What does ‘to create’ mean?

As I have written here before I question the devaluation of ‘manual’ skills; I object at some visceral level to the unstated assumption that those who engage in manual work, for the sake of argument the making of ‘things,’ are incapable of reason. And don’t get all up in arms. Remember that what people learn, supposedly, in an ‘arts’ education, is the ability to reason.

The ability to reason is the rationale for an humanities degree.

If reasoning is the result of four years of education, then the implied truth is that only the educated are capable of reason. And, by and large, those who make ‘things’ are utterly devoid of those four years of education that would allow them to reason.

So, as wonderful a person as your tailor may be, she is incapable of ‘reasoning’ solely because she lacks the appropriate training. Your plumber, by default, can only ‘replace’ things because without the training that would allow him to rationally analyse the situation, he is unable to determine the root cause of the problem. And your automotive technician is likewise disabled.

All those poor, uneducated, slobs. Incapable of reason, they are denied full participation in society, and the educated will have to accept the responsibility of their welfare.

One of the difficulties I have with this proposition is the act of creation; the process actually whereby an individual (because I hate ‘group projects’) wants to make ’something.’ It might be a simple thing, fried eggs, not normally noted for the depth of intellectual rigor necessary to fulfill the process. Or it might be the design and construction of a house, a telescope (just check on the role of amateurs in astronomy sometime), a quilt.

All of these projects require endless decision making. Competing needs, desires, facilities all need to be weighed, and the appropriate actions taken so that the end result actually fulfills the original need.

But, as we have seen, the people who sully their hands in the physical creation of ‘things’ are regarded as, at best, slightly stupid by a society that wants to know first off what you ‘got’ your degree in. And why would anyone consign their children to a role held to be only slightly above bovine in modern society?

So there are any number of reasons to avoid the trades/crafts areas of the work-world.

A couple of readers suggested this article , by Jay Leno, and his appreciation of manual skills. While Leno’s article strikes close to the same target I aim at, there are a couple small matters to address.

The first is easy. Jay Leno has buckets of cash. Buckets. And he likes to spend some of that cash on cars, some of it on accurate restorations of vehicles to ‘as new’ condition, and some of it on exceedingly well done creative re-interpretations of the original – think really high-end hot-rods. To give Leno credit, he is willing to spend money on his hobby. I expect that he demands quality results for that money, but he, unlike many, is prepared to spend. And having buckets of cash gives him lots to spend.

The second, and somewhat more difficult idea, is that of ‘cultural capital,’ which again Jay Leno has. Cultural capital bestows upon its bearer forms of power similar to those of cash, but often in ways not immediately obvious to the viewer – whether buyer or seller in the marketplace of ideas. But, to keep it simple, if we assume that Jay Leno has cultural capital, it makes his proclamations worthy. And that worthiness must be examined for its truth claims.

If Jay Leno says good machinists are great people, and wonderful to have, it means that they are great and wonderful if you can afford to have them. As hobbyists go Leno is special, he not only can afford, but does afford. And that alters his relationship with the ‘idea’ of the creative, critical thinking, machinist.

But if you are struggling to get your three kids through school, you’re driving a beat up old Holden V-8 with bald tires, and you still believe that your kids will do better in the workplace lottery than you, I suggest your first advice is to ‘get an education.’

Buying in to the accepted wisdom, fostered by baby-boomers in most of the developed world, that an education (meaning four years of university) is the only way to become a rational thinker (and therefore employable) it is unlikely that parents are going to tell their daughter to become a plumber. She might make way more money as a plumber, but she won’t be half as acceptable as an elementary school teacher.

Hey, just as an aside; ever notice that you have to go to an accredited ‘education training facility’ to teach kids in elementary or secondary school, but any fool with a PhD can teach at the university level? Without any proof, or practice necessarily, in the classroom.

So, those that make ‘things’ tend not to be educated in the ‘university’ sense of the word. And that means that the things they create are not accorded the same value as those things designed, perhaps, by people accounted as being capable of critical examination and analysis. So, what happens when people with ‘education’ create?

Well, some of what they create reflects the nature of the institution they attended. Some learn to parse sentences, probably in English. Others learn to parse ‘lines,’ perhaps in ‘C,’ or ‘C++.’ Some we call ‘writers,’ some we call ‘computer geeks,’ or if we are feeling particularly warm and fuzzy, IT staff.

Others will, perhaps, sit at a computer and draw buildings. Those people we call architects. Some people will sit in front of their computer and draw (?) the scenes and characters for any variety of computer games/images/movies. I don’t know what those people are called. Others will sit with like-minded people and plot and scheme various political or financial plots. Those people we call stock-brokers, politicians, and worse.

The difficulty is that most of these people need the uneducated masses to translate their words, drawings, computer code, stock deals, and various political schemes into real, tangible, results.  Without the masses, wherever they may be located geographically, to actually produce the required end result, the only thing that has been produced is intellectual property. Perhaps.

Intellectual property is a wonderful idea. I actually make a small part of my living from writing. But without the people who, in multiple steps, transform my written work in to a product that other people are willing to pay for, the intellectual property part of the deal is actually pretty insignificant.

So who actually creates? What does it mean to create something?

Does the customer create, by creating a demand for something, like Jay Leno’s need for car parts otherwise unavailable? Does the machinist create the part, in response to a vaguely formulated need expressed by the customer? Does an engineer, or draughts-person, create the piece by acting as an interlocutor between the customer’s needs, and the machinists abilities? And, what role does cultural capital play, in the valuation not only of the ‘thing’ made, but in the customers role in wanting it?

These things we purport to value we often fail to support. We think manual skill is great, but we are unprepared to actually pay for it. We all want our gun/camera/car/boat/suit/bicycle/personal water craft/stereo/computer/microwave to be repairable – that is, ultimately what we are asking for – but we are unprepared to actually pay someone else what we expect to get paid for our own work. And that is only part of the difference between Jay Leno and most hobbyists.

Leno is prepared to pay others for the skills they exhibit in the intellectual, and physical, creation of something he wants. In this particular role, Leno is lending cultural capital to the idea of the ability to create, but I don’t think it is enough. The need for others to create is not strong enough amongst us; we want, but are unprepared to acknowledge the value of creation for our interests.

We are not the creators we are looking for, unfortunately.