Across cultures and time, the archetype of the craftsman has
represented man’s ability to create and has been the mark of mature
manhood. He is
homo faber – man the creator. Instead of
passively consuming
and letting things happen to him, the craftsman fashions the world to
his liking and proactively shapes and influences it. Ancient
philosophers in both the West and the East have used the craftsman as a
symbol of he who contributes to his community and as an ensign of
humility, self-reliance, and calm industry.
When we think of the archetypal craftsman, images of a bearded man
clad in a leather apron and rolled-up sleeves, toiling away in his
workshop producing beautiful and useful items comes to mind. What’s
interesting is that the ancient Greeks had a much more inclusive idea of
the craftsman than our modern conception. Besides masons, potters, and
carpenters, the ancient Greeks included jobs now considered “knowledge
professions” like doctors, legislators, and administrators under the
craftsman label. Even the work of a father was considered a craft of
sorts that required the same care and attention to detail as that of the
carpenter. Indeed, the ancient Greeks believed that the values and
ethos of craftsmanship were things all should seek to live by. In so
doing, a man could achieve
arete, or excellence, and thus experience
eudaimonia, or a flourishing life.
Over time, the ideal of craftsmanship was cordoned off to just the
technical arts. Physicians and legislators no longer thought of
themselves as craftsmen, but as philosophers and natural scientists who
were more concerned with the theoretical as opposed to the practical.
Such a shift is a shame, for the principles of craftsmanship truly do
apply to every man, whether he makes furniture or crunches numbers.
Below we take a look at how these overarching principles of the
traditional craftsman can apply to all areas of your life, no matter
your profession.
Many of these principles are things we’ve covered before on the Art
of Manliness. Make sure to explore the links within this article to more
fully understand the concepts held within.
Do Things Well for the Sake of Doing Them Well
“Make every product better than it’s ever been
done before. Make the parts you cannot see as well as the parts you can
see. Use only the best materials, even for the most everyday items. Give
the same attention to the smallest detail as you do to the largest.
Design every item you make to last forever.” – Shaker Philosophy of
Furniture Making
Fundamental to the code of craftsmanship is the desire to do
something well for its own sake. Sure, the craftsman often gets paid for
his work, but it’s not the paycheck that determines how well he does
the job. A true craftsman will work until the job is done and done well,
even if he’s working for free. Philosopher and motorcycle repairman
Matthew B. Crawford shared a story in his book
Shop Class as Soulcraft that exemplifies the craftsman’s compulsive fidelity to this ethic.
A guy had brought an old Magna motorcycle into Crawford’s shop that
needed work on the clutch. Crawford could solve the clutch problem just
fine, but he also noticed that the engine’s oil seal looked “buggered.”
He tried to fix it but didn’t make any headway. Due to the damage and
the nature of the oil seal, replacing it would require a lot of work and
a lot of time. Frustrated, he left his shop for a smoke. While the
smoke filled his lungs, the thought came to him that:
“The best business decision would be to forget I’d ever
seen the ambiguously buggered oil seal. With a freshly rebuilt slave
cylinder, the clutch worked fine. Even if my idle speculation about the
weeping oil seal causing the failure of the slave cylinder seal was
right, so what? It would take quite a while for the problem to reappear,
and who knows if this guy would still own the bike by then. If it is
not likely to be his problem, I shouldn’t make it my problem.”
But as he walked back into the shop, he couldn’t stop thinking about that buggered oil seal:
“The compulsion was setting in, and I did little to
resist it. I started digging at the seal, my peripheral vision
narrowing. At first I told myself it was exploratory digging. But the
seal was suffering from my screwdriver, and at some point I had to drop
the forensic pretense. I was going to get that little f***er out.”
Crawford goes on to explain how he’d often bill his clients fewer
hours than he actually worked on a bike because of his thoroughness or
just his plain curiosity of tinkering with things:
“I feel I have to meet the standards of efficiency that
[an independent mechanic] set, or at least appear to. So I lie and tell
people a job took ten hours when it might have taken twenty. To
compensate, I also tell them my shop rate is forty dollars per hour, but
it usually works out to more like twenty. I feel like an amateur, no
less now than when I started, but through such devices I hope to appear
like somebody who knows what he is doing, and bills accordingly.”
Money wasn’t important to Crawford, just doing the job well for the sake of doing it well was what mattered.
You can apply this craftsmanship ethic to more than just tangible
objects. Even if you do more ethereal work, you can do it well for the
sake of doing it well. The reward for doing an exhaustively thorough job
can sometimes be monetary, but it may very well go unnoticed by one’s
customer or boss. The most fulfilling reward of living by the
craftsmanship ethic is the feeling of pride that comes with knowing you
gave a certain job your damndest effort. It’s the unmatchable
satisfaction of seeing one’s
inner integrity displayed in the wholeness and quality of one’s external labor.
Plan (But Not Too Much)
With any project, the craftsman creates twice: first mentally and
then physically. Before he sets chisel to stone or hammer to wood,
the craftsman has already created his work in his mind. In other words,
he
plans how to bring out the object from the rough materials and tools before him.
On the other hand, while the craftsman understands the importance of
planning, he isn’t over-fastidious about it. Instead of detailed
blueprints, the master craftsman prefers the rough sketch because he
knows that unforeseen problems (or opportunities) can arise once he’s
actually working. The rough sketch, philosopher Richard Sennett argues
in
The Craftsman,
provides a “working procedure for preventing premature closure.” It
gives structure, but leaves room for improvisation and change if needed.
Follow the example of the craftsman in the way you
plan your life. Envision what your ideal life (and even year,
week,
and day) would look like and roughly sketch out how you’re going to go
about making it a reality. Some folks fall into the trap of trying to
plan out every. single. detail. Their over-planning often leads to
frustration when things don’t exactly follow their ideal blueprint. Even
worse, uncompromising attention to a highly detailed life plan can
cause a man to miss out on more rewarding opportunities that he could
not have foreseen ahead of time. When planning, sketch out a rough plan
on the trestle board of your life and make course adjustments as you
actually go about the work of living.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
This is one of the simplest and most memorable maxims of craftsmen,
although it’s not always easy to follow through with in your everyday
life. Suffice it to say that while you should leave room in your plans
for improvisation, when it comes to making decisions that you can’t take
back,
make sure you’ve studied and pondered the choice thoroughly before you make your “cut.”
Work With What You Got
The master craftsman understands that most times he’ll never have the
ideal materials, tools, or environment to work with. Unforeseen knots
are discovered in wood and hidden imperfections in stone are revealed.
Instead of becoming frustrated by such curveballs, the master craftsman
adjusts his plans and works these imperfections into his creation so
that you’d never know they were there. He can sometimes even work the
imperfection into a source of strength for the piece.
Sometimes a craftsman doesn’t have the exact tool that he needs, so
he improvises with what he has and learns something new in the process.
As Sennett argues
, “Getting better at using tools comes to us,
when the tools challenge us, and this challenge often occurs just
because the tools are not fit-for-purpose. They may not be good enough
or it’s hard to figure out how to use them…However, we come to use it,
the very incompleteness of the tool has taught us something.”
Just as the craftsman cannot exactly control what he has to work
with, we cannot control every aspect of our life. We’re all given
different materials and circumstances to work with. Some of us were born
with physical or mental handicaps. Setbacks happen like divorce,
accidents, and job layoffs. Instead of working against this resistance,
embrace it
like the craftsman. Instead of seeing these constraints and
contingencies as obstacles, see them as creative opportunities and
incorporate them into your life as unique and interesting pieces of
texture. Remember, some of history’s greatest men
turned what could have been a weakness into a strength.
Cultivate Patience
A good craftsman has the patience to stay with frustrating work, even
when it takes longer than he originally thought. He avoids frustration
by living by the following maxim: when something takes longer than you
expect, stop fighting it and embrace it.
Much of our frustrations in modern life could be avoided if we would
just develop this zen-like patience of the craftsman. Us moderns have a
perverse expectation that things should happen NOW. We want emails
answered immediately and we even expect success to come right away. Mark
Zuckerberg is not your average success story, so stop trying to be like
him. The reality is that things almost always take longer than
expected, especially those things that are good and noble. So instead of
fighting it, embrace it as the calm craftsman does. Life will become
instantly more enjoyable and less stressful once you cultivate this
virtue of patience.
Let Go of Your Ego
The craftsman willingly opens himself up to teaching, criticism, and
judgment from his peers and clients because that’s the only way he can
improve. He
doesn’t take criticism personally because the craftsman is more concerned about
doing good work than
feeling good about his work. A true craftsman understands that nobody cares how
he feels about his work. In the end he knows that the only question that matters is: “Does it work?”
According to Crawford, “the tradesman must reckon with the infallible
judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be
interpreted away.” The work of the craftsman isn’t wishy-washy. The
craftsman must be able, as Crawford notes, to point and say, “the
building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on.” Besides being
able to concretely demonstrate whether his creation or repair actually
succeeds, the craftsman must also face instruments that determine
whether his work is “true” — the level, the square, the compass, the
plumb, the ruler. There’s no fudging with these tools. The shelf a
carpenter made is either level or it’s not.
Modern culture has indoctrinated us that it’s more important to
feel good
about our work than to actually do good work. Self-help and career
books tell us that we should find work that feels “authentic.” School
children are taught that the only thing that counts is their effort, not
if their work is actually good or correct. Crawford calls this emphasis
on feelings as opposed to results a
consumer ethic as opposed to a
craftsmanship ethic.
The problem with the consumer ethic is that it creates individuals
with self-inflated and fragile egos who are unable to withstand the
sometimes harsh criticisms and judgments that invariably come in life
and in work. Clients and bosses don’t care if you felt “authentic” when
writing a memo or if you tried
really hard on a project. All they care about are the
results. In life, it often takes mistakes in order to get better. You can’t get better if no one ever points out your failings.
If you wish to become the best man you can be, you must rid yourself of the consumer ethic of
feelings and
replace it with the craftsmanship ethic of results. Does your creation
work? Does it look good? Does it add something to the world? If not,
seek feedback and use that criticism to improve your work.
Develop Your Practical Wisdom
Through years of experience, the craftsman develops what Robert
Greene calls a “masterly intuition.” He can sense problems and solutions
by merely looking at an object or listening to it operate. I liken it
to how a man will often know if there is something wrong with his car
just by feeling the way it drives or hearing something subtle that
wasn’t previously there. Crawford argues that the master craftsman’s
ability to intuit and work by “hunches” allows him to “know what do when
the rules run out or there are no rules in the first place.” It’s what
allows a good auto mechanic to diagnose a transmission problem even when
the computerized test equipment says the car’s transmission is a-okay
or a carpenter to know what sort of joint would work best on a project.
Aristotle called this kind of intuition
phronesis, or
practical wisdom. The ancient philosopher believed that the
phronesis was a virtue that
all men
should develop, not just carpenters or masons. Practical wisdom is what
allows us to make good judgments when we face decisions when there’s no
clear right or wrong answer. It gives us the ability
“to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason.” Aristotle
argued that practical wisdom for everyday life develops the same way
craftsmen develop theirs — through experience and trial and error.
Mastery Brings Meaning
Mastery
is the goal of the true craftsman. As an apprentice, the would-be
craftsman devotes years of his life humbly submitting to quiet
observation. He watches his master work and gives an attentive ear to
his instructions. After years of passive observation, an apprentice
begins experimenting his craft to determine his skill. Through years of
trial and error, he slowly hones his skill to a sharp edge. Even when a
craftsman has obtained the level of master, he continues to dedicate his
life to constant improvement. He understands that by increasing his
ability, he increases his value. By mastering his trade, the craftsman
is better able to live by the craftsmanship ethic, which in turn allows
him to feel deeper personal satisfaction, develop confidence, contribute
to his community, and thus discover greater and greater meaning and
fulfillment in his work.
In
Drive, Daniel Pink highlights research that has shown that, contrary to popular belief, it’s not the
type of work that we do that leads to personal fulfillment. Rather it’s
mastery
of our work (along with autonomy and purpose) that brings us
satisfaction. If you feel like you’re lacking meaning in your work or in
your life, follow the example of the craftsman by seeking mastery. If
you’re a computer programmer, make it a goal to constantly improve your
programming chops; if you’re a manager, read the latest management
research and apply it in your daily work. By seeking mastery, you’ll
increase your self-efficacy and your ability to leave a mark on the
world.
Find Your Workshop
We often imagine the archetypal craftsman toiling alone in his shop,
but historically, the vocation of a craftsman was and still is very
social. When a master craftsman wanted to commune with his fellow
masters, he’d head to the nearest guildhall where new insights were
shared and policies governing the craft debated. And now, as then, a
craftsman’s workshop is the real hub of his sociality. Here he mentors
and teaches an apprentice or journeyman, works alongside his peers, and
interacts with his clients.
The workshop and guildhall give the craftsman a sense of community,
identity, and belonging. Crawford says this of the community that
craftsmanship fosters:
“So my work situates me in a particular community. The
narrow mechanical things I concern myself with are inscribed within a
larger circle of meaning; they are in the service of an activity that we
recognize as part of a life well lived. This common recognition, which
needn’t be spoken, is the basis for a friendship that orients by
concrete images of excellence.”
At its core, a craftsman’s workshop is an
honor group.
It’s home to a small, intimate group of men, where a code of honor — in
this case, the craftsmanship ethic — guides and shapes the behavior of
those within the workshop’s walls. As we’ve discussed in our post on
reviving manly honor,
traditional honor inspires and compels men to be the very best. The
tight-knit community that honor requires serves as a check on narcissism
and reminds a man that he’s not the center of the universe. More
importantly, honor gives meaning to a man’s life.
Mimic the craftsman by finding your metaphorical workshop. Be intentional about forming
life-long brotherhoods. Find your
platoon of men that will hold you accountable to a code of honor that demands excellence and honesty in all you do.
Whether you spend your days knee-deep in sawdust, paperwork, or
diapers, by adopting and living the traditional values of the craftsman
you’ll find more personal fulfillment and meaning, enrich your family
and community, and hammer, mold, and sculpt an indelible
legacy as a man.
________________
Sources:
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford
Mastery by Robert Greene
Source: Life
Source: Life
Source: UpNorth Memories
Source: Life
Source: Life
Source: Gavin James
HEALTHY
WISE
