John Ruskin, "The Stones of Venice"
In this essay, which begins with a discussion of the building of Northern European Gothic cathedrals, Ruskin is arguing that people are no longer happy or satisfied with their work because they have no emotional or creative investment in it. He compares the mechanized factory work in the production of glass beads in England to the individual crafting of Venetian glass. He says that even though hand-crafted work may be less regular than factory produced wares, the fact that the person who made them had some direct, creative impact makes them of more worth. It's not so much that they are hand-crafted as that the person who made them had more input into their own work-life. He says that people are now dissatisfied with their lives and their work because they don't have any contact with the end product of their work; often they only work over and over on one small element of production. Also, consumers are too interested in a perfect product and not the human expense that went into its production. He encourages consumers to invest in hand-made rather than factory made products. One problem I have with the essay is his suggestion that workers in the feudal world somehow had it better. He says there is no shame in working for someone else, that being the person in authority is actually a much tougher position because of the responsibility for other people. The problem here for me is the assumption that somehow serfs, and the unskilled laborers who worked on Gothic cathedrals were happier or more fulfilled than factory workers. This seems a romanticization of a situation which for many must have been unbearable. The idea that the feudal lords, or the architects of the gothic cathedrals were more concerned about the lives of the workers is ludicrous.