The Craftsman and the special human need of being engaged

I have been reading Richard Sennett’s book The Craftsman. And is something that I want to dwell on in a few posts.

Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.

And in this Pro-am culture, the craftsman represents the special human need of being engaged believes Sennett. And interestingly in communities that really work, participation is high, and skills are multiple and low. There is an interesting dichotomy and parallel here.

Craft, as Sennett sees it, belongs to the category of ’social capital’: knowledge and skill that are accumulated and passed on through social interaction, and which are easily lost when social customs change.

The RSA writes

Richard Sennett, professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, will discuss the idea that there is a craftsman in all of us, which can be enormously motivating and inspiring.  History has drawn fault-lines between practice and theory, technique and expression, craftsman and artist, maker and user; and modern society suffers from this.  But the past lives of craftsmen also suggests ways of using tools, organising bodily movements and thinking about materials, which provide viable alternative proposals about how to utilise one’s talents. In The Craftsman Richard Sennett argues that we need to recognise this if motivations are to be understood and lives made as fulfilling as possible.

And the lecture can be heard here

Sennett also writes that… more than a technician, the civilizing craftsman has used his tools for the collective good. He points to Linux programmers as but one post modern example of that. Social cohesion comes from this and we can all observe that we suffer from a lack of that social cohesion today.

There are important deductions to be made from Sennett’s story about us: as people, as governments, as businesses and the wider society.