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org/wiki/Workmanship

Workmanship
Workmanship is a human attribute relating to knowledge and skill at performing a task.
Workmanship is also a quality imparted to a product. The type of work may include the creation of
handcrafts, art, writing, machinery and other products.

Workmanship and craftsmanship

Workmanship and craftsmanship are sometimes considered
synonyms, but many draw a distinction between the two terms,
or at least consider craftsmanship to mean "workmanship of
the better sort".[1] Among those who consider workmanship
and craftsmanship to be different, the word "workmanlike" is
sometimes even used as a pejorative, for example to suggest
that while an author might understand the basics of their craft,
they lack flair. David Pye wrote that no one can definitively
state where workmanship ends and craftsmanship begins.[1]

Sing clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaestus famed for skill.

With bright-eyed Athena he taught men glorious
crafts throughout the world—men who before used to
dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But
now that they have learned craftsmanship through
Hephaestus famous for his art they live a peaceful life
in own houses the whole year round.

— from a Homeric hymn celebrating

craftsmanship[2]
Rubens's 1536 rendition of Vulcan,
During the Middle Ages, smiths and especially armor smiths
the Roman counterpart of
developed unique symbols of workmanship to distinguish the Hephaestus, the Greek God of
quality of their work.[3] These are comparable to the mon Craftsmen.
family crests of Japan.[4]

Workmanship in society
Workmanship was likely a valued human attribute even in prehistoric times. In the opinion of the
economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen, the sense of workmanship is the single most

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important attribute governing the material well-being of a people, with the parental instinct
coming a close second.[5]

There have been periods in history when workmanship was looked down on; for example in
Classical Greece and Ancient Rome, where it had become associated with slavery. This was not
always the case—in the archaic period Greeks had valued workmanship, celebrating it in Homeric
hymns.[6] In the Western world, a return to a more positive attitude towards work emerged with
the rise of Christianity.[7] Veblen said the social value of workmanship in Europe reached its peak
with the "Era of handicraft". The era began as workmanship flourished in response to the relative
peace and security of property rights that Europe had achieved by the Late Middle Ages. The era
ended as machine-driven processes began to displace the need for workmanship after the
Industrial Revolution.

Workmanship was so central during the handicraft era, that, according to Veblen, even key
theological questions were re-framed from "What has God ordained?" to "What has God
wrought?".[8] The high value placed on workmanship could sometimes be oppressive. For example,
one explanation for the origin of the English phrase sent to Coventry is that it reflects the practice
where London guild members who were expelled due to poor workmanship were forced to move to
Coventry, which used to be a guild-free town. But workmanship was widely appreciated by
common people.[8] When workers accustomed to practicing high standards of workmanship were
first recruited to work on production lines in factories, it was common for them to walk out, as the
new roles were relatively monotonous, giving them little scope to use their skills. After Henry Ford
introduced the first assembly line in 1913, had to recruit about ten men to find one willing to stay in
the job. Over time, and with Ford offering high rates of pay, aversion to the new ways of working
was reduced.[9]

Workmanship began to receive attention from scholars after its place in society came under threat
by the rise of industrialization. The Arts and Crafts movement arose in the late 19th and early 20th
century, as workmanship was being displaced by emphases on process, machine work, and the
separation of design and planning skills from the execution of work. Founders of the movement
like William Morris, John Ruskin and Charles Eliot Norton argued that the opportunity to engage
in workmanship used to be a great source of fulfillment for the working class.[8] The arts and crafts
movement has since been interpreted as a palliative, which unintentionally reduced resistance to
the displacement of workmanship.[9][10]

In a book on the nature of workmanship, David Pye writes that the displacement of workmanship
continued into the late 20th century. He writes that since World War II especially, there has been
"an enormous intensification of interest in design" at the expense of workmanship. Industrial
processes are increasingly designed to minimize the skill needed for workers to produce quality
products.[11] 21st century scholars such as Matthew Crawford argued that office and other white-
collar work is now being displaced by similar technological developments to those that caused
manual workers to be made redundant from the late 19th to early 20th century. For those jobs that
remain, cognitive aspects of the jobs are taken away from workers as knowledge is centralized.
Crawford calls for a revaluing of workmanship, saying that certain manual roles like mechanics,
plumbers, and carpenters have been resistant to further automation, and are among the most likely

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to continue offering the worker the chance for independent thought.[9] Writers like Alain de Botton
and Jane McGonigal argued that the world of work needs to be reformed to make it more fulfilling
and less stressful. In particular, workers need to be able to make a deeply felt, imaginative
connection between their own efforts and the end product. McGonigal argues that computer games
can be a source of ideas for doing this; she says the primary reason for World of Warcraft being so
popular is the sense of "blissful productivity" that its players enjoy.[12][13]

Electronics manufacturing
The reliability of electronic devices is greatly affected by the quality of the workmanship. Therefore,
the electronics manufacturing industry has developed several voluntary consensus standards to
provide guidance on how products should be designed, built, inspected, and tested.[14]

Workmanship and aversion to labor

Older economic writings hold that people are averse to labor and can only be motivated to work
using incentives like rewards and punishments.

Christianity is generally approving of workmanship, though certain Bible passages such as Genesis
3:17 (https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis%203:17&version=nrsv) ("...Cursed is the ground
because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.") contribute to
the view that labor is a necessary evil, a punishment for original sin.[7] (Though work did not
originate with the fall of man, see Genesis 2:15 (https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis%20
2:15&version=nrsv)—"Yahweh God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and
keep it.")

Veblen is among those who now believe that work can be inherently joyful and satisfying. Veblen
acknowledges that people tend towards idleness, but asserts that they also value work for its own
sake, as is demonstrated by the vast amount of work that people do without obvious external
pressure. Veblen also notes the near-universal tendency for people to approve of others' good work.
[15][10]

Psychologist Pernille Rasmussen believes that the tendency to value work can become so strong
that it stops being a positive source of motivation, contributing instead to some people losing
balance and becoming workaholics.[7]

See also
▪ Software craftsmanship

References
Citations

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1. Pye 1968, Chpt 2: The workmanship of risk and the workmanship of certainty
2. Sennett 2009, p. 21
3. Ffoulkes 1988, pp. 62-72
4. Matsuya Piece-Goods Store (1972) [1913]. Japanese Design Motifs: 4,260 Illustrations of
Japanese Crests. Translated by Adachi, Fumie. New York: Dover.
5. Veblen 1914, Chpt 1: Introduction
6. Sennett 2009, pp. 22–23
7. Rasmussen 2008, Ch. 2: Work Curse or Blessing
8. Veblen 1914, Chpt 6: The era of handicraft
9. Crawford 2006
10. Jackson Lears 1994, Chpt 2: The figure of the artisan: arts and crafts ideology
11. Pye 1968, Chpt 1: Design proposes: Workmanship disposes
12. de Botton 2010
13. McGonigal 2011, Chpt 3: More satisfying work
14. "WS-000: Workmanship Standards Introduction" (https://suppliers.bcs.l3harris.com/docs/qualit
y/workmanship-and-specifications-manual/WS-000.pdf) (PDF). L3Harris. L3Harris. Retrieved
June 1, 2010.
15. Veblin 1898
Sources

▪ Crawford, Matthew B. (Summer 2006). "Shop Class as Soulcraft" (https://www.thenewatlantis.c

om/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft). The New Atlantis. 13: 7–24. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
▪ de Botton, Alain (2010). The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Penguin. ISBN 978-0141027913.
▪ Ffoulkes, John (1988). The Armourer and His Craft: From the XIth to the XVIth Century. Dover.
▪ Jackson Lears, T.J (1994). No Place of Grace. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226469700.
▪ McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality is Broken. Random House. ISBN 9780099540281.
▪ Pye, David (1968). The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 9780521060165.
▪ Rasmussen, Pernille (2008). When Work Takes Control: The Psychology and Effects of Work
Addiction. Karnack books. ISBN 978-1855755932.
▪ Sennett, Richard (2009). The Craftsman. Penguine. ISBN 9780141022093.
▪ Veblen, Thorstein (1898). "The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor" (https://
webspace.utexas.edu/hcleaver/www/368/368vebleninstinct.html). American Journal of
Sociology. 4 (2): 187–201. doi:10.1086/210791 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F210791).
S2CID 145426319 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:145426319). Retrieved
2013-08-26.
▪ Veblen, Thorstein (1914). The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts.
Transaction Pub. ISBN 9780887388071.

Further reading
▪ Risatti, Howard (2009). "Design, Workmanship, and Craftsmanship". A Theory of Craft:
Function and Aesthetic Expression. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807889077.

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▪ Smith, Kate (2010), The Potter's Skill: perceptions of workmanship in the English ceramic
industries, 1760-1800
▪ Smith, Kate (2012). "Sensing Design and Workmanship: The Haptic Skills of Shoppers in
Eighteenth-Century London". Journal of Design History. 25 (1): 1–10. doi:10.1093/jdh/epr053
(https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fjdh%2Fepr053). PMID 22530251 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go
v/22530251).
▪ Van der Beek, Karine (2013), England's Eighteenth Century Demand for High-Quality
Workmanship: Evidence from Apprenticeship, 1710–1770
▪ Quiller-Couch, Arthur (2008). Shakespeare's Workmanship. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 9780521736817.

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