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Interview with Richard Sennett, author of The Craftsman
| Back to The Craftsman |
A conversation with
Richard Sennett |
©Thomas Struth |
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Q: What do you mean by craftsmanship?
A: Craftsmanship names both the desire for quality and the skill to deliver it. A nurse or a computer programmer can think about his or her skill as a craft to which he or she is committed, just like a potter. In my book I try to
show in particular what the traditional realm of artisans, making things by hand, reveals about craftsmanship in this larger sense of “doing something well for its own sake.”
Q: Why does craftsmanship matter today?
A: Most individuals, businesses, and organizations would claim they are driven by the desire
to do good quality-work, but you’d be right to be suspicious about this claim. In the book I show how and why many modern institutions produce mediocre work; I show how the education system can provide students only superficial skills and little sense of commitment. “Craftsmanship” names more a desire than a reality we know how to put into practice.
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Q: How does craft relate to art?
A: There is no art without craft, no expression without technique. So, in my book, I focus on
the musician practicing scales, the architect working with problems at a building site, the writer cutting excess words from a paragraph. I do not discuss inspiration.
Q: The Craftsman is the first book in a trilogy; how do you think about the series?
A: I want to make sense of material things and material culture in a different way than the Marxist writers of the 20th century did. They concentrated on power relations. I want to broaden cultural materialism to include the sensations and puzzles aroused by material things themselves; the ways in which abstract thinking and belief develop through practice and practical activity; the forms of social behavior which emerge from shared physical experience. The trilogy explores the crafting of objects, ritual and religion, and society’s relation to natural resources. I am by conviction a pragmatist and these books are my contribution to the pragmatist tradition in America.
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