Culture of Craft: Solitude and ethics of attention

In “Culture of Craft,†Quinn Cook '29 documents the culture of craft, those who practice it and what we might learn from them.

Groupwork is frustrating. Anyone who tells you they enjoy coordinating between three different schedules, waiting endlessly on a classmate's work or texting silent group chats to no avail is lying. At its best, you get to work with friends on a fun project, but, at its worst, it results in the seemingly arbitrary (and occasionally unfair) distribution of blame and credit. 

This phenomenon isn't limited to the classroom setting, either; planning a trip with friends or working in an office setting also bears the marks of nebulous metrics and obscured responsibility. While the fragmentation of our work may unite us through mutual reliance — as French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued — it can undeniably exasperate us, too. 

We may, then, be tempted to withdraw into our individual work in an attempt to escape the onerous demands of others, only to find that we are still compelled to confront the social aspect of our work. We write knowing that we will receive peer feedback, draw up solutions according to a teacher's requirements or read with an eye toward exam content. Our action, as sociologist Max Weber would say, is unquestionably social action: we take into account, and orient ourselves towards, the expectations and actions of others. In this way, our work isn't truly ours alone. 

The process of crafting, on the other hand, belongs solely to ourselves. Though the product may end up in some setting of judgment (be it in a marketplace, under a Christmas tree or on the internet), the act of crafting forms the suspension of obligation to whichever figure of responsibility might otherwise guide our actions. In the workshop — a space without witnesses — every responsibility is that of the craftsman, as is every satisfaction and every failure. 

Without an immediate audience, craft can then serve as a withdrawal from symbolic economies. Grades, performance reviews, likes, citations, views, awards — there is a significant weight lifted when crafting for crafting's sake that might otherwise go unnoticed. 

But this renunciation of obligation begs the question: is craft a space of freedom, or a suspension of ethics? If no one is watching us, what guides our work? Maybe habits, tastes or internal standards do some of this work, but they seem too fickle to act as a secure — much less universal — set of principles. 

We are forced to confront the fact that the withdrawal into craft is only a partial one: Our duties are not dissolved, but merely exchanged. Frequently, craftsmen will cite an accountability to their materials (to care for, listen to and waste not), to a professional metric (so-called quality, as judged in various ways) or to tradition (by habituation or conscious choice). In any such case, the dissipation of social demands is quickly replaced by the appearance of new imperatives — in other, less burdensome forms, perhaps, but imperatives nonetheless. 

This withdrawal is likewise temporary. Though it may be a refreshing retreat, there comes a time to hang up the smock, apron, toolbelt — the title of craftsman, in short — and don once again the role of employee, student or otherwise obligated social being. We might choose the moment when we end the stasis of craft, or we might be interrupted by “the look†that French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre describes, where the gaze of another (here, literal or metaphorical) makes us suddenly and acutely self-conscious. 

But, incomplete and delicate as it may be, this exit (from social expectations, evaluations and capital) does important work. It is an exercise in deep interiority, and comes with it a commitment to reflection and introspection. Far from loneliness — a pure negation, an absence of others — solitude represents the density and concentration of attention.

For the philosopher Simone Weil, attention is itself an ethical act; it requires setting aside self-interest and being prepared to receive the object of our gaze. So, while craft is, in one way, a retreat from social obligation, it at the same time sharpens one's capacity for unselfish attention, ultimately to be shared with another. Rather than an escape from ethical responsibility, craft forms a chance to gather and rehearse our ethics of attention. 

Such is the tension of craft as a moral exercise: by withdrawing from others, we simultaneously whet our ethical practice towards them. Indeed, the occasional departure from social obligation is one way to renew its more desirable parts. To have “No Exit,†as it were, is to degrade social responsibility by blunting our attunement to it — can we be blamed, after all, for becoming numb to a surfeit of perception and judgment?

This is perhaps why the workshop, kitchen, garden or cloistered study space is so appealing when drained by socially-burdensome work: instead of demanding our attention, craft allows it to accumulate. Once we have renewed this store, it is then our responsibility to allow others, selectively, to consume it. 

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