Full Citation and Summary Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. London: Penguin,
2008. Print.
This book, authored by Richard Sennett, a professional orchestral
musician-turned-sociologist, is the first in a trilogy on cultural "making."
This trilogy charts a movement from the specific acts of crafting to the
crafting of social regulation rituals, to the crafting of human relations with
our environment in light of climate change. Sennett's other work examines urban
social relations, public space politics (a la Arendt, an influence of his), and
social studies of class consciousness. He broadly subscribes to an American
Pragmatist philosophical framework, clearly presenting his version at the end
of this volume.
Chapter Notes
Prologue: Man as His Own Maker (pp. 1-15)
- This section introduces the project of the book and its larger connection to
the rest of his trilogy
- Begins with an examination of technology, its dangers, and responses to the
moral ambiguity of technological development (pp. 1-8)
- Posits the double-sidedness of invention (it's power of liberating human life
and for harm) as "pandora" (shorthand) (1-3)
- How the extensivity of harm and death is the same whether there's war or
peace (pp. 2)
- Arendt's approach which places political activity (limited to dialogue) above
physical labour (pp. 1)
- asserts the danger of "material invention" [has science gone too far?] (pp.
1)
- public dialogue over technologies, full transparency as the solution;
collective decision-making (pp. 4)
- instability of law; political/legal process/structures as symmetric to human
social processes, focus on language (pp. 8)
- Presents Heidegger's approach which amounts to full disengagement to a
mythical nostalgic pre-civ. past (pp. 3)
- Rejects both of those models, but takes a closer look at Arendt since it
provides the jumping-off point for his project
- Rejects H for his disengagement, nostalgia, need for "authenticity," etc.
[see that page for more details on his H take-down; always like a good rip on
H!] (pp. 3)
- Rejects Arendt's split of Homo Faber (lit. "making man," aesthetic judge) and
Animal Laborans (lit. "labouring beast," person as work machine) aspects of
human activity (pp. 6-7)
- No room in this model for pleasure, play, activity which is not immediately
useful (pp. 7)
- Identifies and rejects the split btwn making and thinking in this model (the
phenomenological hermeneutic circle); rejects the offloading of
responsibility to the public at large of "pandora" (pp. 7)
- Proposes a "cultural materialist" approach to rectify the issue: labour and
thinking together rather than split (pp. 8)
- Rejects two definitions of "materialism" (M-L & consumerist) (pp. 7)
- Expansion of what is considered "material culture" to a more Archaeological
definition (ie. material culture is any product made by people) (pp. 7)
- The main question of this approach = what the making concrete things can tell
us about ourselves (pp. 8)
- Of interest to Sennet are two elements of making: excellence in making and
pleasure (in general) (pp. 8)
- [of interest in this is that Sennett's research method is essentially
aesthetic and hedonistic: it is interested in good taste coupled with good
life. Ethics and aesthetics are closely related. This is important]
- Movement from specific material practices of making and things social
formations and institutions (pp. 8)
- Presents his overall project which takes the form of a book trilogy which
addresses technique as a cultural issue, as a means of conducting a
particular way of life, rather than a simple procedure. (pp. 8-15)
- Book one: The Craftsman
- About craftsmanship = "the skill of making things well." (pp. 8)
- Wider definition than just manual labour (pp. 9)
- Proposes an innate human desire to "do a job well" (pp. 9)
- Based on objective standards of quality; proposes that social and economic
concerns can "stand in the way" of achieving this quality (pp. 9)
- Objective standards can be conflicting (pp. 9)
- [of note: craft-like production is an objective, fully autonomous process
here which exists before and outside of all organizational types (ie. a
neo-lithic flint knapper and an industrial smelter are doing the same thing);
the unity and perfection of the making process is corrupted]
- Part one covers the relation between "head and hand", dialogue between
thinking and doing that sets up habits of problem finding solving (pp. 9)
- Stresses the wide domain of appearance and the contingency of this relation
- Part two covers the development of skill and asserts a) all skills are
embodied & b) technical understanding requires imagination (pp. 10)
- Imagination is pushed to develop skills through the use of imperfect or
incomplete tools; resistance and ambiguity as important
- Part three covers issues of motivation and talent (pp. 11)
- Desire to do good work, obsession, faith
- Moral/ethical ambiguity of craftsman
- Craftsman as approach to living, as anchor in material reality (pp. 11)
- [see my previous comment on the close intertwining of aesthetics and ethics
for Sennett (to make well is to live well, a tasteful world is a good world
and such)]
- [also of interest is the close relation between material production and
knowledge production]
- Book Two: Warriors and Priests (pp. 11-12)
- About crafting of rituals; rituals as a means of "managing aggression and
zeal" (pp. 8)
- War and religion as rituals which are both crafted for specific ends; making
abstract codes concrete actions (pp. 12)
- Changes to reduce harm on the level of the concrete behaviour (the ritual)
(pp. 12)
- Book Three: The Foreigner (pp. 12-13)
- About the skills required to craft and inhabit sustainable environments (pp.
8)
- New rituals which accustom us to a new relation with the environment and land
in a climate collapse situation (pp. 12)
- "craftsman of the environment" [compare to land-back models of stewardship]
(pp. 12)
- Radical self-critique of actions through the model of "the stranger" (Simmel)
(pp. 13)
- The whole arc of the trilogy is that "pandora" can be controlled when
understood materially (pp. 14)
- Announces his position from American Pragmatism and its focus on
philosophising from everyday life (pp. 14)
- Short section on his understanding of history: the general thrust is that
human history is not that long in the grand scheme of things so we can freely
compare across disparate time periods, we can write thematically since all
periods are similar enough to be comparable (pp. 14-15)
PART ONE: CRAFTSMEN 1. The Troubled Craftsman
2. The Workshop
3. Machines
4. Material Consciousness
PART TWO: CRAFT 5. The Hand
6. Expressive Instructions
7. Arousing Tools
8. Resistance and Ambiguity
PART THREE CRAFTSMANSHIP 9. Quality-Driven Work (pp. 241-267)
- This chapter focuses on the craftsman's desire to do good work and the
various aspects of this (pp. 241)
- How social conditions shape this motivation
- Section on what "quality driven" means and its relation to obsession
- "total quality control" in the 60s (Deming) and its re-emergence in the 80s
(pp. 241-242)
- The desire for a worker to be noticed and acknowledged for doing good work as
a means of increasing productivity (pp. 242)
- Introduces "well crafted" organizations -- "open information networks"
"willing to wait" (pp. 242)
- Dealing with various conflicting "standards" and conflicts between who
proposes these standards (his NHS example) (pp. 243)
- The danger of obsession rigidity, fixity (pp. 243)
- Obsession!
- Good and not-good-enough become closely tied (pp. 244)
- Passion for the generic (the ultimate perfect example) (pp. 244)
- Excellence and the formation of status (identities which place you above
others) (pp. 245)
- Section on expertise which compares the "sociable" and "antisocial" expert;
well-crafted organizations favour sociable kind
- The experts as crystalizing the drive for excellence (pp. 246)
- Traces history of expertise quickly demioergoi guild master craftsman
marketization (pp. 246)
- Weakening of professional associations through marketization and state
bureaucratization [direct line from guilds to professional associations] (pp.
246)
- Three phases of academic study of expertise (pp. 247)
- 1) Study of expert as general analyst: they have analytical skills that can
be applied anywhere
- 2) Figuring out that content matters, ie. that expert knows something
specific about a particular topic (10000 hours rule)
- 3) Bringing the above together to think about how communities of experts work
and how they turn outward to act in the world
- Close tie between making and repair: repair is a component of making, a
fundamental category (pp. 248)
- Sociable experts
- Roots in the Middle Ages; guild master craftsman presides over strong social
rituals of expertise (pp. 246)
- Treats others as whole persons rather than through immediate cause and effect
(pp. 247)
- Uses the example of medicine (Patel and Groen)
- Comfortable with mentoring and giving advice without dictating (pp. 248)
- Example of the machine shop (Douglas Harper)
- Address issues of ensuring knowledge transfer and preventing knowledge
hoarding (pp. 248)
- The negative example of Stradivarius (as an archetypal knowledge hoarder)
- The importance of clear, transparent, generally understandable standards (pp.
249)
- The sociable expert does not consciously create community, community emerges
out of shared good practice (pp. 249)
- The well-crafted organization is just the organizational form of these
individual principles (pp. 249)
- Working in a slow "craftsman time" (pp. 251)
- Anti-Social experts
- Related to lack of strong rituals which form a community of experts (pp. 246)
- Emphasise the inherent inequality of knowledge and skill btwn expert and
non-expert (pp. 249)
- The example of the Boston bakeries from 1970s to 2000s; master bakers
replaced by automation leading to increased tension between
managers/programmers of machines and bakers (pp. 249-250)
- Compare themselves to their colleagues, seeking to be better-than, to be
first; invidious comparison (pp. 250)
- The example of HIV-AIDS researchers wanting to be the first, to "own the
virus" (pp. 250-251)
- The question for Sennett is what do we do with the difference in expertise?
(pp. 252)
- Section on obsession and its two sides (Janus faced)
- Current state of knowledge on negative side
- Clinical psychology: obsession as "behavioural trap" (pp. 252)
- Psychoanalysis: obsession as runaway feedback loop response to trauma (pp.
252-253)
- Sociology: obsession as socially and historically constructed (Max Weber)
(pp. 253)
- Obsession of the craftsman doesn't fit any of the above categories since
craft takes people out of themselves, producing a routine of externalization,
gets you outside of your head (not a closed system whether psychological or
ideological) (pp. 254)
- Craftsmanship brings out a positive form of obsession (pp. 254)
- Long example which compares Ludwig Wittgenstein to Adolph Loos (pp. 254-261)
- Wittgenstein's House for his sister in Kundmanngasse, Vienna
- His goal of producing a perfect, exemplary building on his first go at it,
"the foundations of all possible buildings", something generically right (pp.
255-256)
- Sennett argues that it was this obsession with perfection that rendered the
house lifeless (pp. 255)
- Untrammeled freedom from economic concerns (Wittgenstein's personal fortune)
provides the time necessary for the perfectionism to take place (pp. 257)
- Severity, lifelessness, off-ness of built outcome (pp. 258-261)
- Specific built features: regularity of sizes and proportions; uniformity of
light, hyper-symmetry, aesthetic of calculation, proportion taking the lead
over usability
- Loos' Villa Moller
- Wittgenstein was a fan of him (pp. 255)
- Obsession with getting things right takes the form of dialogue with
circumstances beyond his control and labour of others (pp. 255)
- Lack of money + aesthetic constraints + mistakes as generative and
instructive in this example (pp. 257)
- Dealing-with/adjusting-to unforeseen issues (pp. 258)
- Liveliness, playfulness, "genius" of built outcome (pp. 258-261)
- Specific features: size differentiation of building elements, room
sequencing, light modelling, material diversity
- The analysis is architectural in thrust, the above difference can be read
through the decoding of the finished buildings as indexes of their
design/construction processes (pp. 258)
- Outcome of the comparison: W = unhealthy obsession & L = healthy obsession
- Major take-away is the need for constraint/resistance as a means of limiting
obsession and directing it (pp. 261)
- Guidelines for managing obsession (pp. 261)
- Using informal sketches to prevent premature closure of play
- Placing a positive value on constraint and contingency: problems =
opportunities for metamorphosis
- Allowing the produced-object a level of incompleteness
- Avoiding demonstrations of personal skill to the detriment of the
produced-object
- Knowing when to stop
- Argues that these guidelines apply to institutions and well-crafted
organizations through an analogy to construction (pp. 263)
- Loos' house is the model for an organization
- Section on "vocation" and its role in positive obsession and the desire to do
good work
- Vocation = a sustaining narrative of gradual skill-honing/knowledge
accumulation coupled with an ever-stronger conviction that this is what you
were meant to do all along (adapted from Max Weber) (pp. 263)
- Outlining the term's sources in Christianity: the retroactive aspect of
vocation, turning life into a single story of getting to this point that
could have never been otherwise; then moving into its secular application (pp.
264)
- The example of the English Morocco-grainer (pp. 264-265)
- Recapitulation of earlier identification of contemporary "skills society":
people being taught to have a portfolio of deployable skills, jobs, projects,
tasks rather than a deep understanding of a single thing (pp. 265)
- Quick section on how vocations can be supported by schools, state, and
business (pp. 266)
- Making skills sequences
- Provision of concrete problems rather than "the flux of process-based, human
relations work."
- The well-crafted institution supports the desire for life to have meaning in
exchange for loyalty
- Loyalty = taking the interests of the organization as your own even if they
may be to your detriment (pp. 266)
- Vocation-support as a strategy for organizational longevity [real-politik]
10. Ability
Conclusion: The Philosophical Workshop (pp. 286-296)
- Starts the sum-up with a section on American Pragmatism and why craftsmanship
is philosophically at home there (pp. 286-291)
- Skills as what makes humans human (the Animal Laborans was never "lower" but
is in fact part of being human) (pp. 286)
- Pragmatism = "making philosophical sense of concrete experience" (pp. 286)
- Anti-Hegelian (ie. against Idealism); going to "everyday, small acts)
(Pierce) (pp. 286)
- Trying to be more optimistic than Nietzsche (James) (pp. 287)
- Politically socialist project of making concrete gains over revolutionary
rupture (Dewey) (pp. 287-288)
- Sennett sees his work as rooted here; good craftsmanship socialism (pp. 287)
- Freed from means-ends thinking and profit
- Postwar lapse with a resurgence more recently in Europe and the US (Rorty,
Bernstein, Sennett, Joas; A mentioned a French current as well) (pp. 287)
- Hopefulness, engagement with ordinary, constructive, plural activities
- Continuum between organic and social (pp. 290)
- Value of seeing experience as a craft (not experience as feeling though
that's part of it, but as how something is done as impersonal) (pp. 288)
- Focus on form and procedure, "techniques of experience" (pp. 289)
- Personal history (experience) not as identity or "doing the work" but as
expression of interlocking procedures that come from specific places (pp.
289)
- Argument that the craft of making physical things provides insight for the
craft of experience, how we deal with others (pp. 289)
- Human relationships as material, interpersonal problems as material
challenges
- All techniques are expressive whether or not they are art (pp. 290)
- Goes into the political for a bit, though he says it's the least developed
element (pp. 290-291)
- Democratic socialism of collective problem-solving and self-rule etc.
- Uses a mythological extended metaphor to examine the limits of craft
experience (Pandora and Hephaestus) (pp. 291-294)
- There's an important thing in here about how Arendt's "banality of evil" is
never quite so banal: the seduction of a "beautiful evil" of material goods
and of crafting horrors beyond comprehension (pp. 292)
- "The man-made material object is not a neutral fact." (pp. 293)
- Necessity to keep in mind the constant possibility of harm in craft (pp. 294)
- Final section on the Ethical and the murkiness of charting what is most
ethical (pp. 294-296)
- Pride in one's work as "reward" of commitment to skill (pp. 294)
- Ownership of ones skills, evolution of skills (pp. 295)
- Conceding that Pragmatism has no solution to the problem of being proud of
ones work to the point of missing the harm done by it, but proposes a
corrective in asking ethical questions during the production process (pp.
295-296)
