.
~Aristotle, Metaphysics
I spent some of my spare time reading something other than Grant. The mind needs a break from what it is doing time to time. Part of that break is in reading other books and/or working on real, material things. As many know, over the last few years I have restored (first) my 1988 Harley, and then (second) my 1980 Ford.
That experience, at some encouragement, caused me to start this channel.
Matthew B. Crawford wrote this valuable little tome to draw our attention to something that appears no longer valued in modernity—real work. Worse yet, the public tripe is that someone learned cannot, and should not be a craftsman (read: mechanic, woodworker, electrician, welder, etc.,).1
His indictment is fairly thorough. We used to do real work, and create real things. The value of doing such work taught men to solve problems. That action is both physical and mental. Even more concerning, he notes that we do not know how to use tools any more. Of course, it follows, we do not fix or repair our own things any more.
The modern world’s enslavement (my gloss) of man is part of the cause for all this. Technology has removed individual agency which is the heart of all craftsmanship. Technology removes not just human action from the world, but also makes the world less intelligible to us.
Though Crawford does not state it this way, but we have lost our way, and are failing to live up to our higher nature. We might put it this way, globalism and technology seeks to destroy individual agency. Crawford certainly hints at this without coming out and stating it overtly.
Crawford argues that doing something well is done not just for its own sake, but also for a sort of self disclosing. He transports a bit of Heidegger and Kojeve here in support of that case. While he is spot on that globalism has decreased knowledge, judgment, and our independent spirit, he is less persuasive that craftsmanship is good in itself by revealing our own being to us in doing it.
The salutary effect of doing real work is what it does to our soul: it works on us in a way to not reveal who we are, but to do the revelatory work on us reinforcing humanity’s τελος (our end, fulfillment). I do not mean this in a mere religious sense.2
In Plato’s Gorgia, Crawford states3 there is a connection between the Nature of things, and experience of doing something excellent. The doctor and the cook know something of a part of the health. Yet, if they only were concerned with the pleasant, they would be fools. Is the craftsman any different?
Crawford also contends that the Ford’s assembly line severed thinking and doing. He makes a strong case that things like the Smith Hughes Act (1917) was the first salvo in the strike against meaningful work by funding the industrial arts. Ford employees resisted the assembly line is cited as evidence. It is true that some people (of a more socialistic political bent) resisted modernization, it was by far not the entirety of the craftsman class who resisted it.
You tell me if the assembly line worker at Ford in 1990 looks like he is a depressed automaton:
Want more? The craftsman on the line in 1970:
But even this is shortsighted. He never mentions what the assembly line worker knew about his specialized skills. While it was probably less informative to the WHOLE of the project being produced, the assembly line employee was knowledgable, and engaged in real work to complete his specialized task. He was not a robot. In fact, it was necessary to make automobiles that could be purchased by any man. And that contributed to individual agency not by just making men more free, but teaching them a new world of craftsmanship and repair of their own vehicle. Mechanics were born in this age. The assembly line was not the soul destroying cubicle. It was the sandardization of parts and goods that could be repairs by the craftsman. It also increased longevity and reliability of the good produced (guns, engines, etc).
As it pertains to our vehicles, technology has become an obstacle to the good life. This presents a unique problem. In our vehicles, the reliance on the computer code (OBD) to decipher what is wrong with the car, shortcuts the ability of the craftsman’s experience and ability to think for himself to troubleshoot the problem. Logical deduction goes out the window. Therefore, computers cut us off from the car in the same way it removes us from reality. Material reality suffers.
The craftsman should go through the arduous process of problem solving. It develops the mind, brings it into accordance with Nature, because not all problems are in unreality; most are present before us in reality. Solving problems comes from experience. But, doing real things after working the problem makes for a humble people because mistakes will be made, and we learn from our mistakes. Therefore, the intellectual and the moral virtues, even in the life of the craftsman, are not separate. Craftsmanship helps men stay grounded, and in that grounding, they preserve what is truly their natural end.
The craftsman is the counter culture revolutionary of our day. The globalist knows this and hence is the reason the ruling class is trying to stamp it out.
In Chapter 5, Crawford explains his own experiential relationship with higher ed, and think tanks. None of it is all that healthy, nor good, for man. It is all fake. I will leave that to the interested reader to ponder upon in his own reading, but something in this chapter strikes me as incomplete.
He contends that the craftsman is more liberal. This is manifestly incorrect. The craftsman, in my experience, is more common sensical, more patriotic, and more attached to their community than highfalutin educator. That is not necessarily more liberal. Craftsmanship in the modern sense, is the complete rejection of the weaknesses of liberalism, which inclines toward tyranny. The craftsman rejects liberalism by making one more self sufficient, and less reliant, on others. The man who knows how to do will be necessary for the post liberal world if any amount of liberty is going to be preserved in whatever new regime comes in the future. The tyrant wants a compliant less skilled, and obedient people, but someone who knows how to do things in the real world.
He rather contradicts himself a chapter later when he accounts for the reality that a degreed culture is not a culture based on merit; there is no meritocracy in the liberal order. There is only the joining order; the desire to only fit in. This is corrupting and leads to mass broadcast propaganda. Correctly, he notes that this all went into overdrive, right after World War 2. It is something that DeToqueville noted would happen in America that more technology would make us more dependent, and then more dependent on the State through a soft despotism as more and more “progress” imposes its being upon us. Would this not apply to the creation of automobiles? This problematic statement needs further consideration.
I define craftsman much broader than others, and maybe even Crawford, to include any one who can do something real in any field, and in multiple fields.
Crawford makes the argument, p. 17 that Aristotle and Thomas Jefferson believed craftsmanship was too narrow for republicanism. It is not noted just where he gleens this lesson. However, Jefferson’s own personal life defies this assertion. Cf. this discussion: https://jeffersonhour.com/blog/1122
There is a difference between necessity and leisure: doing because of necessity is one thing; by leisure is another. Yet, we can only fool ourselves that Nature and necessity will remain dormant for long.
Gorias, 465a; Crawford p. 17-18.