(Just like Cliff Cottage, this blog has its storage problems. Posts get written, then get stored, never to be published. Yet sometimes small miracles happen. This post that has been in storage since June 2017 is now being published in October 2017.)
The image below is from the United Kingdom election in June 2017. American pussy hats have been replaced by British fox hats (to protest May’s support of fox hunting). “Rosie the Riveter” has been given tattoos. While I am not personally keen on camouflage jackets, I do like the red trousers. In fact, I have two pairs myself which I wear while working!
AFP 2017-06-08 UK election “Revenge of the young”
J. Howard Miller’s original poster is actually titled We Can Do It. It portrays Naomi Parker (later Fraley), working at the Alameda Naval Air Station, in California. It shows how production workers actually dressed. Created in 1942, displayed for two weeks in 1943, rediscovered in the 1980s.
J. Howard Miller 1942 We Can Do It
With the war over, more elegant attire could be worn, as shown in this 50 year old photograph of Diana Rigg 1938- (Emma Peel) and Patrick Macnee 1922-2015 (John Steed). They both belong to the inter-war generation.
PA 1965 Diana Rigg as Emma Peel & Patrick Macnee as John Steed in the Avengers.
I thought of ending this by showing a photo of some boomer hippies in the late 1960s. After having viewed countless images, I am forced to conclude that the world is better off not having to look at them again.
The Unit One Workshop is scheduled to start operation on Monday, 01 January 2018 at 12 noon. If you would like to be included in the official opening celebration all you have to do is contact the operations manager: brock@mclellan.no and have your name added to the list of invited guests.
At the moment a number of speakers have been invited to entertain guests. Not all of these have accepted, yet – so there could be some changes.
Proton Bletchley: Unit One – A Community Workshop (15 minutes)
Precious Dollar: What it costs to construct a workshop (10 minutes)
Billi Sodd: Prison workshops (This is dependent on Billi being able to obtain day release from Verdal Prison) (unknown duration)
Refreshments served
Jade Marmot: The fun of DIY videos (30 minutes)
Brock McLellan: Closing remarks (10 minutes)
During that first day, at 14:00, a Health, Environment and Safety course will be conducted, so that people wanting to use the workshop will know how to protect themselves and the environment.
To begin with, equipment at the workshop will focus on woodworking. A number of stationary machines will be available, if not on opening day, then soon thereafter, including: table saw, band saw, mitre saw, router, planer, jointer and drill stand.
About once a month there will be a “fredag fika” in the workshop. The first of these is planned for Friday, 5 January 2018 at 12:00. However, if people would rather have this on a different day, or time, these wishes can be accommodated. This meeting will give people several days to reflect on how they want to use the workshop, and the rules that are needed to govern its use.
Enhet En Verksted
Verkstedet til Unit One/ Enhet En er planlagt å starte drift mandag 01 januar 2018 kl 12.00. Hvis du vil bli med på den offisielle åpningsfestet, må du bare kontakte operasjonssjefen: brock@mclellan.no og få navnet ditt lagt til listen over inviterte gjester.
I øyeblikket har en rekke talere blitt invitert til å underholde gjester. Ikke alle disse har akseptert, ennå – så det kan være noen endringer.
Proton Bletchley: Enhet 1 – Et versted for fellesskapet (15 minutter)
Precious Dollar: Hva koster det å bygge et verksted (10 minutter)
Billi Sodd: Verksteder på fengsel (Dette er avhengig av at Billi for frigang fra Verdal fengsel) (ukjent varighet)
Servering av forfriskninger
Jade Marmot: Den morsomme med DIY videoer (30 minutter)
I løpet av den første dagen, klokken 14.00, vil det gjennomføres et helse-, miljø- og sikkerhetskurs, slik at folk som ønsker å bruke verkstedet, vil få opplæring om hvordan de skal beskytte seg selv og miljøet.
Til å begynne med vil utstyret på verkstedet fokusere på trebearbeiding. En rekke stasjonære maskiner vil være tilgjengelige, om ikke på åpningsdagen, så snart deretter: bordsag, båndsag, gjæresag, fres, tykkelseshøvel, jointer og borestativ.
Omtrent en gang i måneden vil det være en “fredag fika” i verkstedet. Den første av disse er planlagt fredag 5. januar 2018 klokken 12.00. Men hvis folk heller vil ha dette på en annen dag eller tid, kan dato og/eller klokkeslett endres. Dette møtet vil gi folk flere dager til å reflektere over hvordan de vil bruke verkstedet, og de reglene som trengs for å styre bruken av det.
NB: Much of this post was actually written in 2016, but has been updated and posted in October 2017.
A year ago, a politician in one of the world’s largest countries came up with a campaign slogan, “Make [name of country] great, again.”
“Wow,” I thought, “that is such a fantastic idea.” I slept well, reflecting on that smart slogan until, in some sort of dream phase in the middle of the night, I realized that the message had to be tweaked.
Why should it be just one country? So, I replaced [name of country] with the world, as in: “Make the world great, again.”
I began to slept even better the next night, knowing that the entire world would be great, again – not just one or ten countries, but all 195! http://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/
Then, during this intense dream phase, I realized that the message had to be tweaked even more. Unfortunately, the entire world has never been that great for everyone. Many people live in oppression. Many more people in the past also lived oppressed, impoverished lives. So, we have no right to add “again” to the phrase.
“Make the world great.”
The slogan was now so fantastic I imagined that it couldn’t be improved, ever. So, I spent the next day painting a banner. It was a banner that could be hung from my sundeck that all the world could see, at least that portion of the world that lives in Vangshylla, and can see the sundeck. Unfortunately, that day it didn’t just rain, it poured. Not a single soul could be bothered to look upwards into the sky to read the banner.
That evening, I was sure I would sleep through the entire night, without interuptions. Not even the honking of the geese overhead, flying south, would disrupt my slumber. It was true, the honking geese did not disturb my sleep. It was the banner, or more correctly, the slogan on the banner, that did.
The problem this time was not with the slogan. Rather, it was what was missing from the slogan. It didn’t seem fair that an Obama, or a Hilary or a Donald or even a Bernie should be stuck with the job of making the world great. If the world was to become great, then everyone had to contribute.
The next day I found more material so that I could add a second story to the original banner. It now read, “Working to Make the World Great!”
By now I had grown to expect waking in the middle of the night. Thus, it came as no surprise at all, when I woke up realizing that there were still challenges with the slogan. Yes, we can all work to make the world great, but I’d actually prefer you to do it my way, rather than your way. It took only a few minutes to come to the realization that “My Way or the Highway” is not a particularly mature approach to making the world great. Then, something unusual happened. I fell asleep.
Sometimes, allowing one’s subconscious to work on a problem is much better than any other approach. When I awoke in the morning, I felt refreshed. After breakfast, I looked at the banner and knew precisely what needed to be added. Within an hour the banner was finished. It was a sunny day, so people could look up and read,
“Working Together to Make the World Great!”
Postscript: There aren’t many people who live in Vangshylla, and even fewer who can look up and see the banner. That isn’t important. That slogan is actually addressed to just one person, myself, and changing my attitude to each and every person I meet.
The 1950s and the 1960s were a privileged time. Yet, there are only some aspects of it that I would want to return to. It was exceedingly sexist. Men worked outside the house, while women were confined inside suburban houses. At school, girls were required to study home economics which was in general divided into two sections, textiles (with an emphasis on sewing) and cooking (and nutrition). Boys were required to study industrial arts.
I am not going to mention more about home economics in this post, except to say that I probably would have benefited from learning more about cooking. Similarly, many girls would have benefited, if they had been allowed to study industrial arts.
Industrial arts was obligatory for four (later three) years. One period a week was devoted to draughting, and the construction of technical drawings. The other days were spent working in one of three subject areas, each for a third of the school year, in rotation. The subject areas were woodworking, metalworking and electricity and electronics. For my last two years of secondary school, I took a two year specialization in electricity and electronics. Others were able to specialize in other areas, such as house construction or automotive mechanics. Some people didn’t take any practical subjects at all, after the obligatory years.
There is a Norwegian term, sløyd, that roughly translates as woodwork. Here children use obsolete hand tools to make objects that are either obsolete themselves, or are made in a fraction of the time by industrial machines. I am not sure why sløyd is taught. It shows a great deal of disrespect to children, and the value of their time.
In industrial arts, we learned how to use hand tools, but we also progressed rapidly to machine tools. One does not waste time using a hand saw if a compound mitre saw is more appropriate. This does not mean that the Canadian industrial arts program was perfect. In metalwork, I learned to work with sheet metal, blacksmithing and machining. However, I was never exposed to welding.
Fast forward fifty years …
I am tired of sitting around cafes, gossiping while consuming sugar rich drinks and cakes. Something similar can be said of gyms with their sweat enhanced fragrances. I want to invite people to use their time more constructively, by using the workshop at Unit One. Yes, there will be a “fredag fika” a Swedish term for a sociable coffee break often held on Fridays. It is designed to help bond and consolidate a group of workers. At Unit One it should allow people to discuss projects: present, future and (if necessary) past.
Before people will be allowed to use equipment on their own, they will have to be certified. The first will have to be for general health and safety. When a person enters Unit One, they have to know where their own personal protective equipment is located. Similarly, they will have to know what they are expected to do, during different types of emergencies, including fire and assorted forms of personal injury.
When it comes to certification to use the various tools, one approach is to test out a person using the specific machine. A better approach is to have the aspirant design and make a product that requires a number of different operations on a variety of machines.
Certification misses one vital element – the motivation to work.
Perhaps one should begin with the Arts and Crafts movement, and acknowledge the contributions of William Morris, and several others. That is not going to happen. The two contemporary (?) works that are most inspiring are both written by David William Pye (1914-1993): The Nature of Design (later The Nature & Aesthetics of Design), 1964 and The Nature and Art of Workmanship, 1968.
The workmanship of risk is one of Pye’s most important concepts. It is “workmanship using any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works (The Nature and Art of Workmanship, p. 20).
He also wrote that people make things to effect change. However, most designed objects are palliative. They do not enable new behaviours. He uses a transport example to illustrate this. One can walk instead of using a car, but one cannot fly instead of using a plane. He also notes that design is limited by economy rather than technique. Since all design is an economic trade off, it is always a failure.
Pye also regards design as arbitrary. Products are developed under the assumption that tools can bring people happiness. His view is that tools can, at best, only help people avoid unhappiness.
David Pye (1914-1993)
There are two other writers that one may also want to read on the philosophy of work, Richard Sennett and Matthew B. Crawford.
Richard Sennett has written extensively about work. The Hidden Injuries of Class (1972) written with Johnathan Cobb is a study of class consciousness among working-class families in Boston. The Corrosion of Character (1998) explores how new forms of work are changing our communal and personal experience. Respect in a world of inequality (2003) examines the relation of work and welfare system reforms. The Culture of the New Capitalism (2006), much like the earlier Authority (1980) address similar issues.
Richard Sennett (photo: Ars Electronica, 2010)
Yet, it is the newer Homo Faber project that examines work in a 21st century context, an exploration of material ways of making culture. The Craftsman (2008), Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation (2012) and Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City (to be published in 2018) on the making of the urban environment.
Lewis Hyde states that Richard Sennett’s “guiding intuition” in The Craftsman is that “making is thinking.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/books/review/Hyde-t.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bua2&oref=slogin
What I found particularly interesting about The Craftsman, was Sennett’s use of computer programmers as an example.
I will now elegantly hop over Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) to focus on a 21st century replacement, Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (2009). In addition to obtaining a Ph. D. in political philosophy, Crawford has also worked as an electrician and mechanic, and owns and operates Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop.
Matthew B. Crawford (photo: Adam Ewing)
Crawford writes about work that requires mastery of real things. This work can be more intellectually demanding that more abstract varieties. He feels that maintenance and repair work cultivate ethical virtues, and foster habits of individual responsibility. Crawford wants people to replace passivity and consumerism with self-reliance.
Tools are not the most important elements in a workshop. It is the values that are promoted therein.
“It is permissible to study sciences and arts, but such sciences as are useful and would redound to the progress and advancement of the people. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Ordainer, the All-Wise.”
