craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

The ability of machines to mass-produce items, which in turn cost less because of economies of scale, is not something I have a problem with. It is the steady flow of profits away from under-compensated labor toward over-compensated capital that seems to me like the essential problem to address. That and overconsumption in general.

― Aimless, Thursday, 3 November 2011 19:29 (1 hour ago)

otm!

i'm writing off the cuff here, but in my experience a lot of the current iteration of 'craftsmanship culture' i.e. 'dudes who have a hobby making shit' gets elevated all out of proportion into 'artistry' that shortchanges long-time practitioners and career creators of that same ("mass-produced") items. maybe i'm thinking narrowly (though not – sorry – appealing to prejudice or bald-faced self-serving) but in the case of my uncle the snobby pro-'artisanal' attitude cost a good and devoted laborer his job.

In other words, I guess I agree with CAD.

there's a real arrogance to the new breed of millenial craftsman, i.e. the kids who went to college in the '90s and '00s and then realized they liked doing manual work that was, by their standards, "below" them. To justify their own egos and intellectual pretentions they take to correspondingly hiking the prices/ramping up the cultural "worth" /finessing the language in their copy to include shit like "artisan-made" and "uniquely sourced and crafted" so that they feel their middle-class prejudices being satiated while they're doing work that would otherwise be, you know, plain old labor.

(and I don't buy for a second that the high cost of labor is due to some benevolent workers' solidarity with their underpaid brethren)

it goes beyond 'justifying their own egos and intellectual pretentions' - if you can sell shit for more money by marketing it differently, *that is a good idea*. this happens in basically every market for everything!

otm

how about when the product is bank accounts, iatee?

this is really easy to run into if you buy liquor these days--microdistilleries are popping up all over the place and using words like "local" "artisinal" and "craft" and they pretty much ignore some basic facts of the beverage alcohol industry (liquor branch in particular), such as 1) distilling is really hard; 2) once you can do it it's really easy to do large-scale; 3) market competition and consumer choice have resulted in an environment where 95% of midshelf and higher products are quite high-quality.

the response of microdistillers is to give something "unique" (i.e. a gin that can't be used in martinis) or to essentially just put something out there and provide no reason for drinking it beyond who/how/where it was produced (i.e. the glut of awful, pointless "white whiskies" that you can get now).

i'm writing off the cuff here, but in my experience a lot of the current iteration of 'craftsmanship culture' i.e. 'dudes who have a hobby making shit' gets elevated all out of proportion into 'artistry' that shortchanges long-time practitioners and career creators of that same ("mass-produced") items. maybe i'm thinking narrowly (though not – sorry – appealing to prejudice or bald-faced self-serving) but in the case of my uncle the snobby pro-'artisanal' attitude cost a good and devoted laborer his job.

― turkey in the straw (x2) (remy bean), Thursday, November 3, 2011 2:04 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i can see how the appeal to "artistry" is arrogant, especially when there are so many other people who make and sell the same kind of thing in a factory and do a good job and don't loudly claim to be "artists" and probably aren't white. agreed that mass-produced <> "lovingly crafted" etc. xp

it goes beyond 'justifying their own egos and intellectual pretentions' - if you can sell shit for more money by marketing it differently, *that is a good idea*. this happens in basically every market for everything!

― iatee, Thursday, November 3, 2011 2:06 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i mean, that's where things get complicated imo

the Global website has just this one photo of dudes grinding knives

http://www.global-knife.com/global/img/photo_04.jpg

if he had a beard maybe he would be ok to work out of brooklyn instead of japan

i guess i think there should be a distinction made b/w stuff that "appeals to artistry" in a way that is kinda slimy and stuff that is actually "artisan" by definition. and if ppl wanna pay $600 or for an actual artisan knife i guess that's their prerogative?

competition in the market for personal bank accounts is a great idea and the fact that large banks don't seem to want to offer a competitive price (free) anymore is why people are switching to alternatives. xp

overall if someone is consuming less cause they're spending more money on fewer things, I'm totally cool w/ artisan stuff. if it's just creating more needless consumption opportunities otoh, there's a good argument against it.

regardless of 'higher quality' (true sometimes, bullshit sometimes) this trend has to be looked as primarily as marketing. you know what else has marketing behind it? all the cheap crap in the world.

anyway I find this interesting but am getting on a train. surely will be 500 posts while I'm gone.

xp what is artisan by definition?

Many of the best chefs in the world use knives costing 1/2 - 1/3 as much as those in the OP, made by folks whose family/ancestors have been in the "artisinal" "knife"-making business for centuries.

Global is not very "artisinal" fwiw, it's a fairly large manufacturer.

thanks for this thread, this is a subject i've been mulling over a lot lately. *mulls*

also, making one particular thing is like 95% tedious and brutal anyway, it's not like someone making knives in their warehouse is going to know something ^those guys don't. factories improve quality control for products like that big-time. xposts

(it's only on ilx that i remember what a socialist i am, at heart)

true story:

my Uncle J spends 30 years making a niche product so successfully that it becomes ubiquitous in his corner of the [classical music] industry. Uncle J charges a very reasonable fee to make a custom, one-of-a-kind [widget], and takes on an apprentice who studies with him for six months. apprentice comes to my Uncle, and says he wants to become a partner –– AFTER SIX MONTHS –– because he's learned everything Uncle J. has to show him about making very complicated [widgets]. Uncle J. says no, not yet, and apprentice informs J. he'll be quitting if he can't make more $$$; what he feels is fair compensation. Uncle J. asks what fair compensation is, and the kid lists a price that is easily three times what Uncle J., himself, makes. Uncle J. is already paying the new kid a pretty top-shelf salary (middle five figures) roughly equal to 4/5 of J.'s own salary, in an industry that is flagging in this recession. Uncle J's apprentice quits and a few weeks later opens up a business at the other end of town where he charges many many times more than Uncle J. for the [vastly inferior, vastly less-experienced version of the highly technical widget –– now made with recycled! metal!]. Uncle J. loses all of his clients, who (are carefully seduced by the former apprentice to) feel that his product is inferior and less "ethical", because Uncle J.'s his experience and craftsmanship and desire to be reasonable are trumped by the geewhiz factor of a kid who slightly alters a half-stolen design and stamps ARTISANAL and HANDCRAFTED over a product that has always - obviously - been artisanal and handcrafted. Reducing my (inchoate) argument to a nut, I find it reedikerus that 'artisianal' and 'craftsmanship' are currently applicable to anything that, say, a 23-year-old has done for less than a few years.

I don't think I thought that Global was particularly artisanal, just their knives are more expensive than and probably better than random stamped piece of crap knives from Target. So from a purely use-value perspective ("I want an objectively good knife and will pay more for quality because this matters to me") they are competitors. xps

obv. i know this is not a generalizable anecdote, but it's illustrative of the attitude that bothers me

yeah that kid sounds like a massive tool

The customer is always right, even when the customer is a flagrant idiot.

ha i finally looked at the links in the original post and pretty much had the same reaction tbh xxp

that story has nothing to do with the word artisanal and everything to do with the apprentice being a dick

also why would the customers pay more for something? they are dicks too

In the future everything will be artisinally made by laid-off hipsters and sold out of a truck.

moral of the story: kid is better at marketing than your uncle.

also the way you tell it everybody in the story is an asshole, except your uncle

In the future China will outsource to 8-year-old children of American hipsters

ok but remy, the force of your argument here is basically not new at all, it's a jeremiad against dishonesty and greed and deliberate poor quality masquerading as something it isn't, not craftsmanship or even young people who want to be genuine artisans (for whatever reason, including silly reasons) (young people often take up careers for silly or pretentious reasons; some of them turn that round)

in what practical sense is the interloper's work poorer quality* -- when and how will the difference manifest in a way his gulled clients will notice?

*i realise you may not want to answer this question directly, to keep uncle J reasonably anonymised, but what i'm getting at is that a significant part of artisanal (true sense) added value is in quality that sustains itself over time (objects that keep their qualities for years; craftsmanship that you can return to year in year out and discover maintenance of quality)

multiple x-post bcz i fashion my posts in the tradition of my ancestors

do you have to set wooden type and letterpress your posts onto fine cotton paper, or do you whistle the letters into your modem directly?

i think there is a risk of needless over-generalization here, if we are to assume that 'handcrafted' and 'artisinal' and 'responsibly sourced materials' are completely hollow marketing terms. i mean, stop me if i become stupidly obvious here, but customers are not only buying a product but buying into a set of values expressed by the means of its manufacture, if not the quality of the product itself, but I don't necessarily think you can generalize that those values are empty or false or unworthy.

what if people en masse can no longer be relied upon to objectively judge quality and craftsmanship? i.e. the yelper effect

lol no longer?! when have they ever

etsy.com

Can't wait till I can post some recycled jokes itt via an artisinal computer running on sustainably sourced electricity

can we talk about the $116 scissors? http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/frontpage/products/shears

My sister has insanely expensive scissors (she cuts hair)

i think it gets complicated when supposedly extrinsic use value turns into fluffier or harder-to-define symbolic value. i mean, there is "this is going to last longer and work better, and i can prove it with the numbers", but what exactly the numbers prove can get a little lost on the way somehow. and now you do get the sense that at the ass-end of this stuff, both makers and purchasers are trying to inscribe some moral dimension into what never really had a moral dimension in the first place and what are really just the same market principles by appealing to 100 years ago or whatever.

i think a big part of the problem comes down to locating good/bad in materials/products themselves, when it's the organization/structure responsible for the material/product that needs to be held accountable. it's like, the world's too big and complicated, but that looks handmade i think i'll buy it. fuck i feel better already!

My sister has insanely expensive scissors (she cuts hair)

― Do you know what the secret of comity is? (Michael White), Thursday, November 3, 2011 5:57 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well that makes sense! these are just, like, scissors for cutting paper or whatever you use scissor for

These days? Stabbing myself in the head, mostly

can we talk about the $116 scissors? http://www.bestmadeco.com/collections/frontpage/products/shears

― call all destroyer, Thursday, November 3, 2011 2:56 PM (3 minutes ago)

If you are "crafty", you can find these online with shipping from Japan for ~$60. Still $60 scissors, lol.

I will start a new service that will artisanally search the internet for you by hand and find you the best prices.

hand-typed searches

i went into michaels last week to buy scissors and was p stunned by how many pairs of exorbitantly priced scissors they were selling

created in my bedroom

my fav part is the description:

We have gone through at least a dozen mediocre pairs of scissors at Best Made: they lose their edge, are cumbersome to handle, or have flimsy plastic handles that wouldn't pass muster at nursery school.

i would humbly suggest the problem is not with the scissors!

one take on our annoying future

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/03/07/200135/the-yoga-instructor-economy/

http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/

Mark,

My uncle makes a musical instrument traditionally manufactured in a fairly high number of pieces kluged together to the rough specifications of the musician. Kind of ... plug and play, mix and match. Uncle J. figured out a (very ingenious) way to manufacture the instrument bespoke, in (essentially) one large piece without the valves, fittings, and joints that are prone to failure in the ordinary process. Uncle J.'s pieces take a lot longer to make, are highly, highly customized to the playing style and needs of each musician, and require an extreme level of skill, experience and precision to manufacture successfully. The instruments are pricey once-in-a-lifetime purchases for professional players of the instrument, and each one comes with a 'forever' guarantee and unquestioning repair work from J. and his assistants. J. worked for 15 years making instruments the traditional way for [the equivalent of Suzuki] before going into business and getting a name for himself. The former apprentice's instruments appear to be crafted in the same style as my Uncle's instruments, but they're just a modified (for aesthetic effect) version of the traditional process; prone to wear, fatigue and failure. While my uncle's marketing acumen is undoubtedly less polished than his apprentice, I don't think the marketing is entirely at fault. There's a burden to be carried by the consumer as well as the producer, and it concerns the incoherent valuing of anything with artistic credibility over experience and workmanship.

For the record, I never said my argument was new. It's old-fashioned, kind of in the tradition of "slow food," and it does owe a debt to the old ways are the good ways camp. But I genuinely believe that when we're bragging about the moral superiority of – say – an artisan-made ottoman crafted from locally sourced Alpaca fibers ($500) vs. a Walmart generic footrest in synthetic green ($30), what we're doing is, in an implicit part, stating that we value the work-hours of acculturated Western white people with good educations who can Talk Our Talk more than we value the work-hours of an anonymous poor Malaysian fella stapling gunny-sacks to a pile of coils. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't pay for quality, or fairly compensate skilled workers –– just that there's a class-sorting mechanism often apparent in the (sometimes) slimy categorizing of between craftsman/artisianal/handmade product.

Despite his often biting comments in the book, Weingarten is quick to point out that he’s not so different from that which he mocks. “This isn’t some jock-bully out to take down the hipsters,” he explains. “This is coming from someone who lives in Brooklyn, plays in noise bands, goes to Film Forum and Smorgasburg, and buys artisanal ketchup from Sir Kensington.”

Ess-a-Bagels, nearly $5/bagel
https://www.goldbely.com/ess-a-bagel/17232-ny-bagels-13-pack

looooool NJ Taylor Ham at $20/lb
https://www.goldbely.com/taylor-ham/15423-taylor-ham-pork-roll-3-lb-roll

And now I am researching Table 87. because I had never heard of it either. It definitely has never been talked about in the same breath as even the newer places (Motorino, Roberta's). But I guess they got lucky.

If some careless moron can't spell and goes to "goldbelly.com" by mistake, not to worry, it redirects straight to goldbely.com.

due to looking at goldbely i'm getting their ads on facebook. Feat. LCD Soundsystem.

appropriately artisanal

https://www.superdenim.com/us/freedom-sleeve-sweatshirt-oatmeal.html/

Description
A crew-neck sweatshirt made in Wakayama, Japan, of 100% cotton on vintage loop wheel machines, which are known to weave a sluggish pace, with only a single meter of fabric produced every hour. When compared to contemporary manufacturing methods, Loopwheel machines apply a very low thread tension allowing the production of an exceedingly premium and unique fabric.

Lol. "This is good because it is made inefficiently."

exceedingly premium

made on the very machines that authentic, virtuous high-quality craftspeople would have smashed to pieces in protest at the destruction of their way of life

xp you left out the important part man alive

A crew-neck sweatshirt made in Wakayama, Japan, of 100% cotton on vintage loop wheel machines, which are known to weave a sluggish pace, with only a single meter of fabric produced every hour. When compared to contemporary manufacturing methods, Loopwheel machines apply a very low thread tension allowing the production of an exceedingly premium and unique fabric. The resulting material feels like it has been hand woven, with a stretchy element to it, a quality that cannot be replicated by modern production techniques. The crucial difference is that Loopwheel fabric is knit in an oval shaped sequence to yield a fabric that will comfortably stretch with wear, but will return to its original dimensions with a wash.

you may not agree that a marginal cost is worth it but it's not just "slow for slow's sake"

the marginal cost, not a marginal cost

Even the "very low thread tension" of the Loopwheel process is not nothing, and -- especially in combination with the downward effect of Earth's oppressive gravitation on the threads -- tugs hurtfully at one's skin.

you can buy a companion "grounding" liner iirc

Yet another reason to go to Wakayama this June.

was there always a prestige line of Champion sportswear/sweats or did this pop up in recent years as a cash grab because of the trends

I always thought it was a standing brand that was just kind of standard sportswear with some downmarket products

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/food/896779-kroger-class-action-says-artisan-ice-creams-mass-produced/

lmao

the ingredients, as listed on the packaging:

Milk, cream, sugar syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, whey, skim milk, natural and artificial flavors, cellulose gel, guar gum, cellulose gum, mono- and diglycerides, locust bean gum, polysorbate 80, ground vanilla bean, carrageenan.CONTAINS: MILK

That's like one notch above the lawsuit about Drive not being a Fast and Furious type movie.

a+ piece on CNC (computer numerical control) stone carving tools used by Carmelite monks.

Is it the Carmelite monks for whom labour, infrastructure projects like reclaiming land, and construction is their expression of faith? Is the computer code that makes it easier to accomplish this godly or impious? it’s just a tool, right?

contains a grebt coding bug anecdote:

At the very end of each window sill, after it had completely finished carving, the code told the CNC machine to repeatedly pound down into the top of the sill, almost as if it was a giant fist.

it was the cistercians.

that's sick as hell