Really thoughtful piece. I think what you are circling around here is judgement.
A lot of engineering and construction trades look uncreative from the outside because people only see the plan or drawing, not the constant problem solving and material judgement happening in the act of making itself.
A machinist may receive a 2D drawing, but the drawing does not contain the knowledge of how the part actually comes into being. The craft lies in resolving that reality through experience, material understanding, and constant judgement.
I also think this is what Adam Smith’s pin factory example ultimately points towards. If a blacksmith makes pins from start to finish, there is satisfaction, responsibility, and identity in the work because judgement runs through the whole process. But once the labour is divided into tiny isolated tasks, the worker no longer possesses a trade in the same sense. The judgement is stripped away along with much of the meaning.
That’s why apprenticeships mattered so much historically. They weren’t just teaching procedures, they were transmitting judgement.
Absolutely. When we’re able to exercise our own judgement, we feel truly fulfilled in our work. That’s been historically true of white collar/mental/creative work but lately those jobs have been degraded by the same processes that manual labor has.
But thanks for your original comment, really made me think!
Thanks again for engaging so thoughtfully with my original comment and for quoting it in the article.
I think what worries me most in all this is that the degradation of labour now seems to be spreading into many kinds of white-collar and creative work too, through the same processes of fragmentation, abstraction, metrics, and removal of judgement that manual labour experienced earlier.
It increasingly feels like these are not separate struggles at all. The more labour is broken into isolated tasks and human judgement is stripped away, the less meaningful the work becomes, whether in a factory, an office, or a design studio.
Looking forward to reading your book at some point as well.
Really thoughtful piece. I think what you are circling around here is judgement.
A lot of engineering and construction trades look uncreative from the outside because people only see the plan or drawing, not the constant problem solving and material judgement happening in the act of making itself.
A machinist may receive a 2D drawing, but the drawing does not contain the knowledge of how the part actually comes into being. The craft lies in resolving that reality through experience, material understanding, and constant judgement.
I also think this is what Adam Smith’s pin factory example ultimately points towards. If a blacksmith makes pins from start to finish, there is satisfaction, responsibility, and identity in the work because judgement runs through the whole process. But once the labour is divided into tiny isolated tasks, the worker no longer possesses a trade in the same sense. The judgement is stripped away along with much of the meaning.
That’s why apprenticeships mattered so much historically. They weren’t just teaching procedures, they were transmitting judgement.
Absolutely. When we’re able to exercise our own judgement, we feel truly fulfilled in our work. That’s been historically true of white collar/mental/creative work but lately those jobs have been degraded by the same processes that manual labor has.
But thanks for your original comment, really made me think!
Thanks again for engaging so thoughtfully with my original comment and for quoting it in the article.
I think what worries me most in all this is that the degradation of labour now seems to be spreading into many kinds of white-collar and creative work too, through the same processes of fragmentation, abstraction, metrics, and removal of judgement that manual labour experienced earlier.
It increasingly feels like these are not separate struggles at all. The more labour is broken into isolated tasks and human judgement is stripped away, the less meaningful the work becomes, whether in a factory, an office, or a design studio.
Looking forward to reading your book at some point as well.
These are the things that keep me up at night..