Our
last class had a pretty robust discussion on the role of the maker movement on
the manufacturing sector of the economy. A lot of good ideas were expressed
about what manufacturing really represents to the American public. Do Americans
actually like manufacturing jobs? Or do they simply like the higher wages and
benefits associated with such jobs? As our conversation veered toward the
effects of globalization, the lamentation that “America doesn’t make things
anymore” reflected the former’s representation of reality. While free trade has
sent some of these acclaimed jobs to factories in Eastern Asia (and eventually
Africa), automation has swept away a great deal more of traditional manufacturing.
That’s where the maker movement comes in: with making, and specifically 3D
printing, heralded as the next industrial revolution.
However
grand these visions may be, the certainty of this incoming manufacturing
renaissance has been cast into doubt following the turmoil in America’s
political climate. I remember personally criticizing the Brookings article for
its assertion that Donald Trump would be amenable to the maker movement and its
ties to manufacturing, as I see Trump representing the complete opposite of the
tenets of the maker movement, particularly its rejection of easy answers and
consumer culture. Yet, the general uneasiness and confusion surrounding the
ascendancy of the 45th president puts the future of making, and what
it represents, into uncharted territory.
In
the closing pages of Free to Make,
Dale Dougherty outlines his dream for his grandchild, and future generations, to grow up in an America that embraced making
as its personal ethos once again and brought a sense of fulfillment that seems
to be lost. He openly wonders, “Will they be able to take advantage of their
talents and continue developing them over the course of their lives?...Will
they understand that the world can be hacked, tinkered with, taken apart, and
put back together again?” [1] Assessing whether oru culture is on track to
reject consumer culture and embrace divergent thinking, or the idea that
consensus is not always the goal and that multiple ideas spur innovation, is a
difficult thing to predict. Especially for a seminal figure like Dougherty.
However,
I believe in order for the maker movement to have the kind of impact that
Dougherty envisions, there at least has to be some agreement (divergent
thinking be damned) about what making represents and how does labeling everyone
a maker create value? Attempting to define what truly constitutes making will
always bring up the debate between making as not-for-profit initiative (as
mentioned in Chapter Eleven) versus making as an efficient component for
profitable mass production. Yet, what I feel unites everyone as a maker is the feeling gained when
tinkering/creating/crafting something in a welcoming and supportive
environment. As Dougherty states, “Making is a practice that promotes a
person’s social and emotional well-being while developing skills that make a
person useful and productive.” [2] The value produced from the practice of
making should be the rallying cry that crystalizes the maker movement in this
uncertain future.
--
[1]
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. 271.
[2]
Dougherty, Free to Make, p. 254.
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