Neanderthal philosophy

[Mark Rainey]

"At first, during the industrial revolution, the new technology reduced the worker on the job to a Charlie Chaplin of Modern Times. At this early stage, however, the industrial mode of production did not yet paralyze people when they were off the job. Now women or men, who have come to depend almost entirely on deliveries of standardized fragments produced by tools operated by anonymous others, have ceased to find the same direct satisfaction in the use of tools that stimulated the evolution of man and his cultures. Although their needs and their consumption have multiplied many times, their satisfaction in handling tools has become rare, and they have ceased to live a life for which the organism acquired its form." Ivan Illich

[Art Mann]

That's a little too deep for me.

[Phil Mueller]

I think it is possible that neanders (prior to power tools) who worked wood for a living may not have necessarily liked the tools, just used them because there was no alternative. It’s obvious that they embraced power when it became available. In other words, I’m not certain there was substantial satisfaction in the use of particular tools, versus just the satisfaction in the end product.

[Mark Rainey]

I think it is possible that neanders (prior to power tools) who worked wood for a living may not have necessarily liked the tools, just used them because there was no alternative. It’s obvious that they embraced power when it became available. In other words, I’m not certain there was substantial satisfaction in the use of particular tools, versus just the satisfaction in the end product.
I agree Phil that those who worked with hand tools 200 years ago may not have necessarily liked the tools, but they needed the tools. Many men discover over the years they need work; even if given comfortable wealth, they need work. For millennia, men have created with their hands. Handtools closely connect the hands to the product. I think many of us find working with our hands meaningful, even though we know there is a faster method but is less connected to our hands.

[Jim Matthews]

Deeper still: pursuing a craft connects us to those who came before. This elemental connection is severed by mechanization.

Nobody will marvel at the skill of CNC programmers that designed flat pack wardrobes made from chipboard in 200 years.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Bravo Jim !!!!!!

[Prashun Patel]

"Nobody will marvel at the skill of CNC programmers that designed flat pack wardrobes made from chipboard in 200 years."

I don't know about this... We may be too close to the inception of CNC to appreciate how it may or may not change the craft and more 200 years from now. On the contrary, as it becomes cheaper and more accessible to the world, we may see new innovations and expressions of craftsmanship that would otherwise be impossible.

CNC will eventually be a kid's entry point into our world. I suspect they - like myself and many here - will use technology and power as a gateway drug into the world of hand tools.

[Art Mann]

If it is so virtuous and desirable to reach back in time and use the tools and methods of history, why stop at what seems to be the mid 1800's. Why not reach back to iron, bronze, flint or even bone tools? Would that not bring us even closer to our ancestors?

I see a tendency to artificially create stages in the development of tool technology when, in fact, it has been a continuum since the beginning of time.

[Phil Mueller]

The use of hand tools is both enjoyable and for me a necessity, given a very small shop. So I live in the continuum of “a means to an end”, and “it’s the journey, not the destination”. Probably more the former, as I have to admit, while I enjoy the cache of vintage tool use, I’m not sure “I’m one with the wood”, is my primary motivation.

[Mark Rainey]

If it is so virtuous and desirable to reach back in time and use the tools and methods of history, why stop at what seems to be the mid 1800's. Why not reach back to iron, bronze, flint or even bone tools? Would that not bring us even closer to our ancestors?

I see a tendency to artificially create stages in the development of tool technology when, in fact, it has been a continuum since the beginning of time.

Interesting Art. I agree that “virtuous” may not be the reason for hand tool use. Value to the user may be more accurate. And yes, there may be value in going back well before the 1800’s. I believe we see that when a Neander not only uses a hand tool, but makes his own hand tool. Many Neanders value toolmaking. Does this reveal our nature? When the worker loads raw wood into the 20 by 10 foot enclosed robot and presses the computer button he gains productivity 100 fold. Does he lose something that his grandfather had?

[Mark Rainey]

The use of hand tools is both enjoyable and for me a necessity, given a very small shop. So I live in the continuum of “a means to an end”, and “it’s the journey, not the destination”. Probably more the former, as I have to admit, while I enjoy the cache of vintage tool use, I’m not sure “I’m one with the wood”, is my primary motivation.

Good points Phil on the balance between our enjoyment and practicality.

[Thomas Wilson]

I see a strong affinity to tools and mechanical things in my 3 yo grandson. I think it is an instinct in some people. Being shorter, slower, and having eyes that do not see danger approaching from afar, I believe the survival of my genes was due to supplying tools and weapons to the tribe rather than through brute force.

[Edwin Santos]

Deeper still: pursuing a craft connects us to those who came before. This elemental connection is severed by mechanization.

Nobody will marvel at the skill of CNC programmers that designed flat pack wardrobes made from chipboard in 200 years.

The future is never as romantic (or familiar) as the past.
I see no less craftsmanship in a CNC than a chisel. It's just a different kind of tool. Frank Klausz would always say if his grandfather had access to a router, he would have used it.

[Jim Matthews]

I see no less craftsmanship in a CNC than a chisel. It's just a different kind of tool.

Sure.

One requires a capable user to carry it to the job site, the other requires a supply chain.

If your tools required a building permit, you're no Neanderthal.

[Doug Dawson]

"At first, during the industrial revolution, the new technology reduced the worker on the job to a Charlie Chaplin of Modern Times. At this early stage, however, the industrial mode of production did not yet paralyze people when they were off the job. Now women or men, who have come to depend almost entirely on deliveries of standardized fragments produced by tools operated by anonymous others, have ceased to find the same direct satisfaction in the use of tools that stimulated the evolution of man and his cultures. Although their needs and their consumption have multiplied many times, their satisfaction in handling tools has become rare, and they have ceased to live a life for which the organism acquired its form." Ivan Illich

The answer is simple. You need to seize the means of production.

[Mark Rainey]

The answer is simple. You need to seize the means of production.
Yes Doug! 🙂

[Stewie Simpson]

The future is never as romantic (or familiar) as the past.
I see no less craftsmanship in a CNC than a chisel. It's just a different kind of tool. Frank Klausz would always say if his grandfather had access to a router, he would have used it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qBM80C78Nw

[Jim Matthews]

One piece "raised panels" from solid wood?

This production method is to woodworking what autotune is to popular music - an abominable ersatz approximation.

Foo King Hideous

[Pat Barry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qBM80C78Nw

I think that, if you wish hand carving details, you could always CNC and add your hand tool 'touches' to finish. Best of both worlds.

[Stewie Simpson]

And for those of you that think Joel's Gramercy backsaw handles are hand shaped;

https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/blog/586

[Eric Rathhaus]

Frank Klausz and his grandfather would be put out of work by a CNC. Robotic technology is for replacing the human not the tools the human uses. Sure a CNC still requires programming but it is just the first step towards removing the human from the equation.

[steven c newman]

About like George Jetson at work? Pushing a button to get Uniblab to do the spocket making...

[Joe Tilson]

I like the quietness of neander tools. Since the use of motorized tools and the sound of jet engines has cost 60% hearing loss, I have enjoyed the quiet of hand tools,except for the tapping of chisels and gouges. Sawing with a hand saw is learning to use your skill. The thing with, say, table saws is setting it up, then watching out for your fingers and thumbs. It's more safety than skill, so to speak. People in the neighborhood are asking me if I still do woodworking. I tell them yes, but have gone back to the older traditional woodworking style.

[Mike Henderson]

I can certainly understand the enjoyment some people might get from using a CNC machine. When I was starting out in engineering, I used to go to the office on the weekend so I could use the mainframe computer by myself. It was like playing a game - the computer was an unbiased, unemotional judge that simply told me whether I had done my program correctly. If I had errors, I could immediately correct them and run the program again.

I used to tell people "They pay me for doing something I'd do for free."

I can imagine that CNC can be like that when someone if trying to create a new design. Instead of using various hand tools, the designer is using a programming language and running the program is the way you see whether your program did what you intended for it to do. If not, you get to try again.

For me, it was the creative process that was interesting. Once it was working, I lost interest.

Mike

[Pat Barry]

Wait til 3D printing takes over. Just a matter of time IMO. Also, not sure todays IKEA generation really cares for good old fashioned wood as much anymore - in many wsys its too limited for their style preferences.

[Bill Carey]

Interesting quote Mark. Which of his works is it from? I tried finding it in In The Mirror of The Past without success. I would like to read it in context. Thx.

[Mark Rainey]

Interesting quote Mark. Which of his works is it from? I tried finding it in In The Mirror of The Past without success. I would like to read it in context. Thx.
Bill, it is from "The Right to Useful Unemployment" 1978. Ivan Illich. I read it over 20 years ago, and looked at it again recently. I think he would admire woodworkers, especially neanderthals who value the process as much as the product. PM me if you ever want to philosophize about Illich.

[John Stevens]

Yes Doug! 

I thought he was jerking your chain...maybe because I assume most people believe in (to paraphrase Richard A. Epstein) keeping their hands off other people and off their stuff.

[Doug Dawson]

[QUOTE=John Stevens;2944909]I thought he was jerking your chain.../QUOTE]

No. It is quite literally true.

[Anuj Prateek]

I think it's about the end goal. If tools are means to an end then it does not matter whether you use hand tools or machines - pick what gets the job done in constraints of time and ability.

If it's about the process then both have their charm and satisfaction. I love the curls hand plane makes. The sound of shaving gives some sort of satisfaction that machines for same use don't match.

On the other hand I just love impact driver. I always end up with a smile after driving a 3" screw in seconds. Well it's loud but has some sort of authority.

Now some tools are just tools. They get job done but don't have any sort of satisfaction. Router screams as if it's on fire and just does not want to be bothered. Similar to it whenever I have used hand files to do any adjustments, it keeps telling me that use me and I will show you what's ugly.

[Jim Matthews]

This is an important point - automated tools dictate their method of use and the user becomes an "operator".

Certainly some processes are improved by simple power tools.
Boring hundreds of small holes, for example.

Replicating the works of Grinling Gibbons in catalyzed lacquer over MDF completely missed the point of craft.

[John Stevens]

[QUOTE=John Stevens;2944909]I thought he was jerking your chain.../QUOTE]

No. It is quite literally true.

Now this thread drift is nearing an overtly political content, so I’ll say one more thing, and you or anyone else can have the last word. If you’d written “own” instead of “seize,” I’d have been right with you. I think it’s great for any worker to start and own a business, or for any business to give employees a practical way to own a share of the firm if they so choose. I like when people do things by mutual consent, not aggression. That’s all.

[John Stevens]

I like the quietness of neander tools. [snip] The thing with, say, table saws is setting it up, then watching out for your fingers and thumbs. It's more safety than skill, so to speak. People in the neighborhood are asking me if I still do woodworking. I tell them yes, but have gone back to the older traditional woodworking style.

Thanks Joe, so well put. Agreed.

[Doug Dawson]

Now this thread drift is nearing an overtly political content, so I’ll say one more thing, and you or anyone else can have the last word. If you’d written “own” instead of “seize,” I’d have been right with you. I think it’s great for any worker to start and own a business, or for any business to give employees a practical way to own a share of the firm if they so choose. I like when people do things by mutual consent, not aggression. That’s all.

Even though the original idea of Karl Marx, which some may interpret as a political statement, has long since devolved into a meme, it has a very useful interpretation quite outside of politics. Namely, here. Like many ideas that contain the seed of genius, its true applicability had nothing to do with its original context.

Let us get closer to what is being done. Let us seize the means of production.

I also live just up the road from an outsized military-industrial complex.

Just say, All hail Lennon, Marx. Etc.

[Herv Peairs]

Surely there are a wide variety of reasons to go fully or partially Neaderthal. For me, the most important are the enforced slower pace, the pleasure of working with my hands, and the feeling that my shop is a refuge from less pleasant aspects of modern life.

In the 1980s I read the book Megatrends, by John Naisbitt. The only “trend” that stuck with me was “high tech - high touch”, which (as I remember it) predicts how people will choose to spend their free time based on a human need to balance activities involving new, unsettling, and perhaps dehumanizing technologies with activities that emphasize the natural world, human connection, and tradition. (I am sure I’ve taken liberties with the original.) At the time, I found this idea quite relevant to my life working in the computer industry in a busy urban environment.

In 1999 Naisbitt wrote a second book just on this subject. I found this excerpt relevant:

“When does high tech become low tech, and, more dramatically, when does high tech become high touch? High tech becomes high touch with longevity and cultural familiarity. Today a wooden shuttle loom warped with yarn is high touch. Four thousand years ago in Assyria and Egypt, the loom was the latest advancement in technology. The spear, the wheel, the wedge, the pulley were all once high tech. In the 1920s, a radio encased in plastic Bakelite was considered high tech. Today it is high-touch nostalgia. Eight-track players (a '70s technology) are now collectibles, as are phonographs and the accompanying collection of great 45s, LPs, or cassettes. Older technologies become nostalgic more quickly as new technologies are introduced more rapidly.

“Old-fashioned technologies become reference points for us all. They mark a certain time in our lives, triggering memories. They evoke emotion. High tech has no reference point-yet. High tech holds the hope of an easier life but it does not provoke memory. High-tech consumer goods are only new toys to be explored. They are not yet evocative. The technologies and inventions of the American Industrial Revolution have aged enough now to be considered quaint-no longer obsolete, outdated, old-fashioned, or a symbol of bygone drudgery. Today we romanticize outdated technologies.”

I don’t necessarily advocate reading either book – Megatrends and the snippets I’ve read from the later book are kind of fluffy – but "high tech - high touch" is a valid insight.

Herv

[Mark Rainey]

Surely there are a wide variety of reasons to go fully or partially Neaderthal. For me, the most important are the enforced slower pace, the pleasure of working with my hands, and the feeling that my shop is a refuge from less pleasant aspects of modern life.

In the 1980s I read the book Megatrends, by John Naisbitt. The only “trend” that stuck with me was “high tech - high touch”, which (as I remember it) predicts how people will choose to spend their free time based on a human need to balance activities involving new, unsettling, and perhaps dehumanizing technologies with activities that emphasize the natural world, human connection, and tradition. (I am sure I’ve taken liberties with the original.) At the time, I found this idea quite relevant to my life working in the computer industry in a busy urban environment.

In 1999 Naisbitt wrote a second book just on this subject. I found this excerpt relevant:

“When does high tech become low tech, and, more dramatically, when does high tech become high touch? High tech becomes high touch with longevity and cultural familiarity. Today a wooden shuttle loom warped with yarn is high touch. Four thousand years ago in Assyria and Egypt, the loom was the latest advancement in technology. The spear, the wheel, the wedge, the pulley were all once high tech. In the 1920s, a radio encased in plastic Bakelite was considered high tech. Today it is high-touch nostalgia. Eight-track players (a '70s technology) are now collectibles, as are phonographs and the accompanying collection of great 45s, LPs, or cassettes. Older technologies become nostalgic more quickly as new technologies are introduced more rapidly.

“Old-fashioned technologies become reference points for us all. They mark a certain time in our lives, triggering memories. They evoke emotion. High tech has no reference point-yet. High tech holds the hope of an easier life but it does not provoke memory. High-tech consumer goods are only new toys to be explored. They are not yet evocative. The technologies and inventions of the American Industrial Revolution have aged enough now to be considered quaint-no longer obsolete, outdated, old-fashioned, or a symbol of bygone drudgery. Today we romanticize outdated technologies.”

I don’t necessarily advocate reading either book – Megatrends and the snippets I’ve read from the later book are kind of fluffy – but "high tech - high touch" is a valid insight.

Herv
Good contribution Herv.

[John Stevens]

Surely there are a wide variety of reasons to go fully or partially Neaderthal. For me, the most important are the enforced slower pace, the pleasure of working with my hands, and the feeling that my shop is a refuge from less pleasant aspects of modern life.

Same. At first, productivity was important to me because of limited shop time. I assumed power tools would increase productivity—and they do when their set-up time is more than offset by their speed. When a slower pace and a “good retreat” from other cares became more important than productivity, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the reduced set-up time of hand tools more than offsets the slower speed...at least when when doing some of the the one-off projects that I Imagine from time to time...all while doing away with the noise and flying dust, so I can give peace a chance (as Lennon might have put it). It’s nice to own both means of production ;) and be free to choose (as Milton Friedman would say) the Neander option depending on the circumstances.


In the 1980s I read the book Megatrends, by John Naisbitt. The only “trend” that stuck with me was “high tech - high touch”, which (as I remember it) predicts how people will choose to spend their free time based on a human need to balance activities involving new, unsettling, and perhaps dehumanizing technologies with activities that emphasize the natural world, human connection, and tradition. (I am sure I’ve taken liberties with the original.)

I remember it as you do. Good observation for this thread. Thanks.

[steven c newman]

THE main reason I am using all them hand tools? Haven't really all that much room for the bigger machines....even a Smart car would feel cramped in my shop....Tablesaw? older Craftsman 8".....there is an older 2 wheel 12" ( NOT the tilt head, either) Bandsaw....Grinder, the sanding center, and a benchtop drill press, all other corded tools are hand held.

There is a bedroom right above the shop...floor joist for me to hang items on...yet, the Boss can hear all the cussing going on, when it is one of "them days"...

Also find it is more about how the tools were/are used....then who made them.