Labor Saving Devices
If a country is governed wisely, its inhabitants will be content. They enjoy the labor of their hands and don’t waste time inventing labor-saving machines. Since they dearly love their homes, they aren’t interested in travel. There may be a few wagons and boats, but these don’t go anywhere. There may be an arsenal of weapons, but nobody ever uses them. People enjoy their food, take pleasure in being with their families, spend weekends working in their gardens, delight in the doings of the neighborhood. And even though the next country is so close that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking, they > are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it.
Men, by contrast, can be duped into supposing that the power to produce is the power to dominate. And domination is possible not only by wielding weapons of war but also by so automating everyday life in the name of saving labor that we become alienated from the very work that defines our lives. Instead of making what we need to live and enjoy life, we simply purchase it; the more wealth we acquire, the more we can afford to purchase. Soon the craftsman at his bench is replaced by a factory full of assembly line laborers. Before long, the laborers are replaced by robots. The joy that comes from making is replaced by a dull ache to consume more.
Spiritedness, then, may be allied with the spirit of inquiry through a desire to be master of one’s own stuff. It is the prideful basis of self reliance. It is characteristic of the spirited man that he takes an expansive view of the boundary of his own stuff.
– Shopclass as Soulcraft, Matthew B. Crawford
Why let the machines have all the fun? - index card affixed to blender, Juice c. 2024
An old man in Calcutta would walk to get water from a well every day. He’d carry a clay pot and lower it by hand slowly, all the way down, careful not to let it hit the sides of the well and break.
Once it was full, he’d raise the pot slowly and carefully again. It was a focused, time-consuming act.
One day, a traveler noticed the old man engaged in this difficult task. More experienced with mechanics, he showed the old man how to use a pulley system.
“This will allow the pot to go straight down quickly,” the traveler explained, “then fill with water and come back up, without hitting the sides. It’s much easier and the pot will be just as full with much less work.” The old man looked at him and said, “I think I’m going to keep doing it the way I always have. I really have to think about each movement and there’s a great deal of care that goes into doing it right. I’d imagine if I were to use the pulley, it would become easy and I might even start thinking about something else while doing it. If I put so little care and time into it, what might the water taste like? It couldn’t possibly taste as good.”
- Chapter on "Itention" The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubens
Wendell Berry on Liberation from Meaningful Work
- sophierosegoldie https://www.instagram.com/reels/DcvcCRKgRkB/ "In 1977, Wendell Berry predicted modern burnout: This country is full of people now who've been liberated by modern agriculture from having to do any of what Dr. Butz calls back-breaking work. They look forward to a life of leisure but when they get started on this life of leisure they discover that even to enjoy the many physical pleasures that are now available to them they've got to get in shape. So they go and take out a membership in a health spa somewhere and go and lift weights all day so they can be in shape to enjoy themselves at night. So they've been liberated from meaningful work in order to pay to do meaningless work."
See Wendell Berry vs. Earl Butz debate 1977 @Appalshop Archive