Materiales y métodos

Everyone has interests, but not everyone has the same interests. Re­ member that we are interested in doing what we do well, and tend to do well in what we are interested in doing. The interests of Artisans are diametrically opposite of those of Idealists and quite different from those of Guardians and Rationals. These differences are most easily seen when placed side by side for comparison, as in the following chart:

Interests Artisans Guardians Idealists Rationals Education

Preoccupation Vocation

At school the Artisans typically head for the arts and crafts, and steer clear of the humanities and sciences. Later on, when looking for work, some will study commerce, and can become quite successful in business and industry. But SPs are rarely interested in building morale, or in worrying about morality, and even have some aversion to technology. When they go to work, if they are lucky, they get to work on or with tools and equipment. Educational Interest in Artcrafts

In school Artisans tend to be interested in artcrafts, where they can practice the required techniques. SPs can appear to be dull, and even bored, when asked to study business (particularly clerical matters), or the humanities, or science and technology, but give them the opportunity to practice any of the arts or crafts and watch them shine. Parents and teachers only rarely give SP children permission, or opportunity, to follow their artistic interests, but this has always been the case, as the Italian Renaissance artisan Benvenuto Cellini reminds us:

[at] the age of fifteen, I put myself, against my father’s will, to the goldsmith’s trade with a man called Antonio, son of Sandro....a most excellent craftsman and a very good fellow to boot, high-spirited and frank in all his ways. My father would not let him give me wages like the other apprentices; for having taken up the study of this art to please myself, he wished me to indulge my whim for drawing to the full. I did so willingly enough; and that honest master of mine took marvellous delight in my performances.

Remember, however, that artcraft must not be limited to the so-called fine arts, such as painting and sculpture, or the performing arts, such as music and dance, but in fact includes the athletic, culinary, literary, martial, mechanical, theatrical, and industrial arts, not to mention what Donald Trump called the “Art of the Deal” in big business. Artisans have a natural ability to excel in any of these arts—a Pete Sampras service game in tennis or a Chuck Yeager supersonic test flight is just as artistic as a Rembrandt painting or Beethoven symphony.

Preoccupied with Techniques

Artisans don’t spend much time worrying about morality or morale, and they have only a passing interest in devising technology (the concerns, respectively, of the Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals.) But they are always interested, even preoccupied, with the acquisition of technique. In regard

Artcrafts Techniques Equipment Commerce Morality Materiel Humanities Morale Personnel Sciences Technology Systems

The Interests o f Artisans 45 to this distinction between SP technique and NT technology, it is necessary to understand that, although the two resemble each other in a superficial manner, they are fundamentally different. Both are derived from the root ‘tech,’ which means they have to do with effective building, but they are entirely different ways of building. Technology is the theoretical study of method, technique the empirical perfecting of method. And this is where the Artisans shine. No matter what the cost in time, energy, hardship, peril, or expense, they must perfect their repertoire of techniques.

This is most easily observed in artists and athletes, who give over their lives to mastering the techniques of painting or sculpting, of playing musical instruments, of throwing, catching, kicking, and so on. Watch surfers. They will spend hours daily—and for years—in perfecting their technique of riding the waves. Many then take up wind-surfing, or riding the waves with a sail attached to their surfboard, so that they can develop the technique of doing somersaults directly into the waves! No matter the SP’s activity, however, technique is the main issue. Whether it be a President’s technique of speechmaking, the business tycoon’s technique of making deals, or the skip loader’s technique of earthmoving, it is the mastery of technique that draws the SPs like moths to a flame.

Vocational Interest in Equipment

Artisans are happiest when working with any and all sorts of equipment. Apparatus, implements, machines, and instruments captivate them; they are things to be used—employed, deployed—and the SPs cannot not operate them. TTiey must drive the bulldozer, pilot the plane, steer the boat, fire the gun, toot the horn, wield the scalpel, brush, or chisel. Something about equipment strikes a chord in the character of the SPs, extending the reach, augmenting, amplifying, and sharpening the effects of the many techniques they increasingly acquire and perfect. Listen as a truck driver interviewed by Studs Terkel describes the excitement of being behind the wheel of a big tractor and semi-trailer:

The minute you climb into that truck, the adrenaline starts pumping. If you want a thrill, there’s no comparison, not even a jet plane, to climbing on a steel truck and going out there on the expressway. You’ll swear you’ll never be able to get out the other end of that thing without an accident. There’s thousands of cars, and thousands of trucks and you’re shifting like a maniac and you’re braking and accelerating and the object is to try to move with the traffic and try to keep from running over all those crazy fools who are trying to get under your wheel.

Even in ancient times, long before industrial civilization, Artisans must have been the chief hunters and the finest warriors. The sling, the club, the spear, the bow and arrow: these equipped the SP tribesmen for their deadly art. And is it not so even today, for who but the Artisan is first to enlist

when war comes, and who but the Artisan best wields the weapons and the machines of modem warfare?