An assessment of practical skill levels in present day western culture
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
OK! Let’s get one thing clear right from the outset. I do like technology, otherwise I would not be online and be publishing online and in E-books.
I am grateful that, over time, inventors have created tools and machines that lighten the load and make chores easier, of that you can be certain, but I am also aware that there are old tools that are also useful.
I am no unthinking Greenie, nor Luddite, unappreciative of the progress that man has made: roads, cars, jet travel, telephones, computers, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, double-glazing for windows, insulation, and central heating. All great, to a degree and to a fashion, for cars and jet travel have been the main contributors to the trouble that we are facing today, but...
What we should not do, however, is to take for granted the fragility of some of our modern day conveniences, and of the infrastructure. When oil prices spiked to $147 a barrel in the summer of 2008, joy riding wasn’t just environmentally unfriendly, it was financially detrimental.
Our habits had to change and we did change them, but only, it would appear, for while and went right back to being stupid when the price of oil fell again.
Economies, however, change all the time. Cities and countries rise and fall along with the quality of living of their citizens.
Detroit’s population has been cut in half in the last 30 years and Baghdad was once the world’s most prosperous city. Hundreds of cities that you’ve probably never heard of have risen to greatness, full of prospering populations, and fallen into antiquity. Memphis (no, not the one Tennessee), Babylon, Ur, Lagash, Nineveh, and Avaris were all the largest, richest cities in the world in their days. And then they fell apart, so to speak, for a number of reasons.
Things change and luxuries come and go and come and go. The ascent of man is the longest trend in motion and things keep getting better, but we definitely endure bumps in the road. What would you do if prices for fuel, foot, etc., would rise to 10 or 20 times their current price? How would you change your habits? Your diet? What skills would you use to maintain your quality of life?
Economically, good times come and go, and bearing this in mind, I think it’s prudent and important that people acquire practical skills to help maintain a great quality of life, regardless of the political and economic events of the day.
Some years ago someone would have referred to such skills probably as “survival skills” as many were anticipating this or that survival scenario, whether trying to survive and live after a nuclear exchange (not really a practicality), or after a serious natural disaster, the breakdown of society, etc. Many of these skills were those that once enable people to live a more or less self-sufficient and definitely self-reliant life.
What sort of skills are we talking about here? For starters we could look at cooking and beyond that, probably, butchery, gardening, and food preservation, which all are food-related skills and so are hunting, fishing, and foraging. Those, with foraging and gardening, together with cooking, would be the first in the line here.
The most relevant way to look at practical skills, I guess, is to evaluate them on their practicality or their relevance to survival, and here is the old word again. How thrifty is the skill? Water is vital, so shouldn’t we know a thing or two about collecting, rerouting, and purifying water? Shelter helps to keep us warm and keeps the rain off of our heads, so carpentry, knowledge of building materials, building, and maintaining structures is a logical third choice. Or maybe clothing is actually the first line of defense against the elements, so sewing, spinning, knitting, quilting, and weaving may rank high on the list.
Many folks will think, though, that with the modern conveniences such as shopping centers, supermarkets with their frozen food isles and their canned goods, etc., why bother learning such “ancient” skills that know one needs to know anymore today.
No doubt our era and our culture have enjoyed very good times and, therefore, we’ve been able to spend less time learning practical skills and more time learning about less practical and useful things or not learning at all, but merely ‘chilling out,’ ‘kicking back,’ relaxing in leisure and luxury.
There are so many today who cannot even put a plug onto an electrical appliance when the plug is broken or some even have no idea that they – in Britain at least – can replace a fuse in the plug, as that may be the only reason the appliance has stopped working.
What, however, if the present good times, and at the very present when this is being written they are not as good as they were a couple of years back, to slow down, as they seem to have with the Great Recession still being upon us, or cease entirely? What then? Whatcha gonna do then? How easily can you pick up the slack? If things that were once cheap became very expensive, or if your source of income disappeared, what could you do to save money and thrive? What practical skills have you got that would enable you to “make it”?
Benjamin Franklin wrote to his wife in 1766, praising her thrift and knowledge of practical skills and their usefulness in tough times, hypothetically discussing the creation of trade barriers.
“Had trade between the two countries totally ceas’d, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been cloth’d from head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife’s manufacture, that I never was prouder of any dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary.”
It makes sense to acquire useful practical knowledge and skills, but it seems that the last few decades in western culture have seen a steady decay and practical skills are at an all-time shortage. Very few people today have them, especially in the most concentrated populations in cities and suburbs.
In fact, we have seen a rise in the number of young people that are acquiring very expensive and very impractical knowledge with so many young people wasting two to four years of their lives, or even more, ‘learning’ information that is practically useless. Most degrees, nowadays, seem to have little real world value. Few want to face this fact, but sociology, gender studies, anthropology, philosophy, and English literature most often fail to put food on the table. So, what’s the risk of this trend? Media studies and some other ones are as bad.
Young people go to university studying those course because, in all reality, they do not have the wherewithal to study law, or medicine, or other such high subjects and go for the silly ones that will get them nowhere but – well – they've got a degree and some letter behind their names.
The truth is that too many kids are pushed into college and university when they should never go down that route and, and to all intents and purposes, themselves would have rather left school at fourteen or sixteen and started an apprenticeship, learning a trade. But they are being shoved through academic studies that they are not interested in and they often end up in trouble – before they get into even more at Uni.
Looking through history, one can see that on a more or less regular basis – about every 60-80 years - some major crisis takes place and it comes in all shapes and colors, but it is always widely felt.
Most recently it was the Great Depression era of the 1930s which led up to and into the Second World War and was a time when economies, politics, and cultures changed dramatically.
At the moment of me writing this piece, in February 2011, Tunisia and Egypt have just seen popular uprisings in which the people got rid of the oppressive regimes in their countries and those revolutions, in turn, are leading to uprisings in other parts of the Middle East. Just the very place whence most of our oil comes from and this is not going to make it any cheaper.
A number of things could lead to further unrest, an unrest that could not just set the Middle East ablaze but the repercussions of which might, nay will, be felt all around the globe. And that is without us even having to consider the fact of a changing climate, etc.
The “revolution” that was in Tunisia is already seeing a serious influx of Tunisian “refugees”, better referred to as economic migrants, for they themselves admit that they come for work and a better life, to Italy and we can but assume that there will be more of those be heading our way soon. Europe is already trying to turn into a fortress now; it is not going to get any better.
However, the next thing that is going to come our way is the fact that we are going to be seeing the end of cheap, abundant oil, more than likely within the next couple of years and predictions are now that by 2012 to 2014 we may be seeing an Imperial gallon of gasoline or diesel to reach the £20 mark. This will be the point, latest, when people will come to realize that their commuting lifestyle will have to change. What are they going to do then?
One thing, however, is definitely certain, as a culture, compared to our forefathers in the last crisis era, we have next-to-no practical skills. Things were different then, the culture was more agrarian, there were more farmers, more tradespeople, and generally a larger rural population.
Nowadays, our culture is less thrifty and our quality of life is at a much greater risk, but, for individuals and families it is never too late. While cities, corporations, and countries may decay, for thrifty, ambitious individuals and families there is no time like the present to begin to thrive.
Encourage and teach your children, and teach yourself, as many practical skills as you can. Get old books on the subjects that are important. On all the old important trades and skills and of making do. I have a nice collection of old Odham books that all are old time DIY manuals for a variety of skills and crafts, even though some of the materials are not in use at the present time.
Look at where you live and evaluate the skills that you wish to learn solely on thrift and practicality. There is no sense in learning about raising cattle if you intend on living in the suburbs, and don't see yourself leaving there. Start with a chicken coop perhaps.
What about sewing and weaving? Weaving requires equipment that’s expensive and bulky, and while it is a practical skill, it may be impractical to spend hundreds or thousands on a loom when so much inexpensive clothing and fabric can be bought online and at factory outlet stores. Knowing how to sew, however, so that you may mend and maintain your clothes is very smart and practical. The skill that can be applied most easily, and that can have the greatest financial effect, is cooking therefore learn to cook. Lean to cook from scratch and not from recipes that state “a tin of this” and a “tin of that”, etc.
Learn about what foods are in season and when and learn to process and store bulk portions of food, meaning butchery, canning, curing, freezing, etc. This is absolutely crucial to your thrift in the future.
Grow a vegetable garden and you can grow vegetables quite nicely in containers and tubs – and it does not have to be bought tubs either. A great many things can be used as “beds” for growing food. The more vegetables that you can grow yourself the fewer you have to buy. I am not saying it is easy to start with but it gets easier as you go on.
Learn how to make and maintain tools. Get good tools but you don't have to go out and buy new. Have a scan about at what they call Car Boot Sales in Britain, at yard sales, garage sales, flea market and secondhand stores. Don't go for power tools. Leave them. But go for nice good old hand tools. Most of them will be worth their weight in gold when the crisis hits.
Learn how to make knives, for instance, and how to work leather. Knives are the primary tools for most things and a knife needs a scabbard in which to keep it and thus leather work too is a good skill to have. Knowing how to sew leather also means that you, more than likely, can handle the repair of shoes and boots, etc.
The list could go on and on and on, literally, but I should think that this here will be enough food for thought for the moment.
© 2011
