Shop Class as Soulcraft_ An Inquiry Into the Value of Work - Matthew B. Crawford [80]
The kind of self-reliance I have in mind is essentially different from the cult of the sovereign self, and it requires some further reflection on the idea of agency. The concept of agency is often understood with reference to activity that is self-directed, rather than dictated by another. This distinction has an immediate appeal, but is liable to lead us astray in a characteristically modern way. “Self-directed” activity is usually taken to mean activity directed by the will of a self that simply chooses according to its whim. So the usual opposition is between ends dictated by another and ends dictated by the self. Labor predicated on the first is alienated; that predicated on the second is said to entail self-actualization or fulfillment.
The idea of agency I have tried to illustrate in this book is different. It is activity directed toward some end that is affirmed as good by the actor, but this affirmation is not something arbitrary and private. Rather, it flows from an apprehension of real features of the world. This may be something easy to grasp, as when a master plumber shows his apprentice that he has to vent a drain pipe a certain way so that sewage gases don’t seep up through a toilet and make a house stink. Or it may be something requiring discernment, as when a better motorcyclist than I explains, from a rider’s point of view, why it would be good to decrease the damping in the front end of his motorcycle. In activities that are directed toward some end (a well-vented drain pipe, a balanced chassis), the goodness of the end in question isn’t simply posited. There is a progressive revelation of why one ought to aim at just this, as well as how one can achieve it. As you learn your trade this particular end takes its place in a larger picture that is emerging, a picture of what it means to be a good plumber or a good mechanic. Usually there is a real flesh-and-blood person who embodies this ideal, whom you emulate (as I did Chas, and later Fred). The progressive character of revelation energizes your efforts to become competent—something about the world is coming into clearer view, and it is exciting. The sense that your judgments are becoming truer is part of the experience of being fully engaged in what you are doing; it is a feeling of joining a world that is independent of yourself, with the help of another who is further along.
A carpenter faces the accusation of his level, an electrician must answer the question of whether the lights are in fact on, a speed shop engine builder sees his results in a quarter-mile time slip. Such standards have a universal validity that is apparent to all, yet the discriminations made by practitioners of an art respond also to aesthetic subtleties that may not be visible to the bystander. Only a fellow journeyman is entitled to say “nicely done.” A judgment on the finer points can arise only within, and receives its force and justification from, a shared orientation toward the more basic functional ends that are captured by the objective standards of the practice. It is in doing the job nicely that the tradesman puts his own stamp on it. His individuality is not only compatible with, it is realized through his efforts to reach a goal that is common.
His individuality is thus expressed in an activity that, in answering to a shared world, connects him to others: the customers he serves and other practitioners of his art, who are competent to recognize the peculiar excellence of his work. Such a sociable individuality contrasts with the self-enclosure