The High Price Of Cheaper, Faster

A portion from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox Rabbi, in his book “America's Real War,” 1999 Rabbi Daniel Lapin, p 24-26:

I recall once visiting a boatyard in the south of England that was still building the prettiest little sailing sloops out of fine English oak-and doing so entirely by hand. I had made a point of visiting this yard during the mid 1960s when fiberglass had just started becoming the material of choice for the leisure boat industry; I had a sense that time was rapidly passing should I want to personally see boats being built, much as they used to be built, by skilled craftsmen.

Now fiberglass is a very technologically-advanced material. It combines two substances - resin and glass strands - in order to produce a new kind of hybrid that possesses the outstanding characteristics of each substance. Its chief advantage is that it can be applied to the inside of a mold by relatively unskilled labor and then popped out as soon as it has hardened and cured. Boat hulls can be turned out rapidly and inexpensively because little skill is required.

By contrast, the craftsmen at the Hilyard boatworks in south England had spent a lifetime building wooden boats by hand. Many of these men were the sons of those who had also spent their lives building exquisite yachts out of ancient oak forests I recall watching one elderly boatbuilder planking what I remember to be about a thirty-foot boat. He had planked the side all the way down from the sheer, or deck line, and all the way up from the keel until all that remained was space for the last plank to be laid up against the frames. The gap was about thirty feet long from stem to stem. Its width varied between about six or seven inches in the middle to about one or two inches at each end. This was because the cross section of a sailing boat varies from narrow at bow and stem to a wine-glass appearance amidships. Since the same number of planks are used from deck to keel, and since the distance is obviously so much greater at the middle of the vessel than it is at either end, each plank must be far wider toward its middle than at either of its ends. I describe this process in some detail not because I think you will ever need to know, but because I want you to comprehend the enormity of the feat I am about to relate.

While I stood and watched the slightly stooped figure of the older craftsman, he stepped back and, with some obvious satisfaction at being so close to finishing his project, gazed adoringly at the lovely ship. Eyeing the last remaining gap to be planked, he ambled over to the pile of fresh lumber and picked out a long slender plank that must have been about thirty-five feet long and about ten inches wide. After placing it in several vises set into a long workbench, he began planing its edge down to reduce its width. I waited to see him take some measurements off the hull; he never did. Every now and again he would glance over his shoulder and narrow his eyes as he stared at the gap in the planking, as if it offended him personally. It finally dawned on me that he was visually measuring his work against the gap into which it would have to fit perfectly. Not only was there the length and constantly varying width for him to contend with, but there was also a bevel that needed to be set into both the upper and lower edges of the new plank to later accept the caulking.

Swinging backward and forward, he planed away so much that his big old work boots were almost concealed by fresh, fragrant shavings. (I can smell them to this day) The shavings fell from his hissing plane until he finally released the plank from the vise, lifted it to his shoulders, and carried it over to the boat where he offered it up to the gap. He clamped it into position, stepped back again and strolled the length of the boat without taking his eyes off his new plank. Then he took the plank back to the workbench, where he toiled at it for another thirty or forty minutes before returning it to the boat. It fit perfectly. He glued and screwed it into place, quite oblivious to the fact that he had casually carried off a feat of sheer magic. I was incredibly moved as I realized that the world would soon cease to see anything like this again.

There was very little technology to see that afternoon at the Hilyard boat yard in south England. But no more than about sixty miles away, in a spanking-new factory belonging to Russell Marine, twenty new fiberglass boats had been built in molds in less time than it took the Hilyard works to build just one wooden boat. They were going to be considerably less expensive and much easier to own and maintain.

Which was the superior achievement? Using advanced technology, Russell Marine was churning out large numbers of identical plastic boats that sold for reasonable sums of money and, for the first time ever, brought leisure boating to England's ordinary citizens. Russell Marine was also on its way to becoming a successful company that earned outstanding returns for its shareholders by using every latest advance in manufacturing technology The Hilyard yard represented a dying industry Wooden boat building of that kind no longer exists. They were producing works of art for connoisseurs. Their boats were expensive and difficult to maintain, but they were beautiful, hand-crafted creations. Which was superior?

I do not think there is much doubt that in spite of our nostalgia for Hilyard, the shiny new factory was doing the better job. The proof was that they remained in business whereas the Hilyard enterprise finally closed. Yet, in spite of all this, we must constantly remain aware that the plastic factory never did and never will produce outstanding craftsmen. Their technology allows them to succeed in spite of the fact that their best employee has none of the skills, quality, or character strength of Hilyard's youngest apprentice.

Though marvelous, technology has the capacity to conceal a decline in the human qualities of people. One dull child with a twelve-dollar calculator can outshine a brilliant nineteenth-century accountant doing mental arithmetic. The juvenile's accuracy and speed will eclipse that of the man who held the finances of large corporations in his head just one hundred years ago. Let us not fall into the trap of considering the adolescent superior to last generation's accountant. Given the choice we might even have to hire the stripling with the calculator over the skilled number expert of yesterday. But we must remain aware that we will be hiring technical skill without virtue, loyalty, or strength of character, let alone comprehension of what the numbers mean. For those qualities, we might do far better to hire the elderly accountant with the green eyeshade. Technology is very useful indeed, but it doesn't automatically produce greatness in people; sometimes it only conceals weakness. Not only that, but on occasion technological advance provides the illusion that we are moving forward when in reality we are sliding backward.