The Craftsman versus the Industrial Complex

[DWFII]

If the couple hundred thousand people in the world that can afford $1200 shoes want to wear them, that's fine, but they need to remember that there are close to 7 billion of us out here that can't afford them, and if all "real" shoes cost that much, then we would all be shoeless.

As for the question, I would like to see more of the cotton/poly and canvas contemporary kilts available with wider more traditional looking aprons.

Have Fun,
Java

When all shoes were handmade...before plastics and cardboard and glue replaced Traditional methods...and as recently as the late 1800's, a really high quality shoe may have run $100.00.

Think about that...and people think they should still be able to buy a good pair of shoes for $100.00. How's that happen? Who's fooling who? What kind of mind-set/rationale makes people think or demand that?

And what's a 19th century C note in today's money?

Being able to afford things today...if you really and truly want quality...is the same as it was in 1880. It is a matter of setting realistic priorities and saving for them or working for them simply because you have a recognition of what quality is and why it has value.

And that is about as far as you can get from our modern I'm-entitled-and-I've-got-to-have-it-now, short-attention-span culture.

"Cheap" doesn't start in the pocketbook...it starts in the heart--in an indifference to what makes life valuable and worth living. It starts with a lack of understanding and respect for those things that connect us and make us human. Devaluing manual labour--the Trades--devaluing the connection between the heart and the hand (as is standard in any industrial setting), all contribute.

And from there it spreads to every corner of our lives such that we so become pinched in spirit and perception that we cannot...will not...allow ourselves to recognize quality or worth, in goods or in idea or in people..

We don't all have to wear $1000.00 bespoke, hand made kilts, or $7000.00 bespoke, fully canvased suits or $300.00 shirts or even $5000.00 bespoke shoes (which is where the top end really is)--priorities are different for everybody. But to the extent that we cannot even recognize the intrinsic quality and worth of such items...won't allow ourselves to even acknowledge the worth of the work or skill that goes into them...we are poorer than if we had spent the same amount of money on title to the Golden Gate Bridge.

[CMcG]

I have tremendous respect for craftspeople, traditional methods, and the items they make. I just can't afford them. If this were the 1800s, I would probably be running around barefoot. Probably wouldn't have been kilted either...

[DWFII]

I have tremendous respect for craftspeople, traditional methods, and the items they make. I just can't afford them. If this were the 1800s, I would probably be running around barefoot. Probably wouldn't have been kilted either...

"Affording" isn't the issue here...although that may be sometimes hard to see. Most of us have so arranged our priorities that if we really looked hard at what we were buying we find that everything was unaffordable.

Because most of the time "affordable", insofar as it is a synonym for "cheap" is actually more expensive than quality.

Can you as a person...can we as a society...really afford to buy disposable anything?

The problem is Rocky's octopus...

In any consumer culture...in any manufacturing context...cheap begets cheaper. Competition guarantees that. And "cheapest"...read most affordable...is always 10¢ an hour SE Asia.

[Java]

"Cheap" doesn't start in the pocketbook...it starts in the heart--in an indifference to what makes life valuable and worth living. It starts with a lack of understanding and respect for those things that connect us and make us human. Devaluing manual labour--the Trades--devaluing the connection between the heart and the hand (as is standard in any industrial setting), all contribute.

I think we have a basic misunderstanding here. It is not that we, the great unwashed, don't see and understand a difference in quality when we see it. It's just that I buy my shoes (and my kilts) with the same money that I feed and cloth my wife and family with. I am a pastor, and I live from paycheck to paycheck. Yes I chose this lot in life, nobody chose it for me, and I am happy with it. So before spending years saving for what you would consider a "real" kilt, I decided to buy a few less expensive, sturdier kilts that I can get more use out of, to see if I enjoy being kilted. Lo and behold I've found that I do enjoy it. For now, I will continue to value and support a few folks here in the states that are laboring over their sewing machines just for me. I'll start putting away a little at a time so that one day I'll be able to do my part to keep that mill open. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all being called a cross-dresser by anyone who can in any way connect the quality of their stuff with what "makes life valuable and worth living."

Have Fun,
Tom

[DWFII]

I think we have a basic misunderstanding here. It is not that we, the great unwashed, don't see and understand a difference in quality when we see it. It's just that I buy my shoes (and my kilts) with the same money that I feed and cloth my wife and family with. I am a pastor, and I live from paycheck to paycheck. Yes I chose this lot in life, nobody chose it for me, and I am happy with it. So before spending years saving for what you would consider a "real" kilt, I decided to buy a few less expensive, sturdier kilts that I can get more use out of, to see if I enjoy being kilted. Lo and behold I've found that I do enjoy it. For now, I will continue to value and support a few folks here in the states that are laboring over their sewing machines just for me. I'll start putting away a little at a time so that one day I'll be able to do my part to keep that mill open. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all being called a cross-dresser by anyone who can in any way connect the quality of their stuff with what "makes life valuable and worth living."

Have Fun,
Tom

I have never called you a cross-dresser and I suspect that to conflate my remarks with that perspective is just a variation on the old...and in my view largely discredited..."kilt police" bugaboo.

I would urge a more careful reading of my remarks and hope that you would not put words in my mouth.

Beyond that, you are to be applauded for having your priorities straight. I couldn't have afforded any kilt when I was raising children, either...or even for many years thereafter. I have worked...meaning sweat, tears, blood, and muscle aches...all my life for what amounts to a 19th century wage in the 20th and 21st.

I have lived on the edge of society and have never been what you would call even middle-class.

I have had dirt under my fingernails every day for the last 40 years.

So I would counsel you to save your cynicism for someone else. I come by my views honestly.

[Java]

Well, on the subjects that I'm cynical about, I come by that honestly too.
And I will confess, I've been beat up by the kilt police, and called a cross-dresser by so many people on so many forums that I loose track of who has and who hasn't. My appologies if I've confused you with someone else.

I seem to be having a conversation about how everything made with methods or materials invented since the industrial revolution is crap and that buying any of it somehow damages one's soul. I must admit that finding out that I'm having it someone I apparently have so much in common with baffles me somewhat. I believe our basic disagreement was the whole "gateway" thing. I believe that in many cases a $95 Amerikilt will lead to a $130 USA kilt, will lead to a $160 Alt.kilt, to a Freedom Kilt, and so on until it leads to a "real" kilt bought by someone who wouldn't have considered saving up and spending that kind of money to start. Wearing the less expensive kilts having caused him to change his monetary priorities.
I have a tendency to spend around $100 on a pair of dress shoes. They last me about a year. I buy them because as you say, a $30 pair that last 3 months is more expensive than a $100 pair that last 12 months. I'm sure a $500 pair would work out to be even less expensive in the long run, but one has to draw the line somewhere, and for shoes, I choose to draw it at $100. For a kilt, I have just bumped that line up from $100 to $150. Little by little, priorities change.....

Have Fun,
Tom

editted to add; Oh, and Rocky, I'm working, writing for tomorrow morning. So I'm inside on the computer anyway......

[Moski]

I'm not sure if I should be shocked or angry at what I'm having trouble Not calling an elitist attitude. I keep seeing the assertion that most of the products made since the industrial revolution are worthless and I'm too dumb to see it or that I am not qualified to discern what quality is. Nor am I able to appreciate quality as I've surrounded myself with worthless child labor knockoffs in my ignorance. The shoe example is outrageous in that, of all the people I know, only a very few attorneys come close to that price foe shoes. For the great majority of people that's not even in the realm of reasonableness. Its a wasteful extravagance. Then to nearly berate someone because their priorities preclude such an expense and slag them off for it is beyond the pale.

[DWFII]

I'm not sure ...

I'm not surprised. I suspect you don't have any idea what I've said.

Posts like this seem to come out of nowhere--no quotes...offending or otherwise...no references to actual words or concepts, no speaking to the actual discussion. Just "feelings."

There is a good discussion here...with little or no hostility or vitriol being generated...I'd prefer to keep it that way.

[RockyR]

I'm not surprised. I suspect you don't have any idea what I've said.

Posts like this seem to come out of nowhere--no quotes...offending or otherwise...no references to actual words or concepts, no speaking to the actual discussion. Just "feelings."

There is a good discussion here...with little or no hostility or vitriol being generated...I'd prefer to keep it that way.

With all due respect, and to point back at your quote about being on a public forum...

If you can't stand someone disagreeing with you, or offering opinion you might not like, you probably ought to steer clear of forums in general.

You had to realize that taking the stance you did, in the public manner you did, on the forum you did, would raise some (dare I say many) hackles. Yes, you and I are carrying on a civil discussion about the (off) topic at hand, but you must have realized that many would take offense to such statements. It's like hitting a bee-hive with a stick, then being suprised the bees are angry.

Inflections, 'meanings', 'intentions' etc can't always be surmised through written text on a forum. Some people will assign attributes to your comments which you may not have intened. Even if not explicitly stated, others may have thought you meant something. Based on the comments in this discussion, I can see how a 'short leap' could have been made.

[Moski]

I'm not surprised. I suspect you don't have any idea what I've said.

Posts like this seem to come out of nowhere--no quotes...offending or otherwise...no references to actual words or concepts, no speaking to the actual discussion. Just "feelings."

There is a good discussion here...with little or no hostility or vitriol being generated...I'd prefer to keep it that way.

I was trying to be non-confrontational and speaking broadly.

I do know that things made in a factory...or from a mentality that buys into all the priorities of a factory...reduce our sense of connection. The products themselves almost universally have a sterile quality about them that is devoid of authenticity. And how could they not be? It's all copies, clones and ticky-tacky

What is that other than your "feelings" about "factory" goods. And I'm not looking to "make a connection" with my shoes, kilt or skivvies, nor am I looking for some level of "authenticity", whatever that means to you.

I don't know that everything made since the Industrial Revolution is crap.

I read the above to mean that Most if it is in your opinion.

I'm looking to wear something that is practical, fits into the place I've determined it should in my finances, that is to say affordable by my reckoning, and fits my life. I'm sure you make a wonderful product that anyone who can afford them would cherish. But affordable is not "an excuse" or a synonym for cheap (low quality). For those of us using the word referring to our own purchasing power it actually means what it says.


Oh yeah. The "Kilt Police" aren't real so they cant enforce anything. It's a term used for very real people who take it upon themselves to people who they think are dressed wrong, be it a style that offends their sensibilities or is "simply not done", material that "just isn't an acceptable substitute", or equating anything less than top of the range with junk (kind of an insult to several kiltmakers here who do make that "junk") , or simply beneath what they consider an acceptable standard.