Were we the Artisans of Old?

Post Reply New Topic

I've been looking into a rather unique situation, how society has changed, and how that impacts our population. In particular, I've been focusing on Asperger's Syndrome. In pre-industrial times, your best chance of winning an apprenticeship was by showing a deep unwavering interest in a topic. Your best chances of procreating were tied into your profession and moral character.

That has since changed. Your resume isn't about building the best shoe, and getting a job that way. You go through verbal wrangling with the resume, and again in the interview, where they care more about how sociable you are, and less about your productivity or desire to learn. College has become the same way. It's more and more about test scores, essays, interviews, and face time, rather than your desire to learn.

I believe our society was at one time very favorable to individuals like myself. Just look at the following description. Doesn't this sound like the master engineers, blacksmiths, and artisans of old?

[Children with Asperger's Syndrome may] [h]ave a formal style of speaking that is advanced for his or her age. For example, the child may use the word "beckon" instead of "call" or the word "return" instead of "come back."

Be preoccupied with only one or few interests, which he or she may be very knowledgeable about. Many children with Asperger's syndrome are overly interested in parts of a whole or in unusual activities, such as designing houses, drawing highly detailed scenes, or studying astronomy. They may show an unusual interest in certain topics such as snakes, names of stars, or dinosaurs. Best way to win an apprenticeship in ancient times: dive right in, showing a deep willingness and desire to learn.

Have heightened sensitivity and become overstimulated by loud noises, lights, or strong tastes or textures. For more information about these symptoms, see sensory integration dysfunction. Blacksmiths had to identify very subtle differences in color or the swords would be ruined. Alchemists and chemists had to avoid blowing themselves up, or creating accidental poisons (Which would have most likely had a strong taste/texture.)

Talk a lot, usually about a favorite subject. One-sided conversations are common. Internal thoughts are often verbalized. Gain apprenticeships, identify your job and how well you are at it, trade valuable information about topics such as blacksmithing and alchemy.

Although most teens place emphasis on being and looking "cool," teens with Asperger's may find it frustrating and emotionally draining to try to fit in. They may be immature for their age and be naive and too trusting, which can lead to teasing and bullying.

Some of the classic Asperger's traits may also work to the benefit of your teen. Teens with Asperger's are typically uninterested in following social norms, fads, or conventional thinking, allowing creative thinking and the pursuit of original interests and goals. Their preference for rules and honesty may lead them to excel in the classroom and as citizens. Excellent moral character: great way to win parent's approval. Original thinking: very rich artisan.

Some traits that are typical of Asperger's syndrome, such as attention to detail and focused interests, can increase chances of university and career success. Many people with Asperger's seem to be fascinated with technology, and a common career choice is engineering. But scientific careers are by no means the only areas where people with Asperger's excel. Indeed, many respected historical figures have had symptoms of Asperger's, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Thomas Jefferson. Some classic examples of Aspie success.

Straight from Web MD

I always say that I can feel the difference even compared to 20 years ago. I used to be able to make a good living just on dedication and hard work and good performance. Not any more. Nowadays I'm rejected and fired for lack of complex social savvy, and all other skills are called non-important by bosses and interviewers.

You make a very interesting point.

I like to think that I'm a very hard worker and I'm eager to learn things if I don't know how to do them at first. Whenever I've worked of volunteered for people, they seemed to be pleased with how I do my job. And I think, 'if only someone would hire me because of that.' And the days where I'm going to have to apply for internships and jobs are fast approaching.

At the age of 61, and having been in the workforce since I was 21, I absolutely agree.

When I got my first job, in a drawing office, drawing moulds for bricks, all my employers were interested in was that I could produce the work correctly. I worked as a draughtsperson and a technical illustrator for years, until things started changing around the mid 1980s. If I am not wrong, this is the time when AS was becoming diagnosed properly for the first time. Autism was known about, but high functioning AS people who made it through childhood (sometimes with extreme difficulty), managed to survive either because they had special interests which became useful for academic life, or good at repetitive clerical work, or had a talent for drawing and music.

The changes that started to happen during the mid eighties had much to do with the change in direction of work in western society, and the way that emphasis was put on commercialisation and the trend towards managerialism, which put pressure on many people to conform and fight their way up the ladder to so called success and big money. This, along with the ’offshoreing’ of skilled crafts like jobs, created vacuums for the type of work more suitable for those in the AS category. Change and irregularity was implemented and the foundations of academia and the work place were undercut. These events lead to the disenfranchisement of many people of our ilk.

In my case, I have survived by teaching design in what could be called a community college in America, and is known as a technical institute in England and the colonies. I was able to do this because I knew a lot about my craft, and had adapted to the computerisation of design very well, and I became a specialist in applications relating to publishing, 3-D, music and multimedia.

Lately, things began to be very difficult for me for the very reasons that you mention, and because I became more anxious and exhausted, I knew I had to seek help from the effect of the interpersonal (staff) relationships. Not only is my long journey to work exhausting, but all the courses are being undermined by changes and the standards are dropping very rapidly because of this. Assessments are now becoming irregular, everything is geared to portfolio and exhibition, rather than by actually achieving skills and excellence in work. With easy access to online images, students are so inundated by visual stimulation, that many are unable to create their own work because of it.

I could go on and on about this, and have tried to write very briefly about this topic. It is no wonder that all the aspies are coming out of the woodwork, and it is not surprising that they are finding it very difficult to survive in this situation.

When I was in Morocco in 2007, craftspeople were still creating their wonderful objects, music was being played in the square, copper beaters were making intricately patterned plates, weavers, colourful fabrics and the tilers and potters painting and making geometrical tiled artefacts. Hard work, and they may not have such a good standard of living as we in first world countries do, but lucky they are to still be able to make things like this for a living.

My working life consisted of jobs in either art or science/engineering. Now that I am technically retired I always seem to have an artisanly (is that a word?) pursuit that consumes much of my free time. Right now it is ceramics. I love the look, smell, and feel of the clays, the incredible variety of their properties. I sit on my porch and work on my (re)creations while listening to my 12th-15th century music collection. Yes, I'm definitely an artisan of auld.

I sometime wonder if Victorian Britain wasn't really how a country would become when ruled by Aspie's.

The detachment from emotions, the obsession with progress, technology and science. Probably the height of individualism given that it was before mass media invented the illusion of objectivity. The appeal and desire for order, regularity, repetition and nature. It all plays in favour of Aspies.

Many of the scientists of the time are thought to have been on the spectrum. One notices for example that science was a mostly individual endeavour. Peer review was after publication. Einstein (this was just before WWII) was furious when some editor had to audacity to peer-review his paper before publication. All papers, articles and books where self-published, there where not prestigious journals as such: a journal got prestige because of the scientist who where published in it, not the other way around like today.

Then WWII came. Since then we had the manhattan project and science has taken this example as a template for research. Now all of science requires team work, social networking, getting published in the right journal, being careful and avoid saying the wrong thing: Being diplomatic. Not really an attractive environment for aspies.

Interesting idea!

Welcome to WP, hilofoz.

I thought it was my imagination that the market had changed and was now incompatible with Aspies. However, I've talked to specialists in the work market lately, people whose job is to be up to date from day to day on the changes of the work market and the requirements from workers, and they all confirmed it to me: I'm not imagining things - nowadays the whole focus is on the ability to fit in, and how well you do your job is only 20% important.

How horrible for Aspies. The job market has made me unemployable, when I used to be a high achiever 25 years ago. I have paid private insurance called "loss of employability" ever since I started to work 20 years ago. I should be covered from this career tragedy and be able not to go to the streets. But I can't claim the insurance because what's changed is the market and not my physical / mental capacity.

Like with all obsessive swings of approaches to one extreme, it will swing to the other extreme sometime in the future, but sadly not in my time.

It's not just Israel, but ALL of the western world. "Soft skills" are everything, but it doesn't matter how well you do your job, just that you show up and are pleasant and get along well with everybody and know how to gossip. Correspondingly, the quality of everything has really declined. I have a couple radios made during the Great Depression, and they are real artisan works, intricately designed cases and individually soldered wires. Same thing with West German radios from the 50s-70s, and English radios from then. Now everything is mass produced in China. Westerners seem unable to make anything of value, all our products are slipshod, even computer programming is largely being outsourced to India.

Our society over the last 25 years has been focused on financial manipulation and the employment of large numbers of people to do absolutely nothing at all except look good and collect a paycheck. Youth expect to be paid well for gossiping and using social networking sites all day instead of working. The thing is, such a society can't last for very long, eventually the manipulations and bubbles cease to have an effect and the society descends into mediocrity and eventually collapses. Maybe that's what happened to Rome, as everybody went on welfare the number of artisans reached zero and eventually the system collapsed.

The last bubble is hyperinflation, which is essentially making all the debt caused by the financial geniuses smaller so it will be easier to pay, and that is where we seem to be headed. Hyperinflation has the effect of making ALL production worthless, so food disappears from stores, fuel from pumps, and in the end society collapses that much quicker. Look at Zimbabwe. Maybe in 10 years, after the food riots and cannibalism and people slashing each other to ribbons for a can of tuna, not to mention the lack of fuel and the general neglect of everything unto the point of general collapse, will things turn around. Maybe then the artisan will be valued once more.

The Gilded Age (Victorian times) was a time of great progress for a reason. Once Henry Ford got a hold of the situation, with his "men are lazy unless you hold a gun to their heads" ethos, everything sort of declined. After the 60s and the increased popularity of dropping out and hippieism, it really accelerated.

pezar, of course the reference was about the whole Western world.

But I don't understand what the goal is with all this. Can you explain a bit more?

Societies that don't value hard work and craftsmanship never go anywhere. They coast along on the stuff that was bequeathed to them from earlier craftsmen until that stuff wears out, then the society collapses. Here in the US, we are working with electric transmission lines that were built by the WPA (1930s) in many cases. Our roads, airports, and transit terminals are no newer than 1970, and I've been on roads that were last paved in the 1930s-that are still in wide use. Much of our highway system was built in the 1960s. Our rail system dates from the 19th century in some cases-even North Korea has newer tracks than we do (built by the Japanese)! Agricultural technology hasn't really improved since the 1950s, except in terms of comfort, such things as air conditioning and stereos in the cabs.

Vast portions of major cities like Los Angeles and the San Francisco area date from the 1950s and 1960s, the old buildings being kept serviceable because it would be too difficult to replace them. Much of New York dates from the early 20th century-the old brick buildings routinely collapse. The last development in San Francisco proper occurred in the 1920s, except for skyscrapers from the 60s. The new stuff that DOES get built is of such bad quality that nobody wants to use it unless they have to. Office buildings circulate respiratory diseases, houses fall apart, we have a huge problem with Chinese drywall that exudes sulfur and makes people sick.

We don't make any manufactured goods, and haven't for many years. There are a handful of R&D jobs for the highly talented, but most of the work is now done in China and India. We have illegal immigrants from Mexico to do the dirty work, and everybody else lives off welfare or quasi-welfare (soft skills jobs, financial work, and such). Poverty here is really bad, vast sections of our cities are decaying, our rural areas are even worse. That's what happens when social skills and financial bubbles are valued over the artisan and hard work.

The elite are casting around looking for a new bubble to inflate. Green energy? Health care? Heavy taxation? Inflation? They are clueless. The people are demoralized. Obama created a cult of personality, but it was a mile wide and an inch deep. Nobody wants to do anything, they have had it too easy for too long.

But what's the purpose of forming a new kind of workforce that's only good at social politics and fitting in. There has to be a reason, a goal for this new demand from the workforce.

I wish it were possible to get by at work just by being good, hard-working and dedicated.

Unfortunately, others are right. Now there's a big emphasis on networking and the social aspect. I dread the first time anyone tries to give me a line management post, because I don't have the soft skills to support it. I had to do a compulsory course on that, felt like I'd wasted two days, and talked to the trainer about it. I asked for the rulebook instead, and she said that I didn't get the point.

To make things worse, my job involves stakeholder management. So on top of everything else, I get to manage the relationship with a fairly major external group. Which is fun...

Not necessarily, it might just be the result of the rules and social dynamics that this is the path of least resistance.

Meta, can you explain again, I didn't understand...?

You seem to think that because something is happening there must be a reason that it is happening. This does not need to be the case. Often things happen because it's the most likely thing to happen which takes the least effort at the time. Just unintended consequences.

For example: Mass media gave us an monoculture which killed intellectual diversity. The most diversity one may now hope for is yes/no, black/white, 0/1, conservative/progressive, right/wrong.

The media is feeding the public simple answers that they can reproduce without much thought. Difference of opinion is only allowed in some subjects and then only while taking positions which are already identified.

Any step outside these subjects and positions makes you weird, strange, unpredictable and people fear anything that is unpredictable, strange and weird. The mantra seems to be Don't make us think! While Aspies have this problem that they just can't do anything else then think all the time. We also miss the social clues that keep most people inside the socially and culturally acceptable positions.

A personal example: While I accept evolution as a fact of life, after careful examination I just don't see any evidence for universal common descent or abiogenesis and this might imply that evolution is more limited then commonly expected. This is however a position which you can't have in the current Evolution/creation discussion: The creationist hate me because I defend evolution (I need to because most of them are utterly clueless). At the same time the evolutionist hate me because I ask unexpected original questions about universal common descent which forces them to think really hard for themselves which most just aren't able to do. They can't use the canned answers and reasoning the are used to. Which results in the strange situation that to the evolutionist I'm a creationist, to the creationist I'm an evolutionist. Because they have learned that that are the only two positions one can be.