Let us Aspire
Ushering in a new era of human flourishing
We are becoming a country of people who make money but not things. We earn but do not do. Some of us, of course, are not even able to earn.
Famously, we have lost our manufacturing base. The problems started long ago, though, long before we moved the work overseas, or passed it off to robots. Factory and production work had already become less human as principles of “scientific management” took over in the early 20th century. Also known as Taylorism, after the man who invented it, this new way prioritized efficiency of production, reducing human beings to single tasks, tasks that would be done over and over and over again. Many of those tasks can in fact now be done by machines, but what of the original loss? Human workers used to see a process through from start to finish—spotting errors, making improvements, and having pride in workmanship. No more.
The problem, as advocates of Taylorism would have it, is that humans introduce human error. But reducing human error to zero should not be our goal. Perhaps, instead, we should work to enhance human productivity and engagement and flourishing.
Human flourishing. It’s a fashionable term. In a way, the term just kicks the can down the road, as we need to decide what it means to flourish. But we can probably all agree on what flourishing does not look like. Flourishing does not look like people with no skills and no passions, staring endlessly into pocket computers.
“Scientific management,” and other abominations on the human spirit that are done in the name but never the true spirit of science, care not for human flourishing. Taylor wrote in his original monograph on the subject in 1911:
“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.”
And so it has come to pass.
As our work becomes ever more virtual and less physical, it inherently becomes less synchronized as well. Our world in pixels is asynchronous, all of us in our own pods, on our own individual timelines. Ah, what freedom! But we can all be more easily gamed when our worlds are asynchronous. There are no checks left on what we saw, or what happened, because we inherently saw it alone, without witness. (The same logic holds for elections—remote, asynchronous elections are more easily gamed.)
Both men and women have historically made and done things, many many things. But our manufacturing base moved offshore, our population became suburban, and our domestic work was largely replaced with conveniences that just need to have their buttons pushed. We are making and doing less and less.
This—as much if not more than what we have replaced our real physical work with, the conveyor belt of screens—is contributing to our deep unhappiness. We don’t do enough things in the physical universe.
While inadvertently attending an annual street festival in Key West a week and a half ago, I was struck anew by the loss of makers and doers1.
Fantasy Fest’s final blowout event was a big parade on Saturday night. I assumed there would be live music. I love live music dopplering towards me on a parade route, and then away. If someone is throwing hoops or batons or doing acrobatics in the vicinity, all the better. All of that human creativity and playfulness and skill on full display, inviting all to watch and be entertained, be impressed, be in awe.
Alas, there was no live music. All of the music during this parade came in the form of polished recordings by famous people, played for the crowd by a D.J. on a float. Nobody present was making music. Nobody.
Okay, perhaps some creative floats, then.
Yeah, not that either. The official website promised a “splendid moving party with festive floats,” but it did not deliver.
There was, if I’m being blunt, nearly no skill on display at all. The DJs nominally have skill, I suppose, although it’s entirely mediated by technology. There was no dancing, no acrobatics, nothing.
Growing up in LA in the 1970s and ‘80s, I dubbed the ethos there one of “gaze culture.” Everyone was observed and assessed at all times, and most people hoped to be observed and assessed in turn. That culture of spectacle, of voyeurism, of exhibitionism, has spread everywhere, as so much of what happens in Hollywood seems to do.
Back in Key West: it’s called Fantasy Fest—so what’s the fantasy? I posit that the fantasy on display in the parade was this: witness my party. My party is: I have on sparkly or feathery clothes, I am drunk, and I am swaying to (recorded) music.
Even the logistics of the party were on display—generous pouring of drinks for the hard-working (!) floaters, whose jobs seemed to consist entirely of throwing beads at the people on the street.
A crate of bottled water, half open, sitting askew on the deck of a float that should have been all fantasy.
A stack of five empty pizza boxes sitting prominently on the edge of another float, just below eye level. These banal details communicated this:
You are looking into our party. Our fantasy is to have you watch us party.
If the party had been anything unique or creative or surprising, I might have been willing to overlook these failures, the glitches in a matrix they were trying to create, the unfortunate view behind the scenes.
But no. I don’t think that they were trying to create a matrix, a fantasy world. The label was fantasy, but I saw nothing fantastical, not really. There was nothing created here. The goal was simply to be looked at.
And so I arrive at my primary critique: Americans don’t aspire to create anymore. To produce, to discover, to invent, to explore new spaces, literal or metaphorical. To move people with their art, their craft, their words, their insights. We walked into the last two days of an annual party that lasts well over a week, a festival dedicated to fantasy, in which I saw nothing that inspired me. Nothing that made me think, or laugh. Nothing that put me in awe of what humans are capable of. Nothing.
I am bereft. This will be the end of us.
Where has our aspiration gone?
Facebook culture has famously recommended that its developers “move fast and break things.”
Some things are already so broken that they may need to be almost entirely reimagined before functional systems can be built in their place (I’m looking at you, academia). But breaking things as a rule brings chaos. Breaking things is the ethos of antifa—they have demonstrated excellence in destruction, while utterly failing at creation.
What we need is not to break, but to make, and also to do. Make music and dance. Build functional, beautiful things—tables and lamps and bowls2. Grill meat and make bread and savor and share it. Lay tile and pipe and wire. Walk and think and walk and think and walk and write, or paint, or drum or however it is that that you choose to physically express the ineffable in your head.
If you live in a place and a way where it is possible, ferment and preserve the fruits of the land, chop and stack wood and become ready for winter, make things that will keep you warm, literally and figuratively.
As maligned as Portland, Oregon is in much of the popular understanding—and I have written and spoken3 frequently about its descent into chaos, having lived there from 2018 through 2022—the fact remains that underneath all the destruction lies a beating heart of people who make beautiful, deep or delicious things, and have pride in their work. They are artisans of wood and glass and clay, and also of meats and vegetables and yeast. They share their creations with the public, asking only that they be paid for their work, and that their work be appreciated.
It is not so much to ask.
We need more physical engagement with the world, and more synchronous work and play.
The problem in part is one of scale—not all workers who make physical things will be craftsmen. The smaller the scale, the greater the agency of the individuals who are working, but of course the less efficient as well. The unscientific and unhuman principles of “scientific management” will not abide a slide into inefficiency. There is work to be done!
In the final chapter of A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century, we discuss the need for a fourth kind of frontier for humanity. Of the first three: we have run out of geographic frontiers, at least on this planet; technological frontiers may appear to provide abundance without cost, until we run into limits of the physical universe; and transfer-of-resource frontiers are theft, and therefore dishonorable. We are therefore left looking for a new kind of frontier. We do not describe or predict the specifics of a fourth frontier, arguing that it is only possible to seek the adaptive foothill that might lead do society-wide solutions. But a character trait of individuals who may be successful in finding that foothill, the beginnings of a fourth frontier, is having craftsmanship.
An artisan who takes pride in the quality and durability of their work is enacting some portion of a fourth frontier mentality, one in which the life span of a product is as important as its function. A table or sideboard made by a local craftsperson is not beloved merely because it is more beautiful than what can be assembled from a box bought at Ikea, but also because the person in possession of a lovely and functional piece has a chance of handing it down to their children, or other kin, or friends. So, too, would we like to be able to deliver unto the next generations a lovely and functional world.
Instead of being bereft, let us aspire. We can aspire to be makers again, to bring back to our own shores, and to our own selves, the ability and drive to build and create, to make and to do. We can shepherd in a new era of human flourishing, and of American flourishing as well.
Today is the day, fellow Americans. Please vote. Here is some of my thinking behind my vote for president this year.
I had planned a few days in Key West before we went to a conference in Miami (and then another in Pittsburgh, and I am writing this from Livingston, Montana, so it’s been quite a ride), having always wanted to see it. We only discovered after arriving that Fantasy Fest was going on. A broader critique of Fantasy Fest than I am embarking on here would have to include the observation that the main fantasy that individual women manifested is to be sexually open and available. There were rare exceptions, but the female costumes ranged from slutty schoolgirls to slutty cats to slutty feathery jobs. Men, meanwhile, seemed largely unimpressed with the displays, although some were dressed as Hugh Hefner, so in the end, who knows.
This may seem an odd list—"build tables and lamps and bowls.” I chose three things that we have built in our house—Bret has built a beautiful table, and I have built lamps and (made) bowls out of clay. We have also built bookcases and desks together, although it has been a long time.
On DarkHorse “evolutionary lens” livestreams, we discussed Portland extensively in episodes 25, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 43, 52, 53, 56, 57, 61, 64, 76, 77, 78, 79, 130, 141, 164, 235.
There can be satisfaction in a job well done, whether you're a craftsman or a plumber. I think we need to encourage more young people to go to trade school, rather than increasingly worthless college.
Well, this certainly spoke to me.
I am one of those craftsmen. But I've also been a teacher.
And I spent a summer working in a sweatshop, one that probably dated all the way back to Taylor's time.
I am intimately familiar with manufacturing processes, from the very beginnings of the industrial revolution up to today. Yes, manufacturing is potentially dehumanizing, although that is not inevitable. As industries have developed, with larger and larger factories and more advanced assembly lines, more and more workers are displaced. Is that good or bad? In early forms of industrialization, some skilled people with challenging jobs were replaced by machines. On the other hand,, some unskilled repetitive jobs have been replaced with robots. Again, is this all good, or all bad?
I was (am?) a woodworker. I can make just about anything involving wood. I can make a classic piece of furniture using the techniques of centuries ago, and I can make contemporary era furniture using modern machinery and materials. Neither of these is inherently superior, but modern processes are a HELL of a lot more efficient. It is because of this that we have all our stuff. If our stuff was all handmade, how much would any of us have? At any rate, I don't mind working hard and working up a sweat, but I do not want to work at a mentally unchallenging repetitive job. But that's just me. And there are many office jobs that are every bit as repetitive as those in a factory.
I've speculated, as we enter an era where we can have as much as we have with incredibly few manhours, what might we do next? What work do we do, when our physical needs are met with incredibly little work? You can see that many people today feel entitled to work at whatever they want to, and to be compensated for it, regardless of any market value. How is that supposed to work?
Today's economy is a blessing and a curse. Incredible ease and comfort combined with a sense of malaise, a sense that we are superfluous. Maybe being a cog in a machine has its good points.
John Henry comes to mind. He died proving that he could out hammer a machine (depending on which version you listen to). Was he a fool or a hero? The song seems to recognize the reality more than it takes a side.
So, I am a craftsman. I wrestled for forty years with the conundrum of finding work that I found challenging yet profitable. I can make any piece of furniture you want, but I can't come close to Ikea prices. Still, I found corners of the economy where industrialization could not reach. It can be done, but it's not the easy way. It's the interesting, rewarding way.
Here's a video I made shortly before I closed my shop for good.
https://youtu.be/adn3wR3M5fM