Let the record show that
I, Russel Peterson, of sound mind and ample optimism, had fully intended to
write an uplifting blog post this week. [1] Unfortunately, much like the
trajectory of Free to Make, that
notion took a careening turn into the abyss. Before I divulge as to
why I decided to take my class/reading reflection the way I did, let’s start
with the basics of what the maker movement is all about.
According to Dale
Dougherty, founder of Make: magazine,
makers are defined as “producers and creators, builders and shapers of the
world around us.” [2] The ability to craft new worlds out of the materials we
are given is one of the defining aspects of makerhood/maker culture. Our
activity in our first class served to achieve that core aspect. After being
given a blank board game map and being told to create a game based on the materials
given to us, my group set out to complete the arduous task of creating a board
game from scratch, not alone, but collaboratively. This meant compromising.
This meant including rules or adding spaces that you did not like. But it also
meant in sharing in the absurdity and joy in creation. After taking turns playing
other people’s board games and explaining the rules of my own, I gained a deeper
appreciation for the collaboration necessary in creating a game that made
sense.
I feel this last point
is a major theme of this class: our experiments and tinkering only make sense
when given the opportunity to hear other people thoughts or letting them tinker
with your creation. The joy of making that is so often referenced in Free to Make, was on display in this
opening activity, as I could tell that each one of us had so much fun in
imagining new possibilities given what was in front of us. Much like Dougherty’s
Maker Faire, our show-and-tell instilled us with “the feeling that anything is
possible, as we revel in experiencing the creativity and talent in our
community.” [3]
I grew inspired
reflecting in this experience while reading Dougherty’s introduction. The idea
that “making engages us fully and deeply” and “satisfies our creative souls”
[4] produced this feeling that another world is possible, where satisfaction
and sense of self was measured in our production and not our consumption.
Dougherty’s criticism of consumer culture as leading to entitlement and
definition of consumerism as “learned helplessness” resonated with me as well.
However, I became a bit disenchanted as I read the first chapter, as I
questioned the amount of nostalgia Dougherty placed on the American “makers” of
yesteryear. Hailing postwar America through the 1970s as the “golden age of
tinkering” [5], Dougherty argues that the United States “evolved from a nation
of makers to a nation of consumers.” [6]
Reading Dougherty’s
lamentations, I could not help but recall a moment in the 2016 election
campaign where future President-elect Donald Trump complained about the exodus
of domestic manufacturing jobs, “we don’t make anything anymore,” he
effectively summarized. The desire to #MakeAmericaMakeAgain is strong
throughout Dougherty’s writing and effectively expressed in his TED Talk when
he introduced the 1960 Chevrolet commercial “American Maker” and talked about
the commercial’s emphasis on the “sense of pride” shown by the people doing
their maker activities. [7] Dougherty uses this video, in his talk and in his
book, to labor the point that being makers is what makes us human, but at the
same time it is implied (heavily) that it is what makes us American. The sense
that we have lost this pride and sense of Americanness is reflected in the YouTube
comments on the Chevrolet commercial with one commenter (the other has a “Don’t Tread on Me” profile picture) mournfully
suggesting the depiction is of “a time long gone.” [8] Centering American identity
in making has led Dougherty to conclude that the maker movement is a “renewal
of some deeply held values.” But this begs the question: whose values? Is this “golden
age of tinkering” as great as we remember?
One moment from last
class that came to my mind during this reading was the comment by Stephanie,
who brought up the fact that makers do not often accommodate for disabled
people in the makers process, instead they are seen as only the recipients of
maker innovations. It made me think: who is included in the “hands-on
renaissance”? [9] If this book centers American identity as the basis of the
maker, are non-Americans non-makers? Or did the outsourcing of manufacturing
jobs imply that our makerhood was stolen? I am suspicious of this overtly
nostalgic sentiments given our political climate for the past two years, and I
feel Dougherty does not interrogate the complexity of these economic and
cultural trends effectively enough. What forces led to this outsourcing of
manufacturing and the stronghold of hyperconsumerism? Why is the technology we
are using today suddenly cheaper? (i.e. whose labor is being exploited to make
it so cheap?) Is this actually cheap? What tools are really accessible? These
are the types of questions I want a maker manifesto to ask rather than a
nostalgic argument for “renewal.”
--
[1] This
paraphrased statement is brought to you by that one actress from La La Land.(http://imdb.to/1jx1zvQ) http://bit.ly/2j3bUaJ
[2] Dougherty, Dale (with Ariane Conrad). Free to Make: How the Maker Movement is
Changing Our Schools, Our Jobs, and Our Minds. (Berkeley, CA: North
Atlantic Books, 2016), p. XV.
[3] Dougherty, Free to Make, p. 37.
[4] Dougherty, Free
to Make, p. XVII.
[5] Dougherty, Free
to Make, p. 7.
[6] Dougherty, Free
to Make, p. 8.
[7] Dale Dougherty. “We Are All Makers,” TED Talk, 2011.
Film is “American Maker” by Chevrolet (https://www.archive.org/details/prelinger).
[9] Dougherty, Free
to Make, p. XX.
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