workmanship

The tradition & historical record

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. ¹

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". 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. During the Middle Ages, smiths and especially armor smiths developed unique symbols of workmanship to distinguish the quality of their work. These are comparable to the mon family crests of Japan. ¹

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 important attribute governing the material well-being of a people, with the parental instinct coming a close second. 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. In the Western world, a return to a more positive attitude towards work emerged with the rise of Christianity. 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?". 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. ¹

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. ¹

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 ("...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. (Though work did not originate with the fall of man, see Genesis 2:15—"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. 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. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Workmanship”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

workmanship is human attribute relating to knowledge and skill at performing a task, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 11 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²