Product as Opposed to Process
Government, Modern Society, Product versus Process, Sippican Cottage
Detail of Connecticut 18th century armchair
The author of Sippican Cottage lives in Rumford, Maine and builds furniture for a living. Looking at a YouTube of a wood-working shop, absolutely stuffed with tools, he was moved to reflection.
Unlike most of the world, I am not allowed to have the Process be the Product. At the end of the day there has to be something tangibly different with the world or we don’t eat. Sometimes we don’t eat anyway. Most of the world we inhabit now is all Process and no Product. What is Twitter, or Tumblr, or Facebook, or a million other things you could name that consist solely of: This is how I go, when I go like this.
The federal government thinks the process is the entire product. The public school system can produce only public school teachers. The EPA is now supposed to protect the air from humans. The Department of Energy doesn’t make any, and would prefer you didn’t as well –or else. Cities like Detroit are trying to exist with no population now. Search your mind. You’ll have to search hard to find exceptions, not examples.
Via Vanderleun.
