By Richard Sennett
Ed Anagram . Barcelona 2009
Several years ago a friend recommended I read a book by Richard Sennett called The culture of new capitalism and since then I've become a frequent visitor to this British sociologist. A the latest editions of its vast work that has appeared in Castilian is this Craftsman (first published in 2008) and is about the general willingness of people to do things entrusted to them. Is the start of a trilogy that promises to be exciting, which will continue with a second volume that will try to unravel the rituals that guide the aggression and end with a study on how to achieve and live more sustainable human environments.
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If anything characterizes Richard Sennett is that it presents the most dense and complex issues in a way very enjoyable. Use the narrative with anecdotes and practical experience to explain the most abstruse matters. His latest published work is titled precisely How I write, as literature Sociology ( As I write, sociology and literature ), suggesting a second vocation, to teach writing well. This special ability makes author Artisan is a text that is read with pleasure. It has to do it their avowed allegiance to philosophical pragmatism that aims to give a broad sense to the specific experiences of each human being and has had record as qualified as William James or Richard Rorty .
sociologist Sennett does a remarkable job in Craftsman , narrating and describing the great collective loss has brought the scorn of many specialty craft in contemporary societies. The myth of procedimentación work as a way to industrialize the tasks and the consequent subjection of the gradual development of specific personal experience, have been around long enough to produce a terrible toll. Something that has already claimed more than a century ago, people like John Ruskin Charles Rennie Mackintosh or , driver of the recovery craft movement linked to Anglo-Saxon Arts and Crafts .
Bindery. Recorded in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert
The book points to a recurring figure derived from extensive research, which indicates that the process of acquiring the minimum skills needed to carry out a task efficiently scale, requires approximately 10,000 hours of training the person. This common time is essential to a proper traditional knowledge on any subject. Sennet also exemplifies the way the matter was instituted handling of the scalpel, a process codificación de la experiencia que duró más de 100 años desde que en el siglo XV se pudo empezar a producir cuchillos de hierro con una mayor calidad de templado. En 1543, Andrés Vesalio publicó De humani corporis fabrica , un texto ilustrado esencial para el progreso de la actividad medica y que fue solo posible debido a las disecciones del cuerpo humano realizadas por su autor con escalpelos que permitían una precisión adecuada.
Vesalio produjo su descripción a partir del desarrollo de una práctica artesanal de calidad en el arte de la disección de cadáveres. Una habilidad que requiere de una gran precisión para no estropear las muestras y que permitió realizar esa maravilla descriptiva de la anatomía que todavía constituye una fuente de referencia básica en la disciplina anatómica.
El sistema sanguineo. De humanis corpore fabrica. Andrés Vesalio. 1543
El desarrollo del conocimiento artesanal es un proceso lento que en el medioevo requería de una organización gremial muy precisa y jerarquizada. Es debido a este proceso que los aprendices lograban adecuar su práctica a la realización correcta de las distintas tareas que eran necesarias en la práctica de una especialidad concreta. Sennet lo define como la transformación del explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. To say about that assimilation is an essential process for all abilities. By learning a skill, develop a complex repertoire of procedures that have just turned into a routine we do not think about directly. In a higher phase of skill, there is a constant interplay between the tacit knowledge and reflective, the first of which serves as an anchor, while the other serves a critical and corrective. The quality craftsmanship is a result of this higher stage.
The problem raised by this feature of build quality it is very difficult de transmitir de forma explicita, escrita o de acuerdo al lenguaje. Algo que ya ocurría frecuentemente en los talleres artesanales del pasado. Pone como ejemplo la maestría como orfebre de Benvenuto Cellini , cuyo famoso salero de metales preciosos constituye una cumbre en el manejo de la forja y que ha sido imposible reproducir posteriormente. Como el mismo dijo, su arte moriría con él. Algo similar ha ocurrido con los violines fabricados por Guarnieri o Stradivarius : nadie ha sido capaz de realizar piezas de sonido tan perfecto y delicado después de la muerte de aquellos maestros artesanos de la región italiana de Cremona. Sus violines siguen siendo autenticas joyas irreproductibles que, debido a his special ring, are invaluable.
The artisan quality problem arises from the difficulty of transmitting tacit knowledge through language and, consequently, detailed written descriptions are inadequate. Sennet, to support this thesis, draws the contrast between the medical expert and the novice and the different ways of applying known rules. The expert, of course, is more accurate in the diagnosis by integrating a broad view of the patient and analyze the case in relation to future trends derived from previous experiences and at the same time and in the same case, students tend to more formal follow-up manuals and procedures according to rigid criteria.
The underestimation of tacit knowledge acquired for the benefit of establishing priced procedures described by formulating a written policy clearly has eroded and impoverished actual production of goods for the sake of a supposed greater efficiency. A drawback of this is that progress does not include staff from the specific experience and training conducted. It is a classical problem facing many years without major consulting firms have achieved a proper practice yet. From this, derive the benefits of group artesanal para lograr el grado de experto necesario. Es en el contacto cotidiano entre el maestro, los oficiales y aprendices como en el pasado se podía lograr una transmisión adecuada de ese tipo de conocimiento tácito.
Muchas tácticas laborales específicas se transmiten entre maestros y aprendices con el ejemplo en acción y su descripición es difícilmente reproductible mediante una habilidad complementaria como es el lenguaje escrito. La traslación de estos problemas a las comunidades profesionales y la deriva actual hacia una imposición burocratizada y reglada del trabajo lleva mucho tiempo ocasionado un empeoramiento de las condiciones en que las distintas profesiones realizan sus responsabilidades.
Scalpel. Photo: Aesop, Flickr
And the will for personal growth is essential in the development of the individual artisan. In the enrichment process in the skills of individuals is essential in the training motivation that encourages progress. As Sennett says, returning again and again to allow the self action. And also, the repetition creates a non-explicit satisfaction, which leads to that as skills improve more repetitions as possible without boredom.
this need, and freedom it entails, are constrained by the efficiency or speed, is a short circuit leading to the ineffectiveness of the people involved joint. That is why companies are extremely limited by legal rules and not making adequate progress. At one extreme, the common experiences of professional brigades have resulted in the demoralization of workers and lack of motivation of its members and thus the gradual degradation of the tasks were assigned.
Something similar occurs with respect to the tools of computer aided design. A system architects have embraced with fervor and seems to facilitate the work professional. According to Sennett, is the opposite because it prevents an accurate knowledge of the objects that are designed, absence resulting from the facility to exceed the need to return again and again on the same task in order to grasp its deeper essence. As stated in the book, knowledge of land acquired by drawing over and over again and not letting the computer will refresh for you.
Sennet also has a special predilection for space-related problems, the city and architecture, derived from his contact with American and European specialists as Joseph Rikwert and Saskia Sassen . A very interesting disquisition that integrates the text, related to the difference between intellectual experience and craftsmanship, is referred to the contrast between two specific works of architecture developed by two universal Vienna, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the architect Adolf Loos.
The Moller house Loos Sennet exemplify to the effort of the architect to integrate the imperfection inherent in the craft experience. In every work of architecture imponderables are constantly transforming - sometimes radically, the initial project idea. Yet, the intelligent integration of these alleged deficiencies can transform a work of architecture in an artistic experience transmitting the wisdom of multiple operators.
Moller House, Adolf Loos. Photo: Klaas5, Flickr
In another direction, the house that Wittgenstein did for his sister in Vienna Kudmanngasse represents the will of the philosopher to locate and extract the essential rules of architecture. In their arrogance, sought to understand the nature of architectural thinking, constructing a building issue and the first attempt. One thing that somehow followed the guidelines of Loos trying to establish universal structures and spatial conditions.
Projects Adolf Loos were open documents posed an integrative structure, recognizing the imperfection and therefore the resulting buildings can convey a strong emotion while the perfect chill the only architectural work Witgenstein born as dead as recognized philosopher himself, just after the family home after many vicissitudes, said his struggle for an ideal perfection was an inanimate object. The effects he saw in his home reflected in the time-criticism, the destructive effect of perfectionism in philosophy and, more generally, in mental life. Finally
Sennett points to another problem facing the need to recover as a way to craft a better personal development and achievement of adequate jobs. An ultimate enemy craft would be the fallacy of representing the overall quality and depth-based control procedures. A system that seeks excellence in theory but in the background lurks a manifest inability to achieve a result.
The book concludes with reflection on the intertwined duality in developing artisan Hephaestus mythological Pandora. While Vulcan is a character that represents the social value of craft in spite of his deformity, Pandora is the beauty as an attribute malignant. Ambivalent fusion of these two figures would be based on the material culture of our civilization. While the craft we can provide daily goods and aesthetic, only artistic desire and quest for glory give us greater pleasure.
The sublime beauty with this unique open the door to other destructive and uncontrollable forces. It is difficult to restrain open Pandora's box .--->
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