Dear Feltri,
hot water has been discovered: there are more lawyers than plumbers. Man becomes a craftsman by creating the first tool, a chipped stone that becomes a knife. He is distinguished from the animal by having an opposable thumb, which allows him to use it to grasp and manipulate objects. Manual ability is a peculiarity of man. The father of Jesus, a perfect synthesis between the divine and the human, is a craftsman. Mastery does not depend only on manual ability, but also requires a basis of knowledge, in addition to practice and experience. It is no coincidence that “grasping something” means both the grip of the hand and cerebral understanding. Today the craftsman can be seen as the archetype of contemporary work: the Greeks defined craftsmen as demiourgos, that is, those who produce work collectively, just like modern production processes, such as open source, made possible by new digital technologies. What if the cause of the crisis and recession that are gripping our society is not attributable to strange economic circumstances but simply to the disappearance of manual skills from everyday life? The use of hands is disappearing, we no longer insert the key to open the car, everything is controlled with a button, from opening/closing the windows to the garage, many daily actions are delegated to gadgets that break easily and must be replaced. The homo faber no longer exists, all economic operators are double-breasted and ties, we no longer see overalls and aprons, the one who produces has disappeared. We live daily in a world of objects to which we are passive and dependent, because we do not understand them and do not know them, or perhaps because they are designed precisely not to be understood. You cannot hammer a nail into the Internet.
Mauro July
Monfalcone
Dear Mauro,
What a pleasure and joy to read reflections that I myself have often made! I believe that the solitude to which the human being is condemned is defeated only when we discover that another individual has thought the same thoughts as us. I am not surprised that lawyers outnumber plumbers, who are also more numerous than defendants. What surprises me is that, although there are plenty of plumbers, every time we need one, who knows how and who knows why we can’t find one. And this is the reason why they are overpaid, so much so that they earn more than several categories of professionals, dentists included, according to their tax returns. I have always encouraged my children and grandchildren both to study and to learn a trade, that is, to acquire a skill, even a manual one, or rather especially of this type. Those who acquire a skill of this kind will never be left without a job, therefore will never end up in difficulty, will never have to depend on anyone.
In this sense, manual work makes you free. It is the foundation of freedom. I myself consider my work to be manual work, I write with my hands things that come to me in my head. Once upon a time my job was even more manual, today technology has also taken over journalism, in fact, from what I have learned, with artificial intelligence it is possible to write entire articles without doing anything, that is, by twiddling your thumbs. Today, hands are used for this: to fiddle around. Progress? Not at all. It is the death of journalism, because it is deprived of the soul of the writer, of his emotions. Emotion, which is the artisanal element par excellence, is what distinguishes any job from a work of art and it is towards this that we must always strive when we create anything. What is produced by hand has more value both because it has a soul and because it has required an investment of time and time is our greatest and most precious asset. It is not only about the quality, the durability of what is handmade, the skill of the craftsman himself honed over the years, but also the hours or days spent on that specific job.
Will we return to manual labor? I am convinced so. We cannot do without it, not even the much-vaunted machines have been able to replace the human being and his hands. What is done manually is a symbol of excellence, good workmanship, luxury, class.
In the professions I have carried out I have always used my hands: when I was a shop assistant, when I was a window dresser, when I played the piano in dance halls, when I cleaned the stairways of apartment buildings for
round up, when I started writing. And even today I always have a pen and paper with me, in my jacket pocket, to take notes when needed. I prefer to rely on my fingers rather than the keyboard of my cell phone.