- 08 May 2016 02:41
#14677688
The title of this sounds silly but I’m being completely serious and I will explain. I consider this to be chapter 2 to a series of posts I’m making, you can read chapter 1 here: http://politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=165168
Let’s consider the social differences that emerge between local artisan beer and mass produced beer. The difference comes down to three things: flavor (which I’m not going to discuss; sorry), community and alcoholism (which I am going to discuss; sorry). Let’s get the alcoholism discussion out of the way first.
When someone has a drinking problem related to mass produced alcohol, such as Budweiser beer, there is no human connection between the failing consumer and the alcohol company. There is no effective way to stop an alcoholic from buying factory-made beer in an impersonal store. But if someone is drinking too much of the moonshine made by someone they know personally, the person selling the alcohol has a social motivation to suggest an intervention on the alcoholic’s behalf. From a cynical point of view, he doesn’t want to look like a killer, he doesn’t want to lose a customer; from the less cynical viewpoint he doesn’t want to lose a friend. This is why issues such as “alcoholism” and to a certain degree, even the presence of very powerful drugs were not considered problems in traditional societies; the alcohol was made by an artisan who actually knew his clients and his client’s interests were also his interests.
This is not to say that everyone who works at Budweiser is a murderer. Almost all of us are undifferentiated products of our era. But a person who makes and sells artisan liquor actually has the potential to be part of a community de facto his work, whereas a person who works at Budweiser has no such potential. As such, I conclude that mass produced beer should be illegal. It's a harmful thing. But locally made “artisan” beer should be permissible for the reasons I've set out, acknowledging of course that banning alcohol is practically impossible. The reasoning I'm using here probably also applies to things like marijuana legalization; although the drug is demonstrably very harmful in the long run, it’s very illegality imparts an artisan and thereby communal and social character to the drug. Once marijuana cigarettes are available impersonally in stores across the west, the drug will probably come to be considered a toxic substance that lacks in character again, but those are just my tangential observations; for now let’s only note that I am not overestimating alcohol’s potential for artisanship, nor am I overestimating its ability to promote community (and not just by making people drunk).
Now let’s get to the second point, that of community. As I touched upon in part 1, people are generally not satisfied with mere ownership of a means of production. The relationship between an artisan and his work runs very deeply. Someone could assemble an iPad in a factory and will not consider that to be rewarding work. But building a tablet computer out of a Raspberry Pi and other parts would be considered rewarding by most standards. A person could even assemble many such tablets and then sell them and probably still find that kind of work rewarding. This is despite the fact that both items are practically the same. We should ask ourselves why this is. One of the logical underpinnings of communism, which I so regularly criticize, is that it presumes workers will be happy if they own their factory. Owning the factory will supposedly make them enjoy assembling iPads. The problem with this idea is that they still won't enjoy their work, in fact the business usually ends up failing after the workers take over. This isn't because the workers are "lazy" but because mere ownership of the means is not what most people really want. What they really want is to be the source or font of the product. They want to exude that “life force” which goes into artisanship, so that they can know that they are the “font” of the tablet computers (or the beer, or anything else) that is made. I believe this is partly due to the fact that artisanship, as I explained above, fundamentally produces community. When someone expresses themselves in their work, when they know their customers, when the product is an extension of their own power, bonds are formed that cannot be made by reselling something that came from a factory line.
The third point, flavor. I know I said I wouldn’t discuss this but I lied. It’s not just that the flavor can literally be better. It’s that the "flavor" of anything can be designed to meet certain palates. In an artisan setting, our tools can be adapted to us instead of trying to adapt ourselves to our tools. The item becomes a part of us instead of us being a part of the item. And everything tastes better with friends. This is why non-artisan beer should be illegal.
Let’s consider the social differences that emerge between local artisan beer and mass produced beer. The difference comes down to three things: flavor (which I’m not going to discuss; sorry), community and alcoholism (which I am going to discuss; sorry). Let’s get the alcoholism discussion out of the way first.
When someone has a drinking problem related to mass produced alcohol, such as Budweiser beer, there is no human connection between the failing consumer and the alcohol company. There is no effective way to stop an alcoholic from buying factory-made beer in an impersonal store. But if someone is drinking too much of the moonshine made by someone they know personally, the person selling the alcohol has a social motivation to suggest an intervention on the alcoholic’s behalf. From a cynical point of view, he doesn’t want to look like a killer, he doesn’t want to lose a customer; from the less cynical viewpoint he doesn’t want to lose a friend. This is why issues such as “alcoholism” and to a certain degree, even the presence of very powerful drugs were not considered problems in traditional societies; the alcohol was made by an artisan who actually knew his clients and his client’s interests were also his interests.
This is not to say that everyone who works at Budweiser is a murderer. Almost all of us are undifferentiated products of our era. But a person who makes and sells artisan liquor actually has the potential to be part of a community de facto his work, whereas a person who works at Budweiser has no such potential. As such, I conclude that mass produced beer should be illegal. It's a harmful thing. But locally made “artisan” beer should be permissible for the reasons I've set out, acknowledging of course that banning alcohol is practically impossible. The reasoning I'm using here probably also applies to things like marijuana legalization; although the drug is demonstrably very harmful in the long run, it’s very illegality imparts an artisan and thereby communal and social character to the drug. Once marijuana cigarettes are available impersonally in stores across the west, the drug will probably come to be considered a toxic substance that lacks in character again, but those are just my tangential observations; for now let’s only note that I am not overestimating alcohol’s potential for artisanship, nor am I overestimating its ability to promote community (and not just by making people drunk).
Now let’s get to the second point, that of community. As I touched upon in part 1, people are generally not satisfied with mere ownership of a means of production. The relationship between an artisan and his work runs very deeply. Someone could assemble an iPad in a factory and will not consider that to be rewarding work. But building a tablet computer out of a Raspberry Pi and other parts would be considered rewarding by most standards. A person could even assemble many such tablets and then sell them and probably still find that kind of work rewarding. This is despite the fact that both items are practically the same. We should ask ourselves why this is. One of the logical underpinnings of communism, which I so regularly criticize, is that it presumes workers will be happy if they own their factory. Owning the factory will supposedly make them enjoy assembling iPads. The problem with this idea is that they still won't enjoy their work, in fact the business usually ends up failing after the workers take over. This isn't because the workers are "lazy" but because mere ownership of the means is not what most people really want. What they really want is to be the source or font of the product. They want to exude that “life force” which goes into artisanship, so that they can know that they are the “font” of the tablet computers (or the beer, or anything else) that is made. I believe this is partly due to the fact that artisanship, as I explained above, fundamentally produces community. When someone expresses themselves in their work, when they know their customers, when the product is an extension of their own power, bonds are formed that cannot be made by reselling something that came from a factory line.
The third point, flavor. I know I said I wouldn’t discuss this but I lied. It’s not just that the flavor can literally be better. It’s that the "flavor" of anything can be designed to meet certain palates. In an artisan setting, our tools can be adapted to us instead of trying to adapt ourselves to our tools. The item becomes a part of us instead of us being a part of the item. And everything tastes better with friends. This is why non-artisan beer should be illegal.
Orb Team Re-Assemble!
- By Negotiator
- By litwin
- By FiveofSwords
- By wat0n