“We crave the handmade, the from-scratch, the traditional, the folk,” Joshua Habgood-Coote, a philosophy lecturer, writes. “We dream of old forms of skilled work.” Nostalgia can be a toxic impulse, reactionary and uncritical, but it can also hold revolutionary potential for the future. Habgood-Coote gives an entertaining tour of “skill nostalgia,” touching on craft books and viral hobbies that have proliferated against a backdrop of artificial intelligence and finding a thoughtful parallel in the Arts and Crafts movement, a critical response to industrialization. Here, nostalgia is more than a self-soothing search for comfort; it’s about engaging with loss, reconnecting with ideals that might improve the future.
Streaming sites are full of reality television shows in which people compete to learn new skills: baking, pottery, sewing, glassblowing, blacksmithing. Etsy, an online marketplace built around handmade and vintage goods, now has more than 5 million sellers. A version of the 19th-century whaling song ‘The Wellerman’ has been viewed by hundreds of millions of people on TikTok and YouTube – a work song for people with neither ship nor crew. The French worker’s jacket, bleu de travail, is now sold by luxury fashion houses to people who will never set foot on a factory floor. We dream of running away to work on a farm or living the life of a Mediterranean peasant (ie, ‘Nonnamaxxing’). The American philosopher Matthew Crawford – who left his job at a think tank to open a motorcycle repair shop – wrote a bestselling book about this kind of transition, called Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009), in which he argues that skilled manual work gives access to a form of thinking that office work denies us.
More picks about looking backwards
The Last Straw
“Inside the tiny community of English master thatchers, a fight is unfolding over a tradition that may not survive.”
Pizza Supreme
“Pizza Hut Classic is fast becoming a cultural obsession. I spent a day at one to find out why.”
The Department of Everything
“Dispatches from the telephone reference desk.”