Shop Class As Soulcraft

In the last thirty years American businesses have shifted their focus from the production of goods (now done elsewhere) to the projection of brands, that is, states of mind in the consumer, and this shift finds its correlate in the production of mentalities in workers. Process becomes more important than product, and is to be optimized through management techniques that work on a deeper level than the curses of a foreman.

Too often the defenders of free markets forget that what we really want is free men. Having a few around requires and economy in which that virtue of independence is cultivated, and a variety of human types can find work to which they are suited. It is time to dispel the long-standing confusion of private property with corporate property. Conservatives are right to extol the former as a pillar of liberty, but when they put such arguments in the service of the latter, they become apologists for the ever-greater concentration of capital.

(I don’t think private property is a pillar of liberty at all, but I do agree that defending corporate property is a shit show. Again he gets close to saying the problem is capitalism, but just can’t do it. Probably that sympathy for “conservatives” whatever the hell that word is supposed to mean here.)

viewed from a wider angle, self-reliance is a sad doctrine, arguably a consolation for the collapse of institutions of mutual care. Pensions routinely fail, as do marriages. One bravely writes a living will so as not to be a burden on others. Family bonds give way to social security, which in turn gives way to that individual retirement account. To fill the void that comes with isolation, and give it a positive cast, we posit the ideal of the sovereign self, unencumbered by attachments to others and radically free. This is the consumer self that puts its stamp on the world by buying things, thereby giving an active expression to its preferences. These ideals of freedom and choice exert a powerful positive attraction, so there is perhaps a feedback loop whereby our isolation and our sovereign self-image mutually escalate.

(This keeps going as Crawford lays out what is different about his concept of self-reliance, which revolves around agency that the actor see as good, not just personally, but in the world around her, a sense of agency that “flows from an apprehension of the real features of the world”.)

There is a classic psychology experiment that seems to confirm Brewer’s point. Children who enjoy drawing were given marker pens and allowed to go at it. Some were rewarded for drawing (they were given a certificate with a gold seal and a ribbon, and told ahead of time about this arrangement), whereas for others the issue of rewards was never raised. Weeks later, those who had been rewarded tool less interest in drawing, , and their drawings were judged to be lower in quality, where as those who had not been rewarded continued to enjoy the activity and produced higher-quality drawings. The hypothesis is that the child begins to attribute his interest, which previously needed no justifications, to the external reward and this has the effect of reducing his intrinsic interest in it.

(The study was called “Undermining Children’s Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward: A Test of the ‘Over-justification Hypothesis”)

The current educational regime is based on a certain view about which kind of knowledge is important: “knowing that,” as opposed to “knowing how.” This corresponds roughly to universal knowledge versus the kind that comes from individual experience.

The consumer is disburdened not only of the fabrication [of objects], but of the a basic evaluative activity…. The consumer is left with a mere decision. Since this decision takes place in a playground-safe field of options, the only concern it elicits is personal preference. The watchword here is easiness, as opposed to heedfulness. But because the field of options generated by market forces maps a collective consciousness, the consumers vaulted freedom within it might be understood as a tyranny of the majority that he has internalized.

Back in the 1950s, when the focal practice of baking was displaced by the advent of cake mix, Betty Crocker learned quickly that it was good business to make the mix not quite complete. The baker felt better about her cake if she was required to add an egg to the mix.

(Here Crawford, let me help you with that: Back in the 1950s, when the focal practice of baking was displaced by the advent of cake mix, Betty Crocker learned quickly that it was good business to make the mix not quite complete. The baker felt better about the cake if their input was still required, for example, to add an egg to the mix.)

He hates the feeling of dependence, especially when it is a direct result of his not understanding something. So he goes home and starts taking the valve covers off his engine to investigate for himself. Maybe he has no idea what he is doing, but he trusts that whatever the problem is, he ought to be able to figure it out by his own efforts. Then again, maybe not — he may never get his valve train back together again. But he intends to go down swinging. Spiritedness, then, may be allied with a spirit of inquiry, through a desire to be master of one’s own stuff. It is the prideful basis of self reliance.

(Bold emphasis mine, italics in original)

It is a view that is familiar to most of us from kindergarten: creativity is a mysterious capacity that lies in each of us and merely needs to be unleashed… Creativity is what happens when people are liberated from the constraints of conventionality

The truth of course is that creativity is a byproduct of mastery of that sort that is cultivated through long practice.

(That’s an awfully offhand way to throw out a “truth”, but either way it’s an interesting definition of creativity. Not sure I agree with either actually.)

It seems to be our liberal political instincts that push us in this direction of centralizing authority; we distrust authority in the hands of individuals. With its reverence for neutral process, liberalism is, by design, a politics of irresponsibility. This begins with the best of intentions — securing our liberties against the abuse of power — but has become a kind of monster that feeds on individual agency, especially for those who work in the public sector. Int he private sector, the monster is created by profit maximization rather than the distrust of authority, but it demands a similar diet.

(Perhaps we distrust authority in the hands of individuals because having gone so long without it most of them do not do well when they have the opportunity to use it. Not sure how that gets fixed. The last sentence is just one example of several that dance around the idea that the real problem is capitalism, though for whatever reason Crawford won’t come right out and say that.)

These seem to be the categories that inform the educational landscape even now, and this entails two big errors. First, it assumes that all blue-collar work is as mindless as assembly line work, and second, that white-collar work is still recognizably mental in character.

The disappearance of tools from our common education is the first step toward wider ignorance of the world of artifacts we inhabit. And, in fact, an engineering culture has developed in recent years in which the object is to “hide the works,” rendering many of the devices we depend on every day unintelligible to direct inspection.

(The cult of Apple design for example)