The instinct of workmanship, and the state of industrial artsVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The instinct of workmanship, and the state of industrial arts
Veblen, Thorstein
Industrial arts -- History; Industries -- History; Technology -- History; Workmanship -- History
to become the differential advantage of the individual as against his
neighbours rather than the undifferentiated advantage of the group as
a whole, in contrast with alien or hostile groups. The members of the
community come to work each for his own interest in severalty, rather
than for an undivided interest in the common lot. Such sentiment of
group solidarity as there may remain falls also into the invidious
and emulative form; whereby the fighting patriot becomes the type
and exemplar of the public spirited citizen, whose ideal then is to
follow his leader and humble the pride of those whom the chances
of contention have thrown in with the other side of the game. The
sentiment of common interest, itself in good part a diffuse working-out
of the parental instinct, comes at the best to converge on the glory
of the flag instead of the fulness of life of the community at large,
or more commonly it comes to be centred in loyalty, that is to say in
subservience, to the common war-chief and his dynastic successors.
In the shifting of activities, ideals and aims so brought in with
the advent of wealth and ownership, the part of the priests and
their divinities is not to be overlooked, for herein lies one of the
greater cultural gains brought on by the technological advance at this
juncture. The margin of service and produce available for consumption
in the cult increases, and by easy consequence the spiritual prestige
and the temporal power and prerogatives of the priesthood grow greater.
The jurisdiction of the gods of the victors is extended; through the
vicarious power of the priests, over the subject peoples, and as the
temporal dominion is enlarged and an increasing measure of coercion is
employed in controlling these dominions, so also in the affairs of the
gods and their priests there is an accession of power and dignity. It
commonly happens where predatory enterprise comes to be habitual and
successful that the temporal power tends to centre in an autocratic
and arbitrary ruler; and in this as in so much else, spiritual affairs
are likely to take their complexion from the temporal, resulting in a
strong drift toward an autocratic monotheism, which in the finished
case comes to a climax in an omnipotent, omniscient deity of very
exalted dignity and very exacting temper. For the habits of thought
enforced in the affairs of daily life are carried over into men’s
sense of what is right and good in the life of the gods as well. If
there is any choice among the gods under whose auspices a people has
successfully entered on a career of predation, so that some of the gods
have more of a reputation for rapacity and inhumanity than others,
the most atrocious among them is likely, other things being equal, to
become the war-god of the conquering host, and so eventually to be
exalted to the suzerainty among the gods, and even in time to become
the one and only incumbent of the divine czardom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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