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The Nation Is Losing Its Toolbox
Hugh Pickens writes "Louis Uchitelle writes that in Aisle 34 of Home Depot is precut vinyl flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefab windows, and if you don't want to be your own handyman, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer, as mastering tools and working with one's hands recede as American cultural values. 'At a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship,' writes Uchitelle. 'Craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.' Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship — what's needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor — has gone largely unnoticed. 'In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,' says Michael Hout. 'People who work with their hands are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.' The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the precipitous slide in manufacturing employment. And manufacturing's shrinking presence helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation's assembly line workers were skilled in craft work. 'Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,' says Richard T. Curtin. 'They know about computers, of course, but they don't know how to build them.'"
It's hard for a craftsman to know if he's violating a patent, environmental law, or something that will make a TSA knuckle-dragger feel is a weapon of mass destruction.
Car manufacturers seem intent on specifically requiring special tools for their cars, and use patents to protect them.
The DMCA, copyright, and patent laws make it neigh illegal to tinker with electronic devices you've bought, because some a$$hole in Holywood bought some corrupt legislators. I mean, discussed how to make America more competitive in a global IP marketplace.
Finally, cheap manufacturing from Asia has lead to a situation where it's cheaper to replace consumer products than to repair them. So how are many people going to learn repair skills on them? It's certainly not a valid career path in the U.S.
This is yet another in a long line of alarmist articles about the 'loss of' X or Y in our modern technological culture. What is being missed is that this state of affairs is exactly was Capitalism was meant to bring about, a day when we all have much more leisure time because automation and division of labour has made long hours of back-breaking subsistence working obsolete. What we should be asking is not 'how do we go back to hard work with our hands?' but how do we transition to a new model (a post recession model) which acknowledges that there is no viable reason for people to need to be working 40+ hours a week. We can then realise that we can work with our hands, enjoy DIY and reconnect with the land in a way that is about personal growth, community and coexistence, instead of commerce, because commerce takes less and less work to keep running. It's not a hippy dream, or a Socialist agenda, it's actually the victory of the Capitalist model being unable to see it's own success clear enough to embrace it yet.
Same with cooking. With so many pre-packaged frozen meals, fresh pre-prepared ready-to-cook meals at the grocery store, vacuum-packed foods, ubiquitous drive-thrus, and universal Take Out Taxi restaurant delivery, cooking is either a lost art or relegated to holidays and "I'm going to cook today" days. The gourmet kitchen has become the SUV room of the house -- a $50k expense useful for that one excursion spent off-roading or the one blizzard of 24".
Division of labor is a double-edged sword. More cynically, one might say it is seductive, tempting the populace into comfort in exchange for reduction of self-sufficiency, independence, resilience, and sustainability.
When technology moves on, the end users learn to use the new tools and new materials, and only experts use the expert's tools to make the tools and materials for the every day man. But the experts do that much more efficiently and at a lower price than the normal people could do before.
There was a time when you could fix your own car, but that car would be so simple that it could only do 100 km/h, had no satnav, no ABS, no fuel injection, no mp3 player, no central locking system, no electrical windows, no indicators when something was wrong. And I spend my time to do something else (like spamming on /.), instead of tinkering on my car.
Nostaligia is a rubbish argument against technological progress.
What are you talking about? Division of labor is the very definition of civilization.
In pre-civilized societies, everyone did everything themselves, and so everyone was a hunter/gatherer who did absolutely nothing but struggle to survive from day to day. If you weren't catching your food, you were making the tools needed to catch your food or making the clothing to survive the elements. What a dreary, depressing, cultureless, pleasureless existence.
With division of labor--i.e., civilization--we no longer have to struggle to survive. We can create culture specifically because we don't have to do everything ourselves. The less we have to do ourselves, the more civilized we are, and the richer and more meaningful our lives become.
The fact that wecan lounge around in an air-conditioned room watching TV and drinking beer makes us superior.
It's not that they are clueless. I've seen some young kids (16-18 or so) able to rebuild computers, car engines, do almost any arbitrary house work, etc.
I'm 30, I'll rebuild computers, and wire a house. Aside from that, my manual skills are, admittedly, limited. The rest doesn't interest me, and I know people I can call for help to get the job done better than a handy man, and with less time than it would take me to do it myself - I'll learn a bit along the way as well, to help with doing the smaller repairs. And my friends get excellent cooking and/or money. Everyone wins. Some of them instead of taking food or money, get assistance from me in computer related stuff, tutoring their kids or themselves in a mathematical, computer or scientific subject, etc.
If you don't have the interest, and don't need to do it, there really isn't a good reason to worry about it beyond a modest familiarity. Could you live your lifestyle, having built everything you own, from the ground up? Probably not, you don't have the time. The point is to be good at at least a few things, and then know who to talk to, to get the rest done effectively, and if possible, know enough of the basics to shave off some diagnostic time.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
And yet, here you are commenting on a Slashdot article, when you could be out building your own house and furniture, designing your own car and growing your own food. Weird - it's almost like you're letting other people do those things so you have more time to do things you like to do, like comment on Slashdot articles. What a crazy system, it's almost like it's *supposed* to work that way.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
It's funny, none of my relatives guilt trip me like this New York Times writer that probably hasn't spent a day of his life working in a factory.
From the NYTimes author's bio:
Mr. Uchitelle was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 2002-03 and taught journalism for many years at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. Before joining The Times, he worked for The Associated Press as a reporter, an editor and a foreign correspondent in Latin America.
Indeed. One of my big complaints is that journalism, having become a 'profession' that you now go to college for, is now populated by people who know nothing but what their professors taught them - 1/2 propaganda and 1/2 how to hold a microphone. Back in the day reporters, editors and the like either started out in a different job or worked their way up from copy boy or runner. Either way, having spent time in the real world, they understood a few things and had a perspective on real life. Unfortunately going to journalism school doesn't teach you anything about how the world works, or the details of any part of it. As a result, nowadays listening to the news and most commentary is like listening to grade school reports from complete newbies who know nothing about the history, background or dynamics of whatever they are reporting on. And many of them show the arrogance of one who thinks they know something when they are actually ignorant (at least of the topic at hand). It's like an unending procession of valley girls (and boys) remarking 'OMG look at those big buildings where people work - umm - what's work?'
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The real problem is people who can't appreciate quality.
I'm with you here. People in general do not appreciate quality. But this has almost always been the case.
I can and have built bookcases out of solid oak and hand rubbed finish, which end up costing quite a bit and look beautiful. However the average joe just wants the $19 saggy walmart bookcase. Sort of like McDonalds "food" vs real restaurant.
If by average joe you mean people who live on a budget and can't always afford quality.
I don't know many people who would choose Wal Mart particle board over solid wood if the costs were the same. Most people need their furniture to perform a function. If it performs the function and looks nice that's a bonus. If it is also durable that's incredible.
It's not unreasonable to expect a premium for premium goods. What is unreasonable is to expect everyone to pay those premiums if they don't have to.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I've been building computers since I was your age, I'm 60. But the problem is how stuff is made these days. Take cars, for example. When I was young, I'd work on my own. Now? I'd have a hard time changing the spark plugs. When my battery died, I had no clue where the damned thing was. Turns out it's inside the front passenger wheel well, it took a trained mechanic 45 minutes to change, you have to remove the wheel, fender, and wheel well to change the battery. THAT'S what the problem is.
Ever try to take a laptop apart? Pain in the ass, I won't work on laptops any more. Same thing.
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