The instinct of workmanship, and the state of industrial arts — John Shaqi
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
This apparatus of ways and means available for the pursuit of whatever
may be worth seeking is, substantially all, a matter of tradition out
of the past, a legacy of habits of thought accumulated through the
experience of past generations. So that the manner, and in a great
degree the measure, in which the instinctive ends of life are worked
out under any given cultural situation is somewhat closely conditioned
by these elements of habit, which so fall into shape as an accepted
scheme of life. The instinctive proclivities are essentially simple and
look directly to the attainment of some concrete objective end; but
in detail the ends so sought are many and diverse, and the ways and
means by which they may be sought are similarly diverse and various,
involving endless recourse to expedients, adaptations, and concessive
adjustment between several proclivities that are all sufficiently
urgent.
Under the discipline of habituation this logic and apparatus of ways
and means falls into conventional lines, acquires the consistency of
custom and prescription, and so takes on an institutional character
and force. The accustomed ways of doing and thinking not only become
an habitual matter of course, easy and obvious, but they come likewise
to be sanctioned by social convention, and so become right and proper
and give rise to principles of conduct. By use and wont they are
incorporated into the current scheme of common sense. A elements of
the approved scheme of conduct and pursuit these conventional ways
and means take their place as proximate ends of endeavour. Whence, in
the further course of unremitting habituation, as the attention is
habitually focussed on these proximate ends, they occupy the interest
to such an extent as commonly to throw their own ulterior purpose
into the background and often let it be lost sight of; as may happen,
for instance, in the acquisition and use of money. It follows that
in much of human conduct these proximate ends alone are present in
consciousness as the object of interest and the goal of endeavour, and
certain conventionally accepted ways and means come to be set up as
definitive principles of what is right and good; while the ulterior
purpose of it all is only called to mind occasionally, if at all, as an
afterthought, by an effort of reflection.[4]
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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