It seems like everyone these days is developing an app for their business or product – download the app to your smartphone, and you can carry books, lectures, and blog archives with you wherever you go. Most apps simply streamline content that’s already available on a website for easy, one-stop access on the little screen of your phone. This can make information easier to get at and use, especially for the ham-handed among us. And that, I suppose, is a valuable thing. I'm sure we were Googling something important here. It’s interesting to think through the progress of our smartphone technology since the first iPhone was introduced in 2007 – really, just a few years ago. Think of all the...
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818. This is an admittedly heady title for a little blog post. And while I can’t possibly write anything remotely worthy of that title here (in a thousand words or less), the topic itself is one that will keep coming back. Our vision at M&T is “to cultivate reverence for the dignity of humanity and the natural world through the celebration of handcraft.” While there’s a lot to unpack in that statement, it basically means we’re going to talk about more than just how to make nice furniture by hand. So for example, when society starts down a slippery slope of creative self-immolation, Joshua or I might casually bring it up....
Philosophy is a hard sell. Pondering questions about the nature of knowledge, reason, existence, etc. is something that most folks have a hard time connecting to. At the level of ordinary, daily experience, we go to work and feel affection for our loved ones. In our downtime, we may ponder why it is that we gravitate toward certain perspectives or why things are the way they are, but few are able to devote their lives to mulling these things over. I know I have so much on my plate – family, business, farm, church, etc. – that I can only give so much to other things. But anytime I get to learn from those who have done all the mental...
“On the spur of the moment, we normally act out what has been nurtured in our daily practices as they have been shaped by the norms of our time. When we sit in our easy chair and contemplate what to do, we are firmly enmeshed in the framework of technology with our labor behind us and the blessings of our labor about us, the diversions and enrichments of consumption. This arrangement has had our lifelong allegiance, and we know it to have the approval and support of our fellows. It would take superhuman strength to stand up to this order ever and again. If we are to challenge the rule of technology, we can do so only through the practice...
