Jack of all trades, mistress of none
by Sharon Astyk
This bit was rather irksome.
Well, if the typing here gets really poor, my advance apologies. At our local "Preservation of the Union 1865" celebration, friends of ours gave us a kitten they had need of a home for. The kitten finds my typing endlessly entertaining and is trying to eat my hands, which is a real speed reducer. We're still trying to find him a name - something Unionist and Civil War related seems appropriate. If only General Lafayette McLaws had been a northerner - "McLaws" really is a good cat name. Suggestions for relevant unionist (not necessarily military) figures are more than welcome.
Now is it a step back when households attain this degree of self-sufficiency? Is specialization and differentiation always progress?
Agriculture is the ultimately "jack of all trades" job - not only do you have to hold all the basic farm knowledge in your head, but there's mechanics (gotta fix the equipment when it breaks down), metal working (don't have that one yet), tree felling (I only do little ones, and I don't touch chainsaws), biology and chemistry (soil science, animal husbandry), botany (plants), dealing with what I'm producing (herbalism, fiber production, cooking, dyeing), and...you get the picture. Add to that the skill sets that go with frugality and dinner, and it is quite a range of things that I haven't even attempted to the ones I have. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming.
The good thing, however, lest one get overwhelmed, is this. In order to develop functional skills at something, you don't actually have to devote that much time or energy to it. You simply have to develop a very basic, functional knowledge. And once you've done that, you can improve upon your skills, or teach someone else so that they can do so. You don't have to be very good at these things.
For example, let's take knitting as a model. What's "good enough?" A good enough knitter knows a few basic stitches and techniques, and the rough outlines of garment constructure. He knows what tools he needs, and which one he doesn't, and he does it well enough to teach someone else how to knit. But the great thing for the person who doesn't like knitting that much, or hasn't very much time to do it, is that all he really has to do is be able to make a basic sweater, gloves or socks. It doesn't have to be a really pretty sweater, just keep someone warm without falling apart. Getting from 0 knitting knowledge to a basic sweater is a matter of months of spare-time work, weeks if you can take a class or get lessons from someone really knowledgeable. It doesn't take years. A couple of good books, and he's set for pretty much any purpose.
And let us say that our knitter likes knitting fine, but would rather cook. The good thing, is that he now has enough skill to teach the basics to his children or his spouse or his friends in his community. And with a good book, once the basics become muscle memory, his son can become an expert knitter, based on Daddy's teaching and self-teaching.
The same is true for almost any skill. I think people are often intimidated when they approach creating an even partly self-sufficient life by the sheer number of things they have to learn to do. Now it is true that if you live in comparative isolation, you have to do all those things to your own satisfaction - not necessarily well, but at least well enough to content you and not make your life more difficult. But if you are imagining a future of pulling together with other people, and those other people don't know it yet ;-), it is good to remember that the knowledge you need is actually pretty basic. You don't have to be a great talent at anything - just jack of all trades (or all the ones of use to you), and master of none.
What conditions are necessary in order for the members of a community to have sufficient leisure and time for prayer? Is there an ideal way of life in this regard?
4 comments:
Sorry the kitten irked you ;-).
I actually suspect that while de-specialization in and of itself might take up some time we would use for other things, a less specialized society might actually have more time, and inclination towards worship. I don't think it is an accident that deindustrialized, low specialization societies tend to be much more religious than industrialized, specialized ones.
One reason is the issue of time - the expansion of needs that goes with a growth culture means that we simply change our standards. The average woman spent just about the same amount of time on housework when she had to light a stove every morning as she spends now. Societies with comparatively low need levels often have much *more* free time than we do - in Ladakh, 11th century Britain, among the !Kung, in Bali - all of them have fewer work days than we do.
But the other thing is this - religion, I think, thrives on a sense of the interconnectedness of things, and an awareness of our real limitations. I suspect, and this is mostly an intuition, that a really vibrant religious culture may depend on most of us knowing a little more about what we can and cannot control, and having a bit better a sense of where our lives and security come from.
Just a thought,
Sharon
Ms. Astyk,
Thank you very much for visiting and leaving a comment! It wasn't the kitten that irked me, but "The Preservation of the Union 1865" celebration. (I tend to take the right of secession seriously and am sympathetic to Southern claims for independence.) :)
I do think that there are social/economic arrangements that bring out our interdependence better so that we can acknowledge them; I suppose my question is how much specialization is possible before things get unhealthy/exploitive. I do support agrarianism as a principle of political economy, but I do wonder if there are things that a 100% agrarian society (with each household meeting it's own basic needs through production) would not be missing something that a community with more specialization, but still rooted in agriculture, would have. Would a purely agrarian society have the means to support the creation and maintenance of a school of liberal education, for an example?
Well, I didn't schedule the event in question - it was a town thing. And actually, I was pleased to see it in a sense. I generally agree with you - I think the South had the right to seceed, although they certainly didn't have the right to manipulate the western states the way they did. But I was rather pleased to seen Northerners expressing some pride in the larger activity of the Civil War - southerners have had so much discursive power, including the power to write slavery out of the story in favor of "states rights" that I thought it was rather a nice thing to see the Northern position memorialized. I think we should have let the south go, but since we didn't, I think we've certainly fought worse and stupider wars.
But I suppose that's neither here nor there. I don't think I'm calling for a society in which everyone is doing everything for themselves. My major concern was that ultimately, in communities where no one knows many of these skills any longer, having someone be able to transmit the basic ability to scythe a field, build a haystack, slaughter a goat, make a sock, ferment a cabbage, means that many of us are gathering skills with the hope of transmitting them on a wider scale later.
I don't believe any society will ever have everyone providing every need. But even now, the simply utility of being able to meet many of your needs at home is liberating - both in time and money, at least for me.
I don't know if there's a good answer to this one. Thanks again for the compliment of raising these questions!
Sharon
Yea, my question was more "theoretical" than of immediate practical significance--as a philosopher I like inquiring as to what the ideal is, especially since I'm working for a return to classical politics/economics.
I suppose at the agrarian extreme, there would be the anabaptist communities, the Amish and so on--I have not visited an Amish community, nor have I done extensive reading, but it seems to me that while they do have some sort of communal life, nonetheless they do not live in close proximity, like the villages/hamlets of medieval Europe. Perhaps in certain parts of Europe farmers were more spread out, so I don't know how extensive the norm of farmers gathering together into villages and such was. And I don't know if the anabaptists picked up this arrangement from their homeland, or if it is something 'uniquely' American. Given their religious background, I don't think the project of forming a higher center of learning, for the sake of harmonizing faith and reason, is something that would ever come to be in an anabaptist society. Also, it does not seem that the anabaptists celebrate through song and dance (or drink either?). But such festivities seem to be a common part of life in pre-Reformation Europe. Other than the university and the production of more labor-intensive/refined forms of art, in what ways might a more 'advanced' (i.e. specialized) city-state be 'better' than a simple agrarian community?
Anyway, thank youu for the response! And please continue your great posts!
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