Discernment is absolutely the bottom line skill everyone needs but I still worry about how the bright-eyed bushy-tailed newbies coming into any new practice, anywhere, will handle things without some idea of how and why they work.
I'd be interested in what the Bangor shipbuilders, and your dad, thought about that.
That's the part I don't have room for in this essay, which is what comes next. We know what the shipbuilders thought: they were completely overrun by industrialization and capital‑heavy commercial interests. My dad, a home builder, thought similarly. I'm resisting writing it down because I know how poorly people will react; the interest in craft in home building is gone. My dad stopped building homes and became a loan shark.
Now you won't find homes built by craftspeople, nor people who understand the trade. I don't know what will happen with home building, but I see it regressing—a race to the bottom of cost savings and capitalization, just like my own trade. The opposite of a silver lining is that I don't believe my profession will survive or matter within a decade, possibly sooner.
Just as shipbuilders adopted new tools and techniques in the mid‑20th century, eventually none of that mattered because you could hire any uneducated high‑school dropout to hang drywall and follow instructions. That's where we're headed. If I haven't made it clear, I believe we are racing toward an economic apocalypse. We will not survive.
Interesting read as always!
Discernment is absolutely the bottom line skill everyone needs but I still worry about how the bright-eyed bushy-tailed newbies coming into any new practice, anywhere, will handle things without some idea of how and why they work.
I'd be interested in what the Bangor shipbuilders, and your dad, thought about that.
That's the part I don't have room for in this essay, which is what comes next. We know what the shipbuilders thought: they were completely overrun by industrialization and capital‑heavy commercial interests. My dad, a home builder, thought similarly. I'm resisting writing it down because I know how poorly people will react; the interest in craft in home building is gone. My dad stopped building homes and became a loan shark.
Now you won't find homes built by craftspeople, nor people who understand the trade. I don't know what will happen with home building, but I see it regressing—a race to the bottom of cost savings and capitalization, just like my own trade. The opposite of a silver lining is that I don't believe my profession will survive or matter within a decade, possibly sooner.
Just as shipbuilders adopted new tools and techniques in the mid‑20th century, eventually none of that mattered because you could hire any uneducated high‑school dropout to hang drywall and follow instructions. That's where we're headed. If I haven't made it clear, I believe we are racing toward an economic apocalypse. We will not survive.