The Saddest Part of Cultural Death
The Texas Standard had a short, sweet feature about a small-time leather craftsmate, and this part stood out to me:
It was in 1991 that he got into leather working.
“I tore my jacket and had it fixed at a place downtown called the Leather Bench and got interested in what that gentleman was doing,” he said. “He kind of mentored me a little bit on getting started and going and gave me some leather, and I made my first project, which was a tool belt for myself to do my job at the time.”
It got me thinking about cultural death. When a subculture is dying-a language, a particular technology, a fandom, or a craft like leatherworking-it gets harder to find expertise even as there are fewer people looking for it in the first place. In this way, what often ends up happening is a gradual extinction of expertise, lore, "tricks of the trade," and the ability to discern what constitutes "high quality."
First to go is any discernment the general public may have possessed, as a new generation comes up having never been exposed to this subculture even though it may have once played a genuine part in the daily life of earlier generations. This is true of something like leatherworking and leather products, which would definitely have been familiar to most people from many nations around the world, over many generations, until very recently. But many subcultures never penetrate into the general public awareness at all, and so there isn't even any broader public knowledge to be lost.
But next, and arguably sadder, is what happens to newcomers to the subculture, like this fellow in the story. In our popular psyche, we often draw an equivalency between the various masters of a given subculture, such that when some youngster comes along and shows an interest in the subculture-itself a hopeful, optimistic note of longevity or even an early sign of true renewal-we imagine the living trust of this subculture being passed on to them more or less intact. Yet put aside for a moment the newcomers who don't stick with it, or who do not learn everything their masters had to teacher: The masters themselves were not all equal to begin with. Not every leatherworker had the same skills, or techniques, or capabilities. Newcomers to the subculture rarely get into a situation of actively seeking out the Supreme Guru; they usually just learn from whomever was proximate to them-basically the first master they find, or maybe the second or third. And, so, lost to them is anything that their master wasn't able to teach, or didn't have on hand to pass down. Books and references, manual skills, secret techniques, specific materials.
This is the true death, the longest and most heartbreaking stage of cultural death, because the newcomers don't even know what they're losing. Future historians and archeologists may be able to piece together bits of it, and museums do what they can while they have the funds and the volunteers to carry on, but only Spreygia, the God of Time, can see what was truly lost-Spreygia, and the masters of the Golden Age who personally beheld their subculture at its height.
Leather isn't going anywhere anytime soon, of course-barring global apocalypse, I suppose-so in one respect the decline of leatherworking as a subculture isn't nearly as sore of a loss as it could be. And since it is a craft that makes use of a renewable material that is also not going anywhere anytime soon (for the most part), there is the strong possibility of tomorrow's masters reinventing some of the old mastery that does get lost (or innovating comparable or even superior mastery). Also, the large and still-growing population of the world also means that relative decline is offset somewhat by absolute population growth. Finally, the leather tends to have a relatively small universe of applications, i.e. a relatively small number of different types of leather products, which again is encouraging when it comes to the prospect of reinvention or new innovation. So, when it comes to leatherworking in particular, the decline of the subculture has very much been mitigated on multiple counts, and I don't think we can say the culture itself is dying even if it has definitely gone extinct from the public awareness. And I hope we continue to see leather craftspeople thriving for a long time-though I am reminded of how far and wide I had to search to find Shepherd's Flock to get my slippers a decade ago, and how the people behind it retired at the end of the 2010s. (That said, they did pass it on to new owners who, with a name change to Warm Soles of Vermont, who are still at it for the time being, though I haven't bought any of the products made by the new owner and can't personally vouch for them.)
But leatherworking is one of the lucky ones. Other subcultures, having no such mitigating factors to aid against their decline, fade away until only the poets think to name them.
It was in 1991 that he got into leather working.
“I tore my jacket and had it fixed at a place downtown called the Leather Bench and got interested in what that gentleman was doing,” he said. “He kind of mentored me a little bit on getting started and going and gave me some leather, and I made my first project, which was a tool belt for myself to do my job at the time.”
It got me thinking about cultural death. When a subculture is dying-a language, a particular technology, a fandom, or a craft like leatherworking-it gets harder to find expertise even as there are fewer people looking for it in the first place. In this way, what often ends up happening is a gradual extinction of expertise, lore, "tricks of the trade," and the ability to discern what constitutes "high quality."
First to go is any discernment the general public may have possessed, as a new generation comes up having never been exposed to this subculture even though it may have once played a genuine part in the daily life of earlier generations. This is true of something like leatherworking and leather products, which would definitely have been familiar to most people from many nations around the world, over many generations, until very recently. But many subcultures never penetrate into the general public awareness at all, and so there isn't even any broader public knowledge to be lost.
But next, and arguably sadder, is what happens to newcomers to the subculture, like this fellow in the story. In our popular psyche, we often draw an equivalency between the various masters of a given subculture, such that when some youngster comes along and shows an interest in the subculture-itself a hopeful, optimistic note of longevity or even an early sign of true renewal-we imagine the living trust of this subculture being passed on to them more or less intact. Yet put aside for a moment the newcomers who don't stick with it, or who do not learn everything their masters had to teacher: The masters themselves were not all equal to begin with. Not every leatherworker had the same skills, or techniques, or capabilities. Newcomers to the subculture rarely get into a situation of actively seeking out the Supreme Guru; they usually just learn from whomever was proximate to them-basically the first master they find, or maybe the second or third. And, so, lost to them is anything that their master wasn't able to teach, or didn't have on hand to pass down. Books and references, manual skills, secret techniques, specific materials.
This is the true death, the longest and most heartbreaking stage of cultural death, because the newcomers don't even know what they're losing. Future historians and archeologists may be able to piece together bits of it, and museums do what they can while they have the funds and the volunteers to carry on, but only Spreygia, the God of Time, can see what was truly lost-Spreygia, and the masters of the Golden Age who personally beheld their subculture at its height.
Leather isn't going anywhere anytime soon, of course-barring global apocalypse, I suppose-so in one respect the decline of leatherworking as a subculture isn't nearly as sore of a loss as it could be. And since it is a craft that makes use of a renewable material that is also not going anywhere anytime soon (for the most part), there is the strong possibility of tomorrow's masters reinventing some of the old mastery that does get lost (or innovating comparable or even superior mastery). Also, the large and still-growing population of the world also means that relative decline is offset somewhat by absolute population growth. Finally, the leather tends to have a relatively small universe of applications, i.e. a relatively small number of different types of leather products, which again is encouraging when it comes to the prospect of reinvention or new innovation. So, when it comes to leatherworking in particular, the decline of the subculture has very much been mitigated on multiple counts, and I don't think we can say the culture itself is dying even if it has definitely gone extinct from the public awareness. And I hope we continue to see leather craftspeople thriving for a long time-though I am reminded of how far and wide I had to search to find Shepherd's Flock to get my slippers a decade ago, and how the people behind it retired at the end of the 2010s. (That said, they did pass it on to new owners who, with a name change to Warm Soles of Vermont, who are still at it for the time being, though I haven't bought any of the products made by the new owner and can't personally vouch for them.)
But leatherworking is one of the lucky ones. Other subcultures, having no such mitigating factors to aid against their decline, fade away until only the poets think to name them.