craft

[keryx]

There is a lot of "folk art" in Amish country that I think of as akin to simple life porn. Like, look at the cute leetle girl in her bonnet with her fuzzy animal! How quaint that she won't go to school beyond 8th grade! It just feels exploitative.

So, I think of all cultural fixation on things Mennonite and Shaker and whatnot as sort of a pornography of simplicity. But there may be more to it - that there's something in this other culture that appeals to our idea of ourselves as living more shallow, technical lives than we want. And maybe we'd like a little more slowness, a little more craft. To be able to spend months with our family sewing a quilt or something.

Cause as a culture we don't really allow for much craft. There's very little interpretation of our own work (not just our jobs, but all work we do) or others' as the work of craftsfolk. Can you even imagine a culture where table bussers and cashiers and computer programmers were all expected to think of their jobs as a meaningful craft - something they could perfect and control? I think that'd be swell.

Comments

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

Can you even imagine a culture where table bussers and cashiers and computer programmers were all expected to think of their jobs as a meaningful craft - something they could perfect and control?

I'm not sure how that would work with the first two (I do know some computer programmers who take pleasure in having efficient code) -- I had pretty much perfected both bussing and cashiering by the end of the first week. After that, it's just a lot of dull labor. Trading tasks with the boss after a couple of hours, that would have kept it fresh!

[keryx.livejournal.com]

But that was bussing and cashiering in a work world not big on craft, you know? The whole structure of most work would have to be different, more self-determinable and more creative to really foster a sense of craft. I think.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I love the way you think. It still seems to me that there will continue to be tasks that are simple drudgery, but at least they could be broken up, shared around, and made as unmiserable as possible...