Slashdot Mirror
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.
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).
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.
Free Martian Whores!