Spend a summer watching reality TV and you’ll realize that western societies are increasingly torn between a respect for expertise and a love of I-can-do-anything pluck. Witness the ever-increasing degree of specialization that occurs within higher education and job sites, as well as the proliferation of websites like RateMyTeacher.com and RateMyDoctor.com that attempt to level the field between students and teachers, patients and doctors. Expertise is also equated with experts, viewed in some circles as necessary and elitist in others. However, all of these examples offer a narrow view of what Richard Sennett portrays as a critical aspect of society in his latest book, The Craftsman. It’s designed to be the first of three volumes exploring Sennett’s ideas on traditions, the formation of community, dealing with the transfer of knowledge and the formation of individual identities.
The root of civil society, Sennett argues, lies not with the grand political choices that we make — as his teacher, renowned political theorist Hannah Arendt claimed — but is created in the day-to-day interactions engaged in by its citizens and the expertise and experience they bring to bear. In an oft-quoted passage, Sennett suggests that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to develop a level of expertise suitable to that of a master craftsman, a term that for many evokes the image of someone hard at work at a woodshop bench — such as Stradivarius, Sennett’s prototype. However, Sennett also includes doctors, nurses and, oddly, early Linux (open source software) programmers in his definition, as “craftsmanship” includes not just a skill set, put also a particular philosophical outlook.
Sennett romanticizes the craft process that transforms raw or abstract materials into finished goods. He finds comfort in the ancient and medieval craftsmen who had to measure and assess the quality of their working material, literally getting their hands dirty, before making something useful appear. Judging the right material or tool for the task at hand is important, as problem-solving, Sennett argues, is at the root of all craftsmanship, and the solutions found by master craftsmen were elegant, not just in their finished appearance, but also in their stewardship of resources.
Craftsmanship, however, is at odds with other ideals, such as efficiency and fairness. Anyone who has ever tried to sell a hand-knitted sweater has faced this problem. It is impossible to price against machine-made ones in a manner that pays respect to the amount of time that went into the construction of it. This is the same reason that a custom, handmade suit is priceless. The master tailor, dressmaker, doctor, nurse or computer programmer is able to apply their knowledge and skills to create a custom-designed solution to the problem at hand. Faced with a problem, a craftsperson is given purpose, and that purpose frames the choice of materials and tools to be used. Again and again, Sennett comes back to examples of problem solving where unsuccessful craftspeople have failed to reflect upon the relationships between problem, purpose, tools and materials. One of the hallmarks of the apprentice, Sennett notes, is that his or her approach to any problem is the same as the master’s, the acknowledgement of innovation and versatility being one of the key steps in the recognition to master craftsmanship.
Modern educators would do well to ponder Sennett’s claims. Superficially, it would seem that those 10,000 hours are filled with basic competencies, rote learning and practice drills. However, equally important is that students tackle challenging problems and take the opportunity to reflect on the nature and process of that problem solving.
