“In all manual work we find the primal phenomenon of culture that is human but close to nature.”
“The sphere in which we live is becoming more and more artificial, less and less human,”
Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como
We have lost something today, but we can get it back. Our very humanity calls for living and working in our bodies, with natural things, regularly. This means all of us. We have been separated from our own humanity, from our proper homeland, and we are suffering, even if we have never known anything else.
I say we can ‘get it back’—not because we ourselves have necessarily had it before, but because it is our birthright. Our own ancestors had it; we need it; and we can still do it, even if differently, and by fits and starts.
It need not be the work of our profession, or work that makes money. It just needs to be real and regular, preferably in our home.
Each of us can make our daily lives more human by choosing tried and true forms of human work. Certain kinds of work have shown themselves to be rich and reliable as especially human modes of acting.
Here is a short list we might consider:
1. hand-crafting in natural substances: wood, stone, metal or fiber
2. caring for the earth, plants, or animals.
3. preparing and preserving natural foods
4. any aesthetic work with hand tools, such as drawing, painting, carving
5. Miscellaneous such as cutting, splitting, and burning wood for heat
In each of these, using hand tools as opposed to motorized tools is important. It is not that working with motorized tools is ‘inhuman,’ but rather that there is a uniquely human aspect in bodily work that motorized tools eliminate. Of the hand work of a cabinet maker Guardini writes: “[Here] we have culture, a work of mind and spirit, yet still close to nature. In it we are creative and still stand breast to breast with the things and forces of nature.”
Good tools act as an extension of the hand. Rather than separating, they can enhance the hand’s contact with reality. Consider the chisels of the timber-framer and the stone carver, or the knives of the cook and the tree-grafter.
This is in our power, whether it’s making the effort to rediscover an old art such as blacksmithing, stone-laying, or hedge weaving, or just setting aside a little extra time to grow and prepare food more naturally, or to sketch.
This is not about back to the countryside; it’s about back to our bodies, and to a more fully human life, wherever we might live.
Romano Guardini (1885-1968) Italian born but raised in Germany, he became a priest and a highly regarded philosopher and theologian. His Letters from Lake Como (written in 1926!) offer a trenchant and challenging analysis of technology, as he observes the industrialization of Italy.
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I started doing leather working a number of years ago, and I find it enormously refreshing. I enjoy the process of creation immensely. I think it has something to do with being made in the image and likeness of the Creator. It also gives me an excuse to collect new tools and learn how to use them. The craft enables me to give gifts that are not only beautiful, but in a way a part of myself, because I have brought them into being.
Nathan, That is a great example of what I am talking about. May your craftsmanship grow and thrive.
Well done, philosopher! To be truly human is to work. How wonderful it would be to work along the lines suggested by you! Keep writing more about the work of human hands and the joy of rediscovering our humanity in a world where life is getting brutal and ugly.
Thank you, Joseph, I plan to do so!
Just taking issue a little bit with your rejection of power tools. I could make knives with just files and sandpaper but I don’t want to give up my belt grinder. Same with making a dining table for my son and his family. I took it from the tree to the table. Would have been a heck of a job to do that without chain saw, bandsaw mill, and thickness planer. Oh and the Bobcat to move those 1000 pound logs around.
Do I enjoy every step of the process? You bet.
Dick, Thanks very much for this. Please let me clarify. I do NOT reject power tools. I use them regularly, as you do, and often they are necessary in order to do the very ‘hand’ projects that I want to do. At the same time, I stand by my point that there is a real difference between hand and power tools, and that power tools put a distance between us and the objects on which we work. So, my suggestion here was to find some work that can be done by hand, and to protect and maintain that work. This might well require the use of power tools–either in preparation for this work, and in making quicker work of other things that we have to do. Thanks again for the comment.
Life on a farm comes to mind when I read this. I am presently looking for a way to dedicate a beautiful chemical-free Farm of grassland to this purpose, preferably for a Catholic family to work on and enjoy. The mechanics, and legalities of accomplishing this are the question. Would welcome input. I love your thoughts and you’re writing. Thank you.
John, Thanks for asking. As I note in my reply to Dick’s comment, I think one needs to be savvy about finding ways to enact hand work. In my own case, I must use a chain saw to buck (cut into rounds) felled trees, so that then I can have the freedom to split the wood by hand.
Life on a farm today will, it seems to me, require having a combination of great technology, and tried and true ‘traditional’ ways of interacting with and caring for the land. Different people will find different ways to do this. But I am absolutely convinced that it is worth much effort, keeping in sight that a) the farm must have long-term viability, b) it should leave the land better than we found it, and c) it should provide a context for at least some very good work for people. If we keep in mind these principles, I think there is firm foundation for a truly great and worthy effort, one which will require making certain ‘compromises’ in view of the end. Thanks again for asking.
Your column helped me to understand why I love writing letters but hate corresponding by email. By handwriting a letter I am giving a part of myself. It’s also an argument for going back to teaching cursive writing in the schools. Talk about our humanity! Every person’s handwriting is unique to them.
Thank you, Alice. I think you have a great point about handwriting. It’s a simple but very human exercise. I don’t know if you’ve seen this piece on handwriting I did a couple of years ago. Thanks again.